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Strange how proving the book utterly false has not dimmed its literary reputation even a little, nor caused a resurgence of the "unrealistic" Coral Island that
by like_any_other 10mo ago
Strange how proving the book utterly false has not dimmed its literary reputation even a little, nor caused a resurgence of the "unrealistic" Coral Island that Golding set out to disprove and displace [1]. In fact being proven false has not been acknowledged at all by the literary world, which show how much respect that world deserves.
[1] Golding thought that the book was unrealistic and asked his wife whether it would be a good idea if he "wrote a book about children on an island, children who behave in the way children really would behave?" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_the_Flies#Background https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_the_Flies#Background
- andy99 10mo agoIt’s famous for being an allegory isn’t it? Isn’t this like saying Animal Farm remains popular even though we’ve proven that animals don’t actually self organize like in the book?
- billy99k 10mo agoThe crazy part is that just looking at how people behave on Reddit and HN, I could easily see adults with the same outcome as Lord of the Flies. It also could be that children are mostly posting, however (since there is no age verification, it's hard to tell these days).
- bigyabai 10mo agoI think you're misconstruing the point of Lord of the Flies. It is not a children's book, and most of it's commentary can be generalized to adults. We see the exact same outcome in the highest echelons of politics, business and academia alike.
- like_any_other 10mo agoPartly. But again, in the author's own words, he "wrote a book about children on an island, children who behave in the way children really would behave". Even his motivation was that Coral Island was "unrealistic". You'd think that would earn the book at least a little asterisk. Meanwhile Animal Farm is obviously intended to be allegorical by using animals as protagonists. While I disagree, one could argue that Lord of the Flies deserves to be so highly regarded despite being so wrong about children. But can one really argue that, when a highly regarded and extremely well known work, that is ostensibly about children, gets shown to be completely factually wrong on children, the appropriate amount of self-reflection for the literary world, that had heaped (and continues to heap) so much praise on it, is zero?
- metadope 10mo ago> gets shown to be completely factually wrong on children I'm not sure I understand this. Who/what has shown Golding's classic novel to be "completely factually wrong"? How did you establish this? Is there a reference you could steer me towards? I'd really be interested in exploring the background of where this idea comes from-- my curiosity piqued: Is Lord Of The Flies a misrepresentation of childhood savagery? Is there no such thing? What is it that you are contending here, and where did you get this idea? TIA!
- thrance 10mo agoAnimal Farm is more like a thin metaphor over actual events. Most of the animals in it can be mapped to historical figures or groups of people from the 1917 revolution. Lord of the Flies is "philosophical fiction" that is trying to make a point about human nature. That point has been shown to be overly pessimistic.
- ThrowawayR2 10mo agoIf you're suggesting that humans can't be that terrible, I recommend that you do not open this link (It is a link to a BBC article but I feel compelled to give a trigger warning since it is genuinely that disturbing): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45942652 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45942652 History is rife with similar examples; those who still believe there is any inherent goodness in human nature should acquaint themselves with them. Golding is right on the money. Humans are merely animals and will behave no better than animals given the right circumstances.
- like_any_other 10mo ago> suggesting that humans can't be that terrible No, he's suggesting that children usually aren't that terrible. That a real scenario of ~50 unsupervised children (or adults), 99 out of 100 times, wouldn't play out that way. That something is possible does not mean it is the norm, and only those that can't grasp numbers (such as English majors) think otherwise. With such significant caveats, can one really say that the novel is about human nature in general?
- ThrowawayR2 10mo agoYou are pulling equally fictitious numbers out of your hat to defend your comfortable worldview, without even the benefit of extensive exposure to children as a schoolmaster, so how is your argument on any better level than Golding's?
- like_any_other 10mo ago
- Jtsummers 10mo ago> In fact being proven false has not been acknowledged at all by the literary world You are aware that the book is a novel right? That means it's pretty much all made up. Sometimes novels pull from reality (real people, places, events, etc.), but they are always made up (fictional) stories. So of course it's been proven false, it never happened because it was fiction. Did you also know that there was never a Stay Puft Marshmallow Man attack on NYC? Shocking!
- like_any_other 10mo agoA fictional novel purporting to shed light on real human nature. In that respect it has been shown to be, at a minimum, significantly mistaken.
- notahacker 10mo agoit's been no more "proven" to be "significantly mistaken" because six friends from a Polynesian island nation were actually pretty good at helping each other subsist on a Polynesian island than "proven" correct because another kid shoots up a school or some kids got trained by adults to commit war crimes that make Lord of the Flies look tame.
- criddell 10mo agoI think The Hobbit has also been proven false. You should add it to your list.
- wtcactus 10mo ago> “Proving the book false” It’s a novel, it has nothing to prove. It’s a deeply philosophical book.
- bondarchuk 10mo agoSince when does "proving the book utterly false" apply in any way shape or form to a fucking novel? HN in charge of reading books...