Triumph
Piggy A small crowd of British schoolboys find themselves on a deserted tropical island. It is a little unclear how they got there. Perhaps there has been a plane crash. At first it all seems like a spiffing adventure from "The Boy's Own Paper" but it isn't very long before a kind of dark collective madness emerges. This is the core plot of "Lord of the Flies" by William Golding. It was his first novel. He wrote it in the early nineteen fifties with his wartime naval experiences fresh in his mind. He commanded a landing craft during the invasion of Normandy. The book was also a deliberate riposte to "The Coral Island" by R.M.Ballantyne (1857). Ralph I first read "Lord of the Flies" in the summer of 1966 when I was twelve years old - the same age as the lead characters in the novel - Ralph, Jack, Piggy and Simon. It brought me to the sudden realisation that fiction could be much more than just story-telling. It could arrest you. I...