I don't remember the moment in high school when I decided I was done with the Lord of the Flies. It was well before that character even appeared in the novel, I think. I imagine I debunked when it looked like a bunch of adolescent boys where going to bluster and shove and shout at one another throughout the book. Being an adolescent, crowded already with blustering and shoving adolescents, I felt no compulsion to read the book, so I ditched it EARLY.
But people I know and trust and honor and value have read this book, and reference this book, and it's part of how the western world talks about adolescence in general. So, when my kindle broke and I needed reading material, I returned to the fold, and bought William Golding's Lord of the Flies.
I expected / hoped to be able to discard it again so quickly, as I had when I was a teenager. None such luck. It's dense and interesting prose, and you can't loll about in it. Then I was hoping that it would suck - be too obvious or violent or give me another exit. None such. Instead I fell in. Trying, with the power of the author's descriptions and my broad-strokes imagination to see it go down, and to imagine how it could work, and assuming it wouldn't. I was totally gripped throughout. I kept thinking, "OH, man, if I was THAT GUY, I'd....
" and then there'd be some vague, unsatisfactory proposal from my scrubbed blank mind for what Henry or Hank or Samneric should do.
Brutal. Beautiful. So glad to have read it. Would love to discuss it with anyone.
I'm due for a reread. This was definitely on my "liked it" list from HS reading.
ReplyDeleteThe book I'm still feeling guilty for abandoning is Moby Dick. I found it completely unreadable, though it was assigned reading for a college class where I LOVED every other book the teacher assigned. In fact, I took two English classes from this prof and otherwise trusted his recommendations. I feel like I should have liked it. Or at least been able to finish reading. What do you think--should I give it another go?
I only read excerpts of Moby Dick, though I do remember enjoying the excerpts I read. I have no tug to return to it, but it's one of the biggies! Let me know what you decide...
DeleteThis is on my list of books that one of my high school English teachers (now a friend) recommended to me. Catcher in the Rye is another one. I took British Lit. I in HS, started with Beowulf and ended somewhere around Shakespeare and Jonson, so never hit on the classic American novels.
ReplyDeleteI've tried several times to get through Moby Dick, but never could manage it. I'm not sure if I'll give it another go or not...
I've read Catcher in the Rye a number of times, and love it. Wildly different from Lord of the Flies - not just subject matter, but narrative style. (And narrative style is what's best, in my opinion, about Catcher...).
DeleteI'm the opposite of you! In college, I was an English major, but focused all my attention on American Lit, particularly modern & contemporary stuff! Never read Beowulf! Never read Canterbury Tales! Never read the Faerie Queen! etc. etc. etc...