Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Pocket Books, Inc. (1963), Mass Market Paperback, 213 pages
Description
Eight Neanderthals encounter another race of beings like themselves, yet strangely different. This new race, Homo sapiens, fascinating in their skills and sophistication, terrifying in their cruelty, sense of guilt, and incipient corruption, spell doom for the more gentle folk whose world they will inherit.
User reviews
LibraryThing member Widsith
The Inheritors is a rare attempt to portray the human race from the outside looking in: told from the point of view of a group of Neanderthals having their first, fatal, encounter with this new and dangerously clever species.
As a palaeontological study this book may not be strictly accurate or even
We know, of course, that Neanderthals didn't last, and Golding makes the most of this in-built pathos from the very start. ‘The people’ are painted as a peaceful group, whose primitive, quasi-religious beliefs mean they are reluctant to kill other animals. Their encounter with Homo sapiens will show them that other creatures have no such moral issues. Golding's moral – that humans attained their prominence only because they were unusually destructive – can be argued with, but is no less powerful when dramatised like this.
Actually, let me turn that around and say: Golding's moral may be powerful, but it can still be argued with. The book has been rightly praised for its unflinching assessment of the human character, but to make his point he has to ignore those facts that go against it. It's probably disingenuous to portray the Neanderthals as nature-loving folk who abhor murder; what makes humans destructive is not a qualitative difference with other animals, but an intelligence which allows us to be cruel on a much larger scale.
And further: that intelligence also allows us to go beyond animal instinct, which means that as well as increased cruelty there is also sympathy. What bothers me is not the book's argument, which is brilliantly made, but rather a response to the book which assumes that this is the whole story.
Lok's final death-cry will stay with you, and so will the melancholy thoughts of one of the humans, who sails away wondering futilely, ‘Who would sharpen a point against the darkness of the world?’ People who want to look at our species through rose-tinted glasses need these reminders. But equally, those who want to see us as purely cruel and instinctive are taking Golding's message without remembering the crucial point that his species is able to write a book at all, and willing at least to try to inhabit the thoughts and feelings of others. This novel is a dark and wonderful thesis, but its existence holds the clue to its own counter-argument.
As a palaeontological study this book may not be strictly accurate or even
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fully convincing, but as a prose experiment it's frankly astonishing and exactly the sort of thing top-level novelists should be trying to do. The efforts to give us a sense of how life was lived for a more primitive (sub-)species can be very moving. The extended family unit in the book has a basic language, a sense of common purpose which borders on the telepathic, and an ability – ‘so nearly like thinking’ as Golding puts it at one point – to form mental ‘pictures’ of possible consequences and communicate them to others.We know, of course, that Neanderthals didn't last, and Golding makes the most of this in-built pathos from the very start. ‘The people’ are painted as a peaceful group, whose primitive, quasi-religious beliefs mean they are reluctant to kill other animals. Their encounter with Homo sapiens will show them that other creatures have no such moral issues. Golding's moral – that humans attained their prominence only because they were unusually destructive – can be argued with, but is no less powerful when dramatised like this.
Actually, let me turn that around and say: Golding's moral may be powerful, but it can still be argued with. The book has been rightly praised for its unflinching assessment of the human character, but to make his point he has to ignore those facts that go against it. It's probably disingenuous to portray the Neanderthals as nature-loving folk who abhor murder; what makes humans destructive is not a qualitative difference with other animals, but an intelligence which allows us to be cruel on a much larger scale.
And further: that intelligence also allows us to go beyond animal instinct, which means that as well as increased cruelty there is also sympathy. What bothers me is not the book's argument, which is brilliantly made, but rather a response to the book which assumes that this is the whole story.
