I admit once more, to sticking assiduously
to the challenge in hand and only reading this first, Booker-winning volume of
Golding’s Sea Trilogy. And I’m not
sure that I will pursue the remainder as this developed into such an uncomfortable
read. I have had ‘The Lord of the
Flies’ on my ‘To Read’ list for quite a while as somehow it wasn’t included on
the set list at my school unlike many others. However, I have watched the film and know the general gist
of the story and I am inclined to draw parallels in its subject matter to
‘Rites of Passage’. The boys were
stranded in close proximity to one another on an island and hence subjected to
their own imposed hierarchy.
Similarly, Golding sets this novel aboard a decomposing ship around the
time of the end of the Napoleonic wars en route to Australia, adrift from
normal society, under the control of Captain Anderson.
The style of the book is a journal written
by a well-connected gentleman, Mr. Talbot for the amusement and education of
his godfather of distinguished rank. He details how he becomes acquainted with the
daily routines and the motion of a naval ship. It strikes a jovial tone to begin with, as he describes his
general interactions with the vast array of characters also aboard. Who include the various officers,
ladies, and an obsequious parson, to whom the Captain has taken a thorough
disliking of, and on whom the story unfortunately settles. There the story takes an unpleasant
turn for the worse as it transpires, through Talbot finding the parson’s
writing and including it within his journal, that he has been the object of
bullying and persecution while on board despite his best intentions. This target of ridicule has extremely
serious consequences for him and Golding manages to make the reader feel
complicit in the character’s humiliation.
This novel was successful in achieving its
style of a hurried journal, although as a consequence of this, compounded by my
lack of nautical knowledge, I felt as though I experienced the story as though
a veil obscured my view. This
meant that I had some difficulty in understanding what was happening much of
the time. This tended to diminish
my enjoyment of the book to a degree, especially as when I wasn’t sure exactly
what was going on, I knew that it wasn’t good! As a result, this isn’t one of my highlights of the Booker experience
and yet, it was worth a read.
