As usual, watch out for spoilers.

When I finished this book and came out of my room, I must have had this sullen look on my face because when my mom saw me she said, "it's that depressing?" And it came to me that "depressing" is not the word to describe Lord of the Flies. It was troubling and disturbing, but not depressing. I suspect that what made it that way was the fact that they were all children. Twelve at the oldest.

Two thirds of the way through the book I no longer wanted to continue. I didn't want to know what was going to happen, because Golding rendered it in such a way that what was about to happen was so tangible that it seemed as though I already knew and was dreading it.

But despite all that, I liked it. Especially the fact that towards the end, I could almost taste the worst to unravel that any other ending would have been a surprise, and in fact it was. My point: the ending was unexpected, but made very much sense. And after all that knowing-what-was-going-to-happen-and-dreading-it, Golding still managed to surprise me with the way things played out.

Halfway through the book, I was wondering to myself why it was entitled Lord of the Flies. And after I encountered the actual lord of the flies in the story, I still wondered. It wasn't important an image enough to deserve to be the name of the entire book. But after a while it rolled into place. They were a swarm of flies. They wouldn't listen. They weren't being rational. They were frustrating. They deteriorated slowly into savages, violent, uncivilized and crazy. Children, innocent and young that they are, are not exempt from the darkness that taints man. I think that was the message.

I can't help but wonder what clamor this must have caused back when it was first published. (Hy dad's copy was published 1973).

I think I'm glad to be running back to the subtle Tracy Chevalier after such an in-your-face book such as this one. ^^