Remember how Anneke left a considerable amount of books in her room when she left? Amongst them are great classics, one of which I should but never have read. Remember high school? Remember having to read the great classics for English class? Brave New World? 1984? Of mice and men? Remember not reading any of them? I think it was time for me to return something to mr. Spriet and mr. Verhelst, a bit of culture I should’ve had almost five years ago. So, with great anticipation, I read William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. The story is easy enough: some youngsters strand on a deserted island, with no civilisation left whatsoever safe for their own. One thing leads to an other, and pigs die. Lots of them.
The book is written like a movie, and reads like a train (if this saying can be translated to English), from the very first to the very last page. It gets a bit predictive, but having studied the story in high school obviously has something to do with that. I remember having to read some parts aloud, and Marijn always did this hilarious “Kill the beast” chant. Good times, good times.
Since there’s only so much a review can provide (without leading to a boring plot analysis), I’ll just supply you with a quote:
Simon looked up, feeling the weight of his wet hair, and gazed at the sky. Up there, for once, were clouds, great bulging towers that sprouted away over the island, grey and cream and copper-coloured. The clouds were sitting on the land, they squeezed, produced moment by moment, this close, tormenting heat. Even the butterflies deserted the open space where the obscene thing grinned and dripped. Simon lowered his head, carefully keeping his eyes shut, then sheltered them with his hand. There were no shadows under the trees but everywhere a pearly stillness, so that what was real seemed illusive and without definition. The pile of
guts was a black blob of flies that buzzed like a saw. After a while these flies found Simon. Gorged, they alighted by his runnels of sweat and drank. They tickled under his nostrils and played leap-frog on his thighs. They were black and iridescent green and without number; and in front of Simon, the Lord of the Flies hung on his stick and grinned. At last Simon gave up and looked back; saw the white teeth and im eyes, the blood – and his gaze was held by that ancient, inescapable recognition. In Simon’s right temple, a pulse began to beat on
the brain.