Lok's final death-cry will stay with you, and so will the melancholy thoughts of one of the humans, who sails away wondering futilely, ‘Who would sharpen a point against the darkness of the world?’ People who want to look at our species through rose-tinted glasses need these reminders. But equally, those who want to see us as purely cruel and instinctive are taking Golding's message without remembering the crucial point that his species is able to write a book at all, and willing at least to try to inhabit the thoughts and feelings of others. This novel is a dark and wonderful thesis, but its existence holds the clue to its own counter-argument.
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LibraryThing member arubabookwoman
William Golding is best known for the enduring classic Lord of the Flies. However, he considered The Inheritors to be his best novel. I first read this book when I was in college. On rereading it, I find it to be an almost perfect book.
The novel is about a brief but disasterous encounter between a
Most of the novel is narrated from the pov of Lok, one of the younger Neanderthal men, whose mate is Fa. (A final short chapter is narrated from the pov of the new people.) We are aware from the beginning that Lok is not as mentally sophisticated as Fa, although under the group's traditions, Lok will succeed to leadership of the group after the elder, Mal, dies.
The people are gentle, loving and peaceful. Instead of thinking or reading, they "see pictures," and they can communicate with each other nonverbally. They do not hunt, but gather their food, although they will eat meat if they come across an animal that is already dead. They are unable to make fire, and must keep their fire always alive. They have no tools or implements, and, for example, must carry water in their hands.
Into this innocence the "new ones" intrude. They have fire and weapons. They have fashioned boats, tools and other implements. They wear clothes and have alcohol. They are sometimes violent.
In narrating the novel, Golding presents things and events as these primitive people perceive them, and we may sometimes have difficulty determining what they are actually observing or experiencing. Here, for example, is the description of Lok's first encounter with one of the new ones; Lok is curious, the new one attacks him with a bow and arrow:
"The man had white bone things above his eyes and under his mouth so that his face was longer than a face should be. The man turned sideways in the bushes and looked at Lok along his shoulder. A stick rose upright and there was a lump of bone in the middle. Lok peered at the stick and the lump of bone and the small eyes in the bone things over the face. Suddenly Lok understood that the man was holding the stick out to him but neither he nor Lok could reach across the river. He would have laughed if it were not for the echo of the screaming in his head. The stick began to grow shorter at both ends. Then it shot out to full length again.
"The dead tree by Lok's ear acquired a voice.
"'Clop!'
"His ears twitched and he turned to the tree. By his face there had grown a twig; a twig that smelt of other, and of goose, and of the bitter berries that Lok's stomach told him he must not eat. This twig had a white bone at the end. There were hooks in the bone and sticky brown stuff hung in the crooks. His nose examined this stuff and did not like. He smelled along the shaft of the twig. The leaves on the twig were red feathers and reminded him of goose. He was lost in a generalized astonishment and excitement."
I loved this book and highly recommend it.
4 1/2 stars
The novel is about a brief but disasterous encounter between a
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small group of Neanderthals and a small group of the more advanced Cro Magnon or Homo Sapiens. (There is some dispute about some of the anthropological aspects of this book, but these critics seem to forget this is a novel, with characters and a plot, not a textbook on human development.)Most of the novel is narrated from the pov of Lok, one of the younger Neanderthal men, whose mate is Fa. (A final short chapter is narrated from the pov of the new people.) We are aware from the beginning that Lok is not as mentally sophisticated as Fa, although under the group's traditions, Lok will succeed to leadership of the group after the elder, Mal, dies.
The people are gentle, loving and peaceful. Instead of thinking or reading, they "see pictures," and they can communicate with each other nonverbally. They do not hunt, but gather their food, although they will eat meat if they come across an animal that is already dead. They are unable to make fire, and must keep their fire always alive. They have no tools or implements, and, for example, must carry water in their hands.
Into this innocence the "new ones" intrude. They have fire and weapons. They have fashioned boats, tools and other implements. They wear clothes and have alcohol. They are sometimes violent.
