The Inheritors

[Adrian]

Now this is how a writer ought to imagine an unknown world. There's something special going in a writer's brain when he manages to come up with this idea: Neanderthals roaming the land with only their sharpened sticks and thick, dark hair.

I'm only a few chapters in, but Golding has imagined a world and a people that could have existed. It's all so unlikely and yet so obvious that you just have to roll with it. But now I really need a shave!

Thanks to David, who mentioned Golding as a writer worth watching out for apart from his obvious book, and many thanks to my library, who still have this book on the shelf with date stamps from before I was born.

[David]

Thanks to David, who mentioned Golding as a writer worth watching out for.
You're very welcome and I'm really glad you've given this a try, Adrian! I've never understood why Golding - a Nobel Prize winnner - has seemed to stand on the back shelf so much, apart - as you say - from the obvious book. Maybe, in fact, that book is partly to blame, being taught to death and swamping people's minds so they don't look more widely. My tutor at university actually thought The Inheritors was Golding's greatest novel, and whilst I'm not wholly sure about that it's a contender, certainly. I think it's an extraordinary imaginative feat to strip yourself utterly of modern sensibilities and understanding and project yourself back to the simplicities of Lok and his fellow Neanderthals.

I won't say more until you've finished, Adrian, but I'd love to chat about it then!

[chuntzy]

Me, too, as it's one of my all-time favourite novels. I look forward to the discussion.

[litarena]

This is my favourite book. And I find some of the discussions about it fascinating too. It's interesting to see new commentators making more of the alien features of Golding's Neanderthals in terms of their appropriate classification as creatures of science fiction. Some of the same commentators also note that the science fiction community hasn't fully made use of these attributes of Golding's writing. Perhaps that's one of the harder aspects of genre classification. What is the essential difference between science fiction and fantasy? In order to enjoy the book its classification clearly doesn't matter. But when thinking about it afterwards, and literature in general, literary classifications are sometimes puzzling.

[Adrian]

I'm only a few chapters in
I'm obviously the slowest reader there ever was, as I've finally finished it (well, restarted it and kept going this time).

The book suffers a little in its first half as there are too few characters. A real soap opera needs a big cast so that the interactions are many and varied within the group, but here I felt the 'family' needed to be more extended.

It improves substantially in the second half when they interact with The Others. It's not just a clash of cultures but of different but similar species. I liked that the Others weren't fully human beings (more Australopithecus or Homo erectus than Homo sapiens, I thought) but were substantially more evolved than our tribe.

Wonderful realisation of a possible historical world. I read it as part of my real life book group, and all the others (all three of them) said that it was blessed with what is an overused epithet: unique.

[David]

The book suffers a little in its first half as there are too few characters. A real soap opera needs a big cast so that the interactions are many and varied within the group, but here I felt the 'family' needed to be more extended.
I must admit I found that one of the strong points in that the smallness of the group made the 'family' feel stronger, consequently making the impact of its gradual destruction all the more poignant. I thought the difference of these people from us meant the novel had to work hard to make us idenitify with them and understand them as individuals, which could have been undermined with a larger spread of characters.

I liked that the Others weren't fully human beings (more Australopithecus or Homo erectus than Homo sapiens, I thought) but were substantially more evolved than our tribe.
Really? We certainly differ there because I felt the Others were very much early Homo sapiens. In fact that felt like an important part of the twist, which I'd better spoiler.

One of the great devices of which Golding is a master is the flipping of perspective at the end of the book - something that's common particularly in the early novels. It's a way of challenging the reader's perceptions and forcing us to see things in a new light. Here the final section takes us into the perspective of the New People. Up to that point they have been the enemy and the darkness that has consumed and destroyed Lok's world, but suddenly we have descriptions of Lok and the New One that reveal them as very different from us - far more bestial. In a way the book has encouraged us to forget that and we identify with them, but now we are forced to see that the invading darkness (which carries evils such as weapons and alcohol) is actually us. We are the serpents that have corrupted this Garden of Eden.
it was blessed with what is an overused epithet: unique.
Absolutely. That's one of the things I love about Golding - his sheer originality.

