Lord of the Flies
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Lord of the Flies. You probably read it in high school. A bunch of British schoolboys get stranded on a deserted island and descend into violent tribalism because humanity. Am I right? There's a new adaptation of William Golding's classic 1954 novel on Netflix, and it's made by one of the creators of the Emmy-winning Adolescence, another grim meditation on youth and violence and masculinity. guy's got a niche. You may know the story, but does this new unflinching take on the material resonate more deeply today, given, you know, the world? I'm Glenn Weldon, and today we're talking about Lord of the Flies on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. Joining me today is NPR Culture Desk correspondent Netta Ulaby.
Hey, Netta. Hey, Glenn. Welcome back. Also with us is Walter Chow. He's a writer, critic, and film instructor at the University of Colorado. Hey, Walter, welcome back. Hi, everybody. Great to have you. So, Lord of the Flies, sometime in the early 1950s, a bunch of British schoolboys crash on a deserted island. With the adults dead, the boys pick a chief, Ralph, a charismatic and empathetic leader. His right-hand guy is Piggy, who is smart and practical.
The important thing is to think about the little ones. Why should we care for the little ones, Piggy? Because they can't care for themselves, Jack.
What is the premise of Lord of the Flies?
We need to think about food and shelters and toilets, of course. Toilets? We're on an island.
Ralph's leadership is challenged by Jack, a sneering, brutal figure who rules his own tribe through fear. And there's Simon, a sensitive kid who's torn between the two leaders with tragic repercussions. Writer and creator Jack Thorne fleshes out Golding's story with some flashbacks to the boys' lives before the island in a bid to provide some extra layers of characterization. But don't get it twisted. This four-episode series is otherwise faithful to the book's story and its tone and its incredibly bleak message. Lord of the Flies is streaming on Netflix. Netta, I'm going to hand you the conch. What'd you think?
You know, I'm going to start off, if you don't mind, by taking some issue. I did not actually find it was particularly faithful in some ways. I thought it was a very superficial, somewhat on-the-nose adaptation that did actually veer in some very important ways from the book. First of all, the book isn't really long enough to... to fill up four hours. Jack Thorne has said, oh, it's perfect for television. There's actually these really long stretches where not much happens. They pad it out by taking us back into the backstories of the boys, which the book does not do. They divert from the book in some really surprising ways. Some very iconic moments in the book are... very different, when the boys are rescued, when Piggy dies.
The sense of danger and dread that permeate the book, I found to be quite lacking. I thought it was, Glenn, a somewhat Spielbergian adaptation. I'm just going to say one thing before handing the conch over to Walter, which is, for me, one of the deepest examples of that is when the boys kill a pig. And in the book, that is a horrific moment. I'm still scarred by it from having read it when I was 13 years old. It's also very sexualized in the book. It's so sanitized in this adaptation. There's something cleaned up about this version. It lacks a kind of rawness and dreadfulness that I think made the book so powerful.
Okay, interesting. What about you, Walter? Well, you know, I wrestled with the same kind of frictionlessness of this. And I couldn't tell if it was because of, as you so eloquently stated, Glenn, the world, that maybe this has kind of fled its sell-by day in a way. And so I went back and I revisited, not the book, I should have read the book again, but I did watch the Peter Brook
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–1:49
2
What is the premise of Lord of the Flies?
1:49–5:50
3
What are the character dynamics between Ralph, Jack, and Piggy?
5:50–8:04
4
How does the new adaptation differ from the original book?
8:04–9:40
5
How does the adaptation handle themes of violence and masculinity?
9:40–9:44
6
What criticisms are made about the adaptation's faithfulness to the book?
9:44–18:02