Lord of the Flies over 60

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-29205286

I'd assumed myself as a teenager in 1960s reading it that it was a warning that people are not inherently good, later as an adult I heard of the "noble savage" idea.

Personally I think Government, Law, Family and Society are safeguards that limit destructive behaviour.

It's interesting that it was originally a much more SF and religious story, and I suspect the Editor at Faber was correct, the current form makes the 'real story' stand out better. Sometimes maybe 'good ideas' are better taken out and maybe recycled into a different story?

Ray McCarthy said:

Personally I think Government, Law, Family and Society are safeguards that limit destructive behaviour.

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A point well made by Jared Diamond in his latest book.

Faber published Lord of the Flies in September 1954. It had already been rejected by 10 publishers and one literary agent.

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This sort of thing always brings a smile. If you're struggling to get your masterpiece published, be reassured that one of the 20th century's finest novels, by a future Nobel laureate, was rejected 10 times. File under 'publishers are morons'.

Incidentally, on the subject of Golding more broadly - my favourite to date is "Rites of Passage" - wonderful book. I have the two sequels and must read them some day. They are on the (now enormous) tbr pile.

I haven't read Lord of the Flies since school. I thought I didn't like it very much, but upon reflection I find myself quoting or paraphrasing the book to people quite often. So, grudgingly, it seems to have had an impact on me.

KINGSLEY AMIS: ...Science-fiction [hyphen as in source text], which can presuppose a major change in our environment, is the natural medium for discussing [basic human themes such as men and women as distinct from their social roles]. Look at the job of dissecting human nastiness carried out in Golding's Lord of the Flies.

C. S. LEWIS: That can't be science-fiction.

AMIS: I would dissent from that. It starts off with a characteristic bit of science-fiction situation: that World War III has begun, bombs dropped and all that...

LEWIS: Ah, well, you're now taking the German view that any romance about the future is science-fiction. I'm not sure that this is a useful classification.

...

BRIAN ALDISS: [presumably addressing Amis]: ...You're right, though, about Lord of the Flies. The atmosphere is a science-fiction atmosphere.

LEWIS: It was a very terrestrial island; the best island, almost, in fiction. Its actual sensuous effect on you is terrific.

[etc.]

I quote from the conversation printed in the posthumous Lewis collection On Stories. The conversation, as printed in the late, excellent magazine Encounter, may be read here:

http://www.unz.org/Pub/Encounter-1965mar-00061

PS: I hope no one will think that Lewis questioned Lord of the Flies as sf on the basis: "It's good, it can't be sf." He wrote some excellent sf himself, promoted it as an Oxbridge professor, etc. His objection involves a matter of clarity of definition, emphatically NOT of value. Having said which, I would tend to side with Amis and Aldiss about this matter.

I'm with Lewis, I like it, I think it's a great book, it's a kind of Fantasy. But not really SF. Perhaps the original draft had more of an SF flavour. It's not any the less for not being very SFish. I like good SF. Though I'm pickier than I was 40 years ago about SF. But I oddly have a more general taste in reading now.
The WWIII is a kind of irrelevant McGuffin just so they are marooned on the Island. Other contemporary ones perhaps might work.

Agreed, I don't think its SF either.