In narrating the novel, Golding presents things and events as these primitive people perceive them, and we may sometimes have difficulty determining what they are actually observing or experiencing. Here, for example, is the description of Lok's first encounter with one of the new ones; Lok is curious, the new one attacks him with a bow and arrow:
"The man had white bone things above his eyes and under his mouth so that his face was longer than a face should be. The man turned sideways in the bushes and looked at Lok along his shoulder. A stick rose upright and there was a lump of bone in the middle. Lok peered at the stick and the lump of bone and the small eyes in the bone things over the face. Suddenly Lok understood that the man was holding the stick out to him but neither he nor Lok could reach across the river. He would have laughed if it were not for the echo of the screaming in his head. The stick began to grow shorter at both ends. Then it shot out to full length again.
"The dead tree by Lok's ear acquired a voice.
"'Clop!'
"His ears twitched and he turned to the tree. By his face there had grown a twig; a twig that smelt of other, and of goose, and of the bitter berries that Lok's stomach told him he must not eat. This twig had a white bone at the end. There were hooks in the bone and sticky brown stuff hung in the crooks. His nose examined this stuff and did not like. He smelled along the shaft of the twig. The leaves on the twig were red feathers and reminded him of goose. He was lost in a generalized astonishment and excitement."
I loved this book and highly recommend it.
4 1/2 stars
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LibraryThing member prof_brazen_guff
The Inheritors is an absolutely astonishing novel, which I'd urge anyone at all concerned with man's inhumanity to man to read.
Golding's genius is that he instills a tremendous sense of empathy within the reader for his neanderthals, the homo sapiens (or 'new people') by contrast being portrayed as
As the majority of the novel is written from a neanderthal perspective, it takes a while to adjust to their unique and initially alien weltanschauung, but once this adjustment is complete, reading it will only serve to encourage the reader to look at the world in a completely new way. This reappraisal includes re-evaluating (or reinforcing in my case) one's own impression of the human race and its fundamental motivations, and it comes as no surprise to learn that Golding wrote it in the decade following the Second World War.
A wonderful, wonderful novel which expands on the themes explored in Lord of the Flies - in short, contrary to received wisdom, the meek most certainly did not inherit the earth.
Golding's genius is that he instills a tremendous sense of empathy within the reader for his neanderthals, the homo sapiens (or 'new people') by contrast being portrayed as
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fearful creatures whose actions provide hints of many of the ills that blight the modern world. The former people are gentle and childlike in their naivety, in tune with nature and their environment, whilst the latter are ruthless, savage, lustful, cunning and prone to bouts of intoxicated excess and levels of fear bordering on paranoia.As the majority of the novel is written from a neanderthal perspective, it takes a while to adjust to their unique and initially alien weltanschauung, but once this adjustment is complete, reading it will only serve to encourage the reader to look at the world in a completely new way. This reappraisal includes re-evaluating (or reinforcing in my case) one's own impression of the human race and its fundamental motivations, and it comes as no surprise to learn that Golding wrote it in the decade following the Second World War.
A wonderful, wonderful novel which expands on the themes explored in Lord of the Flies - in short, contrary to received wisdom, the meek most certainly did not inherit the earth.
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LibraryThing member DeltaQueen50
In The Inheritors, William Golding has condensed into one story the death of a lesser race as it gives way to a stronger, more intelligent, better adapted race. As a small band of Neanderthals come into contact with a group of Homo Sapiens, their doom is fore-ordained. The story unfolds through the
This is a sad story, but a familiar one in the history of the world. As the story is told mostly from the Neanderthal’s point of view, one is inclined to dislike the Homo Sapiens, until the final chapter when the point of view switches and we reach the sad understanding that ignorance, misunderstanding, and fear of the unknown all to often lead to hasty judgements.
This is a powerful story told in a picturesque, lyrical style that touches the reader and stirs the imagination. The Inheritors is William Golding’s eulogy to these unusual beings that existed and then were so effectively wiped out.