[Adrian]

I must admit I found that one of the strong points in that the smallness of the group made the 'family' feel stronger, consequently making the impact of its gradual destruction all the more poignant. I thought the difference of these people from us meant the novel had to work hard to make us idenitify with them and understand them as individuals, which could have been undermined with a larger spread of characters.
But were they that much different to us humans? Sure, they had their mannerisms with their pictures and their bushes, but they had intelligent thoughts.


Really? We certainly differ there because I felt the Others were very much early Homo sapiens. In fact that felt like an important part of the twist, which I'd better spoiler.
I didn't get that they were H. sapiens. They were certainly more humanlike than the tribe we had been following, but they still had enough animalistic tendencies to make me think they were the missing link rather than humans.

[David]

But were they that much different to us humans? Sure, they had their mannerisms with their pictures and their bushes, but they had intelligent thoughts.
Well, the manner of the ending I spoilered above is the ultimate demonstration of their difference in terms of appearance, but their thinking lacks the ability to make the intelligent connections and deductions that we do. That's one of things I enjoyed about the narrative - that it's rooted in their thought processes, so we have to use our abilities to work out what they cannot.

I didn't get that they were H. sapiens. They were certainly more humanlike than the tribe we had been following, but they still had enough animalistic tendencies to make me think they were the missing link rather than humans.
I can't say I viewed them as animalistic, just primitive. They have developed mastery of bows and arrows and I think it's only Homo sapiens that achieved this. I honestly think a large part of Golding's shock at the end is lost if these people aren't 'us'.

[Adrian]

I can't say I viewed them as animalistic, just primitive. They have developed mastery of bows and arrows and I think it's only Homo sapiens that achieved this. I honestly think a large part of Golding's shock at the end is lost if these people aren't 'us'.
As I read it I wanted them to be us, but I really didn't feel it. As I said above, I thought they were close to humans but not close enough. I feel like I'm missing out on what Golding had to say in the final chapters. I think I've read too many biology textbooks and not enough speculative fiction.

[David]

I thought they were close to humans but not close enough.
Fair enough. Out of interest, what were the animalistic differences that struck you?

[chuntzy]

..................................

I can't say I viewed them as animalistic, just primitive. They have developed mastery of bows and arrows and I think it's only Homo sapiens that achieved this. I honestly think a large part of Golding's shock at the end is lost if these people aren't 'us'.

Yes, I've always taken these people to be Homo Sapiens with their animal skin wine pouches and their hunting rituals, their aggression and inventiveness and their speech. The 'shock of the new' .

[nonsuch]

I've never understood why Golding - a Nobel Prize winnner - has seemed to stand on the back shelf so much

A Nobel Prize winner, wow! In the wake of Le Clezio winning The Nobel Prize for Literature last year we had some discussion on BGO about the value of this particular award. The fact is that it's awarded for a body of work rather than, like Booker et al, for a particular book (I suppose that means novel for the most part, unless you recall Eugenio Montale, the obscure Italian poet who won it back in the 80s).

Furthermore, although the cover blurb WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE FOR LITERATURE hits you in the face, when you look further into the book you may find, as I've recently done with Naguib Mahfouz's Palace of Desire published in translation in 1991, that the award was given two decades before. The award of THE NOBEL PRIZE FOR LITERATURE has had, as we have previously noted, a somewhat checkered career. The body of work is usually 'impressive' and 'worthy' rather than being great literature.

[Adrian]

Fair enough.
No problem.

Out of interest, what were the animalistic differences that struck you?
I'm not going to leaf through the book finding passages, but I'm still not seeing The Others as fully fledged or even primitive humans, even taking into account chuntzy's points above. Yes, they had some humanlike tendencies but that didn't make them human. I thought Golding was highlighting the vagueness between the various pre-human species (ie, not yet human) and their evolution. If anything, I'd say The Others were closer to chimpanzees with their use of tools than they were to humans.

[chuntzy]

No problem.


I'm not going to leaf through the book finding passages, but I'm still not seeing The Others as fully fledged or even primitive humans, even taking into account chuntzy's points above. Yes, they had some humanlike tendencies but that didn't make them human. I thought Golding was highlighting the vagueness between the various pre-human species (ie, not yet human) and their evolution. If anything, I'd say The Others were closer to chimpanzees with their use of tools than they were to humans.

This topic has interested me and so I turned to Wikipedia/William Golding/The Inheritors and read their plot introduction. You might find it interesting.