William Golding’s 1954 novel is doubly pessimistic about the human tendency towards violence. Schoolchildren on an evacuation flight from a UK under nuclear attack are stranded by an air crash on a desert island where, granted a second chance at civilisation, they build one just as brutal and ruinous as the one they lost.
Golding’s gloom was driven by the Holocaust and the start of a cold war, and a reasonable reading of the book is that he might have been surprised that civilisation still exists seven decades later. Even so, his bleak vision feels justified by jumpy governments, and military and social divisions. Piggy, the most humane student, believes that everything can be resolved with “meetings” – Golding’s code for diplomacy and voting. That plea now feels more futile than ever.
