William Golding
Lord of the Flies
Penguin Books
202 pages
7.7
Blurb
At the dawn of the next world war, a plane crashes on an uncharted island, stranding a group of schoolboys. At first, with no adult supervision, their freedom is something to celebrate. This far from civilization they can do anything they want. Anything.
But as order collapses, as strange howls echo in the night, as terror begins its reign, the hope of adventure seems as far removed from reality as the hope of being rescued...
Review
One of the greatest contributions of Spongebob Squarepants in Indonesian comic meme scene is the magic conch shell. Oh, admit it! You must have read a stupid comic that attaches the infamous magic conch shell image somewhere. It seems so ludicrous and funny, but after reading Lord of the Flies, I begin to think. That whole episode where SpongeBob, Patrick, and Squidward are stranded on an unknown territory and they can only consult to a magic conch shell for every decision is apparently a spoof of Lord of the Flies. Little did I know, that episode is deeper than it looks. I should've appreciated SpongeBob more. They are not only bunch of foolish nautical creatures.
Lord of the Flies is probably the most challenging book that I have ever read. It's actually really thin--only 200 pages--but it's not a casual read. You cannot read it and do something else at the same time. You have to concentrate everything you've got to this book because Golding's passages are sometimes really long and arduous to understand. Golding doesn't use direct approach when he describes what these children do. There's always something hidden the way Golding writes that you must think really hard to understand. I consult to Wikipedia to understand what the hidden meaning of the book myself, and it helps a lot.
But when you start grasping the basic idea of the book, you will suddenly feel chill at your nape. It perfectly depicts a society that begins to crumble. As expected from a Nobel price laureate, everything in this book symbolizes something. Lord of the Flies is an allegory of human nature and social organization. You will find a leader who loses his goal and innocence when everything corrupts, a working class man who has brain but has no flair to lead, a savior figure, democracy. Golding perfectly crafts the miniature of human civilization in this book about boys who stranded on island who try to reach for freedom, but instead they get savageness.
I particularly don't enjoy reading the book. It is hard, boring, and difficult. But, Lord of the Flies is an important read, and I have to admit that this is really mind-provoking, and that's why the book leaves me some mark.
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