William Golding’s Lord of the Flies is the darkest, most infuriating, and complex novel I’ve ever read. The first time I read it, I found it awful and insanely boring in the first few chapters. I hadn’t a clue how relevant this book is to modern society until we unpacked it in class.

Although Lord of the Flies was first published in 1954, it retains its unfortunate timelessness. The metaphorical raping of mother earth late in the novel was the most embarrassing, disturbing, and vomit-inducing part of the book. This book warns and reminds you about the dangers of ignorance that arise when we don’t develop our brain’s neocortex that helps us regulate our worst instincts. Furthermore, it can also be read as a feminist novel, warning of the dangers of male testosterone and toxicity.

Beneath the novel’s exhilarating plot structure lies many deeper meanings and linguistic puzzles. But even with all the wisdom and substance that Golding sowed throughout, I still hated reading Lord of the Flies. Still, it has taught me the importance of being human and why applying reason (the output of a developed neocortex) to our decisions is vital to maintain our humanity. It has taught me to respect our mother nature, despite its graphic way of doing so.

Lord of the Flies isn’t an easy book to read, and puzzling over its mysteries isn’t much better. Nevertheless, it addresses issues that are hard to confront and even harder to accept. One example is the notion that adults aren’t always going to set good examples nor make better choices than kids. We can be troubled by all the infighting and animalistic behaviors of the boys---emphasized through Golding’s excessive use of animal similes---but looming in the background, in the wider world, is World War II and atom bombs, waged by the adults, and probably by the male ones. Adults still fight, make decisions against reason, and can be as selfish as children.

To be wise is to be open-minded. So is sharing your knowledge and perspective with others. If you want to read the Lord of the Flies, you must first open your mind. You cannot analyze nor grasp this book if you’re close-minded. Prepare yourself for the unexpected, and don’t get caught up in your own ideologies. When I first read this book over the summer, I wasn’t open-minded; I didn’t think it was interesting. Forejudging the book made it irritating to read every night. But ironically, this book has taught me to never judge a book by its cover.

After experiencing this book with my classmates, I came out more capable of sharing my perspective grounded on textual evidence. And I owe it all to studying a book I hate.

With that said, I’ll probably let Lord of the Flies collect dust on my bookshelf.

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