I’m working on another post I hope to have up soon – Sasquatch related 🙂 – but I realized it is Banned Books Friday and I am actually going to make it on time this week. 😉

As I’ve been reading for a few different projects and it’s been the week from Hale, I only read one of our Banned Books – but it was one to remember: William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. 

I remember it from high school but this time I decided to listen to the audiobook read by the author in the 1976 with a few comments from him as well. 

While reading Lord of the Flies will never be an enjoyable undertaking to me – I don’t think it’s meant to be – I found that hearing Mr. Golding read it really added something.

What kept coming to my mind as I listened to the story was actually from the film Silver Linings Playbook, where Tiffany, played by Jennifer Lawrence, is not happy and offers up a brief – and accurate – summation of the novel to her male companion.

What? You're not gonna read that
           shit on my time. I can tell you all
           about the "Lord of the Flies." It's
           a bunch of boys on an island and
           they have a conch -- they have a
           shell -- and whoever has the conch
           has the power and they can talk.
           And if you don't have the conch,
           then you don't have the power. And
           then there's a little chubby boy,
           and they call him Piggy and they're
           really mean, and then there's a
           murder. I mean, humanity is just
           nasty and there's no silver lining.

“Humanity is just nasty and there’s no silver lining.” 

That is about the long and the short of Lord of the Flies.

At the end of the audiobook, Golding says that he offers no explanation for the meaning of his book as it has been interpreted by teachers and students, readers and critics over the years.

He simply says that a book doesn’t mean what the writer puts in, but rather what the reader gets out.

As a writer, I’m glad I listened to the whole audiobook just for that. ❤

I’m now onto Catch-22 for next week. 

Be well, everybody. Take care of yourselves and each other.

Grace and Blessings.

Banned Books Read So Far:

The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Awakening – Kate Chopin

Lady Chatterley’s Lover – D.H. Lawrence

Animal Farm – George Orwell

1984 – George Orwell

Slaughterhouse Five – Kurt Vonnegut

Brave New World – Aldous Huxley

Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston

A Separate Peace – John Knowles

Lolita – Vladmir Nabokov

A Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemingway

The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck

As I Lay Dying – William Faulkner

LOTR – The Fellowship of The Ring – J.R.R. Tolkien

LOTR – The Two Towers – J.R.R. Tolkien

LOTR – The Return of the King – J.R.R. Tolkien

Cat’s Cradle – Kurt Vonnegut

In Cold Blood – Truman Capote

Song of Soloman – Toni Morrison

To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee

Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck

Lord of the Flies – William Golding