Lord of the Flies by William Golding.
Briefest plot summary ever: A plane of British boys crashes on an island. Anarchy ensues. (For anyone who hasn’t read it, they start off being all civilized and respectful…ish. Order crumbles quickly as everyone except Ralph descends into savagery. The end.)
Let’s talk symbolism. The Conch Chell. Ralph and Piggy (yes, Piggy) find this shell at the beginning of the novel and use it to get all the boys’ attention. From this point forward, it is a symbol of order and civilization. It is also a source of power, but only to those who respect it. While in meetings, the boy holding the conch is the only one allowed to speak. As long at everyone respects the importance and meaning of the conch, then there is still order. This doesn’t last very long and the conch gets broken (along with Piggy) near the end of the novel. Then everyone hunts Ralph. Nice, huh? The Lord of the Flies. This is a pig head on a stick that Jack (leader of the savages) erects as an offering to the Beast. My friend Seth told me Simon (a boy who gets sacrificed…or murdered…depends on how you look at it) is a parallel to Christ in the novel. If this is the case, then the Lord of the Flies is the Devil. I’m actually pretty sure the Lord of the Flies is a direct translation of the name of a demon in the Bible, which would make Seth kind of right, but I have issues with Simon as Christ that I’ll get to later. The Beast. Picture the smoke monster from Lost, except the beast isn’t actually real. It is basically a parallel to the savagery within each of them. The beast is only as real as each boy makes it by becoming a savage. The Fire. At the beginning of the novel, the boys are constantly burning a signal fire so they can get rescued. Obviously, as they one by one decide it’s more fun to hunt each other, they lose interest in the fire. So, the fire is a symbol of their connection to civilization. However, they get rescued because someone sees a fire Jack and his heathens set to smoke out Ralph. So I’m not sure how this works with the civilization vs. savagery thing. Do I sound bored? Cause I am.
Ok, so Simon as Christ. Granted, he is the only one who figures out what the Beast is. Granted, he is “sacrificed” for his discovery. Well, sort of. He is on his way to tell the boys, who have worked themselves up into some psycho hunting party, what he knows and they kill him in their zest for blood. Creepy, really. Granted, Simon has a conversation with the Lord of the Flies that mirrors Christ’s chat with the devil while he was chillin out in the woods. BUT, there’s no God-like figure in the novel, no supreme being to whom Simon is connected. This doesn’t complete the Jesus-demon-God connection. BUT, Simon never actually gets to tell the boys what he knows. Basically, they kill him too soon for him to be their Jesus. And my last BUT, Simon’s death doesn’t bring the boys salvation. Things actually get way worse before they get better. Therefore, Seth is not so right and I feel like the partial Simon-Christ connection was a waste of my time.
Finally, the descent into savagery. Good vs. Evil. Blah, blah, blah. I’m seriously boring myself here.
So here it is; if you managed to escape high school without ever reading LOTF, then I’m shocked. It might be worth saying that all the events of the book came about because the boys were being transported away from a war zone. So, boo war once again. I wish I could recommend it, I really do. But it is so damn predictable. And it brought a lot of my Children of the Corn issues to the surface. Children are scary and not to be left to their own devices. And, for all its creepiness, it is SOOOO boring. Seriously. Not a fan.
Next up, Rabbit, Run by John Updike!
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
So It Goes
First things first, Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. I really liked this book. I’m a little bummed out with myself for not discovering Vonnegut sooner, he is an amazing author. Ok, so, about the book…
Fast-like-lightning overview: The novel is narrated by Vonnegut, more or less. The narrator appears as an extra in the novel a few times, but it is definitely a story about Billy Pilgrim. The protagonist, Billy Pilgrim, has become “unstuck in time,” which means that the novel follows him backwards and forwards through time and space as he travels through his own life. To be honest, I cannot remember the order of events after that, and their order is of little importance. Here is the best chronology I can muster, though it is pretty much a clusterfuck of events in the novel. Billy is taken prisoner by the Germans during WWII and transported to a camp in an old cattle-processing plant (he is put in slaughterhouse number 5, get it?). The war ends eventually and Billy goes home. He becomes an optometrist, marries a not-so-attractive woman, and has two kids, a daughter and a son. His son is a screw up who eventually becomes a Green Beret. On the night of his daughter’s wedding, Billy is kidnapped by Tralfamadorians. The aliens put him in a zoo with a female porn star. Eventually they have a kid…maybe two. Not important. The Tralfamadorians are capable of seeing all time at once and travel through it at will. The even know how the universe will end, because they destroy it. So it goes (I’ll come back to this). At some point, the Tralfamadorians send Billy home. He is one of two people to survive a plane crash and is taken to a hospital in Virginia. His wife is in a car accident on her way there, but keeps driving without her car muffler. She dies of carbon monoxide poisoning outside the hospital. Then Billy decides to tell other people about the Tralfamadorians, so he goes on a radio show in New York. His daughter threatens to put him in a home. The novel is simultaneously more and less complicated than I made it, mostly because it doesn’t concern itself with chronology, and ends as it begins, with the narrator telling a brief story of his own. I guess that wasn’t really fast-like-lightning.