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eyes of Lok, a slightly simple-minded, gentle fellow who, in the pecking order of the tribe, is the lowest man. Lok has trouble putting the pictures that his brain forms into words for everyone to understand, and when the two lead males die, he is unable to process his thoughts and lead the remaining tribe members to safety.This is a sad story, but a familiar one in the history of the world. As the story is told mostly from the Neanderthal’s point of view, one is inclined to dislike the Homo Sapiens, until the final chapter when the point of view switches and we reach the sad understanding that ignorance, misunderstanding, and fear of the unknown all to often lead to hasty judgements.
This is a powerful story told in a picturesque, lyrical style that touches the reader and stirs the imagination. The Inheritors is William Golding’s eulogy to these unusual beings that existed and then were so effectively wiped out.
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LibraryThing member jburlinson
I believe that somewhere along the line, probably very early, possibly immediately after Lord of the Flies, William Golding decided to ask himself a simple question every time he brooded over a new project. "Is it actually possible to put this into writing?" If the answer were to be, "no", then he
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would proceed. The amazing thing, of course, is that he succeeded nearly every time. In this case, the book is narrated by a member of a soon-to-be extinct Neanderthal group, pre-literate, perhaps even pre-verbal, certainly "proto-linguistic." The only reason I didn't apply an extra star to my rating is that The Inheritors is not quite as consummate a masterpiece as, say, Pincher Martin or Darkness Visible. Show Less
LibraryThing member ostrom
What a fabulous premise! A novel told from the point of view of a Neanderthal--at about the time we humans elbowed Neanderthals aside. I like this book almost as much as Lord of the Flies and better than Pincher Martin, but The Spire is still my favorite of his. Anthropologists will love this
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book--as long as they remember it's a novel! Show Less
LibraryThing member SandDune
Mal leads Lok, Fa, Liku and the rest of the people from their winter base by the sea to their summer camp in the mountains near a waterfall. They have made the same journey for more years than anyone can remember, but this year it will be different. The fallen log which they have always used for
‘ “The log has gone away.”
He shut his eyes and frowned at the picture of the log. It had lain in the water from this side to that, grey and rotting. When you trod the centre you could feel the water that washed beneath you, horrible water, as deep in places as a man’s shoulder. The water was not awake like the river or the fall but asleep, spreading there to the river and waking up, stretching on the right into wildernesses of impassable swamp and thicket and bog. So sure was he of this log the people always used that he opened his eyes again, beginning to smile as if he were waking out of a dream; but the log was gone.’
The people struggle to work out how they can cross the river without the log, for these ‘people’ are not human, but Neanderthal, and new situations are difficult for them. But the absence of the log is only the first change that their journey brings. On arriving at their summer camp, they discover that there are ‘New People’ there who are different to themselves. The New People have boats and clay pots and bows and arrows, technology that is far in advance of the people’s own and which they are unable to comprehend...
This is a thoughtful book, with a very powerful ending, and it’s one that I think I will reread in the not too distant future.
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crossing the river has disappeared ...‘ “The log has gone away.”
He shut his eyes and frowned at the picture of the log. It had lain in the water from this side to that, grey and rotting. When you trod the centre you could feel the water that washed beneath you, horrible water, as deep in places as a man’s shoulder. The water was not awake like the river or the fall but asleep, spreading there to the river and waking up, stretching on the right into wildernesses of impassable swamp and thicket and bog. So sure was he of this log the people always used that he opened his eyes again, beginning to smile as if he were waking out of a dream; but the log was gone.’
The people struggle to work out how they can cross the river without the log, for these ‘people’ are not human, but Neanderthal, and new situations are difficult for them. But the absence of the log is only the first change that their journey brings. On arriving at their summer camp, they discover that there are ‘New People’ there who are different to themselves. The New People have boats and clay pots and bows and arrows, technology that is far in advance of the people’s own and which they are unable to comprehend...
This is a thoughtful book, with a very powerful ending, and it’s one that I think I will reread in the not too distant future.
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LibraryThing member Julia_Chanteray
this is a great book, which I only read by accident.
