I recently read an interesting post on William Golding and
Lord of the Flies that I wanted to
share. (As a warning, the post gives away part of the book’s ending.) A new
biography by John Carey details Golding’s rather unpleasant personal history, including his attempted rape of a 15 year-old girl when he was 18. I never had to read the
Lord of the Flies for school, and last year I added it to
my TBR list (as an alternate selection). I tried reading it, but like Kim, couldn’t really get into it. I read the first quarter of the book and don’t see its appeal, but I know enough people who recommend it that maybe I’ll need to give it another chance in the future. I think that there’s no harm in discussing an author’s biography (though fourth grade seems awfully young to delve into either the themes of the book or Golding), but I often found that diving into an author’s history (whether heroic or unsavory), paled in comparison to discussing the dramas of the story itself. What do you think? About William Golding,
Lord of the Flies, or learning more about the cruel parts of an author’s (or artist’s, or historical figure’s) past?