Now, about how awesome this book is. First of all, the aliens kidnap an optometrist and a porn star. I’m not sure I need to say much more. Secondly, this is some seriously dark humor. Every time someone dies, the narrator repeats the sentence “So it goes.” People drop like flies in this story, so it’s there a lot. It is written in very short, easy to digest sentences, which give the entire story a very matter-of-fact feel to it. This happened, no need being upset by it because it’s over. Or, this will happen, no need being upset by it either because there’s nothing you can do to change it. Which brings me to my next love, this novel stomps all over the idea of free will. The aliens (remember the aliens?) are aware of the fourth dimension in which, apparently, all events are always occurring. Time, according to them, exists on an endless loop; all events ever have already happened. I’m not explaining this right. Read the book, the Tralfamadorians explain it much better. But the point is that Earthlings are the only beings from anywhere ever (and the fourth dimension aliens would know) that have this convoluted idea of free will. Because we see time as linear and not circular, we humans think we can control events. Get it? Kinda neat to think about, eh?
This may or may not go without saying (I’m saying it anyway…I wonder what the aliens would think of that), but it is very much an anti-war novel. Billy Pilgrim is himself a pacifist. All of the deaths in the novel are equalized, which has the dual effect of making them all insignificant and all terribly dramatic. The liberal tree-hugging composting hippie in me totally digs it. And thinks you will to.
Fast-like-lightning overview: The novel is narrated by Vonnegut, more or less. The narrator appears as an extra in the novel a few times, but it is definitely a story about Billy Pilgrim. The protagonist, Billy Pilgrim, has become “unstuck in time,” which means that the novel follows him backwards and forwards through time and space as he travels through his own life. To be honest, I cannot remember the order of events after that, and their order is of little importance. Here is the best chronology I can muster, though it is pretty much a clusterfuck of events in the novel. Billy is taken prisoner by the Germans during WWII and transported to a camp in an old cattle-processing plant (he is put in slaughterhouse number 5, get it?). The war ends eventually and Billy goes home. He becomes an optometrist, marries a not-so-attractive woman, and has two kids, a daughter and a son. His son is a screw up who eventually becomes a Green Beret. On the night of his daughter’s wedding, Billy is kidnapped by Tralfamadorians. The aliens put him in a zoo with a female porn star. Eventually they have a kid…maybe two. Not important. The Tralfamadorians are capable of seeing all time at once and travel through it at will. The even know how the universe will end, because they destroy it. So it goes (I’ll come back to this). At some point, the Tralfamadorians send Billy home. He is one of two people to survive a plane crash and is taken to a hospital in Virginia. His wife is in a car accident on her way there, but keeps driving without her car muffler. She dies of carbon monoxide poisoning outside the hospital. Then Billy decides to tell other people about the Tralfamadorians, so he goes on a radio show in New York. His daughter threatens to put him in a home. The novel is simultaneously more and less complicated than I made it, mostly because it doesn’t concern itself with chronology, and ends as it begins, with the narrator telling a brief story of his own. I guess that wasn’t really fast-like-lightning.
Now, about how awesome this book is. First of all, the aliens kidnap an optometrist and a porn star. I’m not sure I need to say much more. Secondly, this is some seriously dark humor. Every time someone dies, the narrator repeats the sentence “So it goes.” People drop like flies in this story, so it’s there a lot. It is written in very short, easy to digest sentences, which give the entire story a very matter-of-fact feel to it. This happened, no need being upset by it because it’s over. Or, this will happen, no need being upset by it either because there’s nothing you can do to change it. Which brings me to my next love, this novel stomps all over the idea of free will. The aliens (remember the aliens?) are aware of the fourth dimension in which, apparently, all events are always occurring. Time, according to them, exists on an endless loop; all events ever have already happened. I’m not explaining this right. Read the book, the Tralfamadorians explain it much better. But the point is that Earthlings are the only beings from anywhere ever (and the fourth dimension aliens would know) that have this convoluted idea of free will. Because we see time as linear and not circular, we humans think we can control events. Get it? Kinda neat to think about, eh?
This may or may not go without saying (I’m saying it anyway…I wonder what the aliens would think of that), but it is very much an anti-war novel. Billy Pilgrim is himself a pacifist. All of the deaths in the novel are equalized, which has the dual effect of making them all insignificant and all terribly dramatic. The liberal tree-hugging composting hippie in me totally digs it. And thinks you will to.
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