I've read Lord of the Flies, which is, of course, a wonderful book, showing us all the horror of being alive and being human, but The Inheritors is completely different.
It is intensely ambitious, as the main protagonists do not have a language.
The book doesn't entirely pull this off, but it makes a bloody good attempt at it, and for my my money pushes back the boundaries of what is possible in literature.
Read this because you're interested in what books can achieve, and read it because you'll care about what happens to the characters and to find out what happens in the end.
I've read Lord of the Flies, which is, of course, a wonderful book, showing us all the horror of being alive and being human, but The Inheritors is completely different.
It is intensely ambitious, as the main protagonists do not have a language.
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Think of any book that you've read, and even the books that have a strange language (such as A Clockwork Orange, or Ridley Walker) do not attempt to show people who only communicate by signs, shared experience and tradition. The Inheritors shows a whole new depth to reading - by definition, we read words, so how does a book relate the thoughts of people who do not have a language?The book doesn't entirely pull this off, but it makes a bloody good attempt at it, and for my my money pushes back the boundaries of what is possible in literature.
Read this because you're interested in what books can achieve, and read it because you'll care about what happens to the characters and to find out what happens in the end.
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LibraryThing member ChrisNewton
Hard-put to decide between three and four stars on this one. The prose is a bit dense and confusing, to the point that sometimes I was not sure exactly what was going on -- but maybe that's Golding's intention, given that it's about a Neanderthal family who is slowly decimated by a wandering tribe
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of humans, something totally beyond their understanding. Show Less
LibraryThing member RBeffa
This looked like an interesting older novel that I had never read before. Frankly I had a hard time with it. It is fairly rare that I get confused within a story but that happened multiple times within this one. I found much of the story confusing and I ended unsatisfied. The story is primarily
It seems that in addition to the ability to speak somewhat simply, the neanderthals here have a form of telepathy to aid the speech and to share pictures from their minds. This gift appears to be very strong sometimes and intermittent at others. They also have a very enhanced sense of smell that lets them create and re-create scenes in their mind. Much seems to be made of this mental picture-making, and frankly I became more than a bit confused at various times with what was going on. The neanderthals seem to rely on this as a sort of mental history book and reference manual, and share with each other, but it also seems to be a way for the groupthink to imagine things from clues and puzzle stuff out and make plans. The bothersome part to me is theorizing this type of telepathy that exists with the neanderthals. It was a major issue in the novel, but I found it very confusing and it spoiled the story for me somewhat. This imagined neanderthal culture really came to life for me otherwise. The storytelling was very hard to follow at times, as we try to see the world as a neanderthal and things do not always make sense, at least to me. There were also rapid action sequences that I simply could not follow. Some becomes clearer as the story progresses, but not all, as I imagine was the author's intent to keep us aware of this "alien" viewpoint. This is overall a sad story of a dying race. This book certainly tried to tell a story in a new way, but for me it failed mostly in the attempt.
There were parts of the ending I did not understand, and the rest of the end I didn''t like. I suppose it was just tough luck for the last neanderthals to have a run in with something like the cro-magnon version of Antony and Cleopatra.
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told from the point of view of a small group of neanderthals. There are eight of them when the story begins. I liked how we are just immersed in the thoughts and behaviors of this small tribe. The neanderthals are not depicted as terribly intelligent. They seem repelled by new things. The story is primarily told from the point of view of Lok, a younger male, but he seems rather stupid compared to the other neanderthals.It seems that in addition to the ability to speak somewhat simply, the neanderthals here have a form of telepathy to aid the speech and to share pictures from their minds. This gift appears to be very strong sometimes and intermittent at others. They also have a very enhanced sense of smell that lets them create and re-create scenes in their mind. Much seems to be made of this mental picture-making, and frankly I became more than a bit confused at various times with what was going on. The neanderthals seem to rely on this as a sort of mental history book and reference manual, and share with each other, but it also seems to be a way for the groupthink to imagine things from clues and puzzle stuff out and make plans. The bothersome part to me is theorizing this type of telepathy that exists with the neanderthals. It was a major issue in the novel, but I found it very confusing and it spoiled the story for me somewhat. This imagined neanderthal culture really came to life for me otherwise. The storytelling was very hard to follow at times, as we try to see the world as a neanderthal and things do not always make sense, at least to me. There were also rapid action sequences that I simply could not follow. Some becomes clearer as the story progresses, but not all, as I imagine was the author's intent to keep us aware of this "alien" viewpoint. This is overall a sad story of a dying race. This book certainly tried to tell a story in a new way, but for me it failed mostly in the attempt.
