Caution: Spoilers ahead for this 70 year old book.

“Lord of the Flies” is a fairly well-known book by William Golding about some boys stuck on a Pacific island under extremely sus circumstances (there’s mentions of a bomb?). I think it’s taught in schools in some countries, which honestly? pretty fucked up.

The book starts with the core idea that “humans are fundamentally born evil and only the iron boot of discipline keeps them from preying on each other” which… yeah. I mean, I get it, William had been in WW2 and he had seen some pretty fucked up shit, but he was also a schoolteacher and if my schoolteacher published a book about teenage boys murdering each other in the middle of the Pacific… I’d have some questions.

The book is well written at parts, don’t get me wrong. Especially the last act, which is “PoV you’re being chased across a tiny island by murderous psycho kids” is super legit. But there are so many holes with the symbolism and the plot, just so the idea of “humans are fundamentally evil animals” can be jammed down your throat.

Let’s start with the basics: The story is basically a reversed version of “The Coral Island”, a book where 3 stranded young boys stranded in a Pacific island exhibit christian, victorian and colonial ideals (all great in the author’s view) and overcome all challenges. That book’s plenty of kinds of problematic and I get it, so William wrote a dark reversed version of it saying that “hey, all this Victorian shit ain’t real” but he ended up so far in the opposite side that the book basically reads like a critique of the human race. The only problem with that view is that when a group of teenage boys were literally stranded in a Pacific Island for 15 months nobody got killed. They worked it out, and they worked collaboratively to survive.

Next up: Underdeveloped characters. I mean, if you’re defining your 3 core characters as the dark opposites of someone else’s characters and then you basically cheap-out on giving anybody else any depth whatsoever (besides the manic pixie dream boy) because they’re not relevant to your “humans are evil” point then yeah… We start with the protagonist, who has such strong protagonist energy that the book devotes a page describing him in an almost sexualized way? Then there’s his antagonist, with whom the book often alludes there is some sort of connection, and the protagonist even feels it? But the connection is not really explored, the book just expects you to figure out “it’s his dark version hurrr durrr”

While we’re here, why is there a group of choir boys with extreme discipline to their choir leader wandering around? And how many are they even? Because they’re basically never given the slightest focus besides to show that the antagonist has an obedient army, whenever that’s helpful to the plot.

Don’t worry, this review will make sure to provide the same type of thoughtful, deep and meaningful closing as the original book: The British navy suddenly shows up even after what’s implied to be atomic explosions, a-la Deus Ex Machina, to just magically save everyone. KILL THE PROTAGONIST YOU COWARD.

Anyways, I’ll skip the relentless bullying, the numerous unnamed children, the curious absence of any environmental threats that would force the boys to work together, the “accidental” murder of one boy because he interrupted a kickass rave, to just end it here. This is a miserable book, the only reason to read it is because it’s culturally significant for reasons unrelated to the book quality itself imo, and now you know what it’s about.

And of course it doesn’t pass the Bechdel test :/