There were parts of the ending I did not understand, and the rest of the end I didn''t like. I suppose it was just tough luck for the last neanderthals to have a run in with something like the cro-magnon version of Antony and Cleopatra.
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LibraryThing member jerry-book
Interesting idea. Neandethals could no keep up with homo sapiens because they just could not think well enough. Thus, they were exterminated by homo sapiens. The humans are portrayed as strange, godlike beings as the neanderthals witness their mastery of fire, upper palaeolithic weaponry and
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sailing. I just read the Enigma of the Neanderthals and this seems to support Golding's idea even though he was writing in 1955. Show Less
LibraryThing member unclebob53703
Story of a group of Neanderthals, from a time the species was meeting up with other early humans who would evolve into us. Nice writing by the author of Lord of the Flies. I first bought it because I was interested in early humans; recently replaced that paperback with a hardcover.
LibraryThing member kk1
An interesting account of a group of Neanderthals encountering a Cro-Magnon tribe. Confusing, because you are trying to understand the story second hand, told by someone with a different way of thinking and different preconceptions (Lok). And you have to guess by implication what Fa has seen, but
Since Lok does not fully understand what he is watching, maybe it is not surprising I don't either. And I didn't always want to take the time reading it to stop, back track and make sense of it. Had to read a few other reviews to be sure of the ending.
Duly added to the mix of fact/fiction stuck in my head, gleaned from Clan of the Cave Bear and Stig of the Dump.
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does not tell him. Since Lok does not fully understand what he is watching, maybe it is not surprising I don't either. And I didn't always want to take the time reading it to stop, back track and make sense of it. Had to read a few other reviews to be sure of the ending.
Duly added to the mix of fact/fiction stuck in my head, gleaned from Clan of the Cave Bear and Stig of the Dump.
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LibraryThing member JBarringer
I did enjoy this book more than I enjoyed Lord of the Flies, but then again I hated Lord of the Flies. I found Golding's storytelling in this book disorganized and confusing, though I liked the idea of exploring the intersection between the cultures of two non-human humanoid species.
LibraryThing member bookomaniac
This is a downright experimental novel, not so much because of the form, but the angle: Golding tries to project the mental attitude of a former human species. It is often said that he takes the perspective of a Neanderthal, and perhaps Golding may have intended that when he wrote this in 1954, but
No, I think it makes more sense to approach this novel as an alternative attempt by Golding to look at our human species, the homo sapiens, basically as he did in ‘Lord of the Flies’, his best-known book he wrote just before this one. Lord of the Flies was genial in its simplicity, and shocking in its sketch of the inhumane side of man (in this case of supposedly innocent children). In 'The Inheritors', Golding uses a more primitive human form to look from a distance at the new/different humans, in whom we clearly recognize our species, the homo sapiens. And the bottom line is clear: the supposedly more primitive species has only a limited form of communication (they talk about abstract images in the form of 'pictures'), and still moves on 4 limbs, but it forms a close-knit, caring group with warm feelings for each other; the new people on the contrary are noisy, use extensive language, have rituals and are very ingenious, but are also downright violent towards each other and towards strangers, and they also have a hierarchical relationship. That contrast is very clear, and once again very derogatory for our species.
In this novel Golding mainly uses the perspective of the earlier, more "primitive" human form, and especially of the young male Lok. Lok tries to interpret everything he sees, hears and smells as well as possible, out of a good-natured and open naiveté. Communication takes place through images, in which certain phenomena are named in a very inadequate and for us rather incorrect way. That makes the reading of this novel a heavy burden. Regularly the meaning of what was written or said, escaped me, because I did not understand exactly what was referred to, and perhaps that is what Golding intended. In that sense, the experiment certainly was successful, but it makes it very difficult for a reader to empathize with the story.
Personally, I am quite averse to romantic depictions in the genre of the 'noble savage', and that is something that really bothered me in this novel: the primitive Lok and his group are clearly presented as more 'human', more humane, then the new human species, our species. This is done without the subtlety that can be found in Lord of the Flies. In that sense, I think Golding's experiment has failed. But his attempt to recreate the mental world of another kind of human species is certainly commendable.
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the designation is nowhere in this novel, nor is it really relevant. Because the problem is that one is inclined to mirror the current knowledge of the life of the real Neanderthals (or at least the theories on them) against what Golding makes of it, and of course you have to conclude that several of his projections are wrong.No, I think it makes more sense to approach this novel as an alternative attempt by Golding to look at our human species, the homo sapiens, basically as he did in ‘Lord of the Flies’, his best-known book he wrote just before this one. Lord of the Flies was genial in its simplicity, and shocking in its sketch of the inhumane side of man (in this case of supposedly innocent children). In 'The Inheritors', Golding uses a more primitive human form to look from a distance at the new/different humans, in whom we clearly recognize our species, the homo sapiens. And the bottom line is clear: the supposedly more primitive species has only a limited form of communication (they talk about abstract images in the form of 'pictures'), and still moves on 4 limbs, but it forms a close-knit, caring group with warm feelings for each other; the new people on the contrary are noisy, use extensive language, have rituals and are very ingenious, but are also downright violent towards each other and towards strangers, and they also have a hierarchical relationship. That contrast is very clear, and once again very derogatory for our species.
In this novel Golding mainly uses the perspective of the earlier, more "primitive" human form, and especially of the young male Lok. Lok tries to interpret everything he sees, hears and smells as well as possible, out of a good-natured and open naiveté. Communication takes place through images, in which certain phenomena are named in a very inadequate and for us rather incorrect way. That makes the reading of this novel a heavy burden. Regularly the meaning of what was written or said, escaped me, because I did not understand exactly what was referred to, and perhaps that is what Golding intended. In that sense, the experiment certainly was successful, but it makes it very difficult for a reader to empathize with the story.
Personally, I am quite averse to romantic depictions in the genre of the 'noble savage', and that is something that really bothered me in this novel: the primitive Lok and his group are clearly presented as more 'human', more humane, then the new human species, our species. This is done without the subtlety that can be found in Lord of the Flies. In that sense, I think Golding's experiment has failed. But his attempt to recreate the mental world of another kind of human species is certainly commendable.
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LibraryThing member iansales
It must be horrible to have had a distinguished career as a writer, but people only know you from your first novel. Which for Golding was Lord of the Flies; and even now 64 years after its publication, and 25 years after Golding’s death, if you asked anyone to name a novel by him they’d name
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his first novel. But to then follow Lord of the Flies with something as frankly weird as The Inheritors… Now, I know Golding was not that odd. I’ve read his Rites of Passage, which is brilliant, and I have The Spire on the TBR, but The Inheritors is by any yardstick an odd book. It tells of the end of the Neanderthals at the hands of the Cro-Magnons, and is told entirely from the point-of-view of the former. The main characters are a small group of Neanderthals, comprising a young male, an old male, an old woman, two young women, one of which carries a baby, and a young child. The old woman is described at one point as the young male’s mother, so it’s likely they’re all related. The old man dies – of pneumonia? – after falling into a river, and then other members of the family disappear under mysterious circumstances. The young male discovers some men have settled an island in a nearby river, but they are not men like himself – nor women, for that matter (Golding was an old school misogynist). The two survivors of the family hide out in a tree and witness the Cro-Magnons at work and play. It’s a novel in which very little happens for pages and pages, and what does happen is filtered through Golding’s idea of a Neanderthal worldview. It works because the prose is so good. There’s something about Golding’s writing that oozes authority, and I’m not entirely sure what it is. His prose is not lush, nor is it stripped back. But there’s a clarity and confidence to it that many writers would do well to emulate – especially in these days of MFAs and CWAs and creative writing courses. I can think of several recent highly-praised novels where if the author really had applied “kill your darlings”, the novel would be considerably shorter. Had Golding done the same to The Inheritors, it would be precisely the same length. Show Less
LibraryThing member puabi
A gripping story, and well-written, about a family of Neanderthals and their encounter with some "modern" humans. I am fairly certain Neanderthals were not as portrayed in this book, but I loved these characters anyway. I really recommend this one above "Lord of the Flies" (and every other Golding
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book I've tried but admittedly failed to finish -- "Darkness Visible" and "Free Fall" among them). Show Less
LibraryThing member yarb
Golding's Neanderthals are insufferably innocent noble savage types who live in harmony with nature, refuse to kill animals for food and spend their time mooning around their Eden and generally being all touchy-feely and pathetic.
Homo Erectus is much more accurately drawn as a depraved and
Unfortunately I think Golding's execution of his admittedly brilliant idea is seriously flawed. There are a couple of stumbling blocks: trying to write from a plausible non-human viewpoint, and trying to write a story from the point of view of beings without language (or with only rudimentary language, it's not exactly clear). I suppose he deserves credit for trying.
Homo Erectus is much more accurately drawn as a depraved and
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bloodthirsty carouser with a brainbox too big for his own good. The story really picks up when the humans come on the scene. Alas, too late.Unfortunately I think Golding's execution of his admittedly brilliant idea is seriously flawed. There are a couple of stumbling blocks: trying to write from a plausible non-human viewpoint, and trying to write a story from the point of view of beings without language (or with only rudimentary language, it's not exactly clear). I suppose he deserves credit for trying.
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LibraryThing member Cheryl_in_CC_NV
The science will be suspect, as a lot of anthropological work has been accomplished in the last six decades, but the story itself will probably be good. I'll just read it as if it's about two races on Sirius 6 or whatever...
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Or not. Could not get into it. Maybe as an
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Or not. Could not get into it. Maybe as an
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audio? But nbd - I suspect it's not that valuable anyway. Show Less
LibraryThing member jolyonpatten
Magnificent. Golding at his very best, and one of the most imaginative, evocative books I've come across. How anyone could put themselves into the mindset of the Neanderthals escapes me, and the way in which he captures the very process of thought emerging is extraordinary.
LibraryThing member DirtPriest
I decided to try this one after reading that JRRT-Author of the Century a few weeks ago. It was brought up in a chapter about 20th century writers who were war vets and wrote about their experiences through myth, fantasy and allegory. This was purported to be about Cro-Magnon man exterminating the
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Neanderthal species and inventing the whole evil troll/ogre/giant mythology as a justification. I really didn't get that. It was more about a small dwindling tribe of Neanderthals who are terrified of water. They spend their entire summer on a riverbank and have never explored the other side. This year, there are 'new people' on the island. One of the Neanderthals, who's name was Ha, tries to jump across rocks to rescue their kidnapped children. Ha is never seen again. Lok and Fa spend a day in a tree watching and planning a rescue of Liku and 'the new one', their unnamed young baby. The rescue doesn't go too well. I liked how everything was from a Neanderthal perspective, like throwing twigs with a bent stick instead of bows and arrows, but I found it very confusing to keep track of exactly what was going on. Also, I was very confused as to some details of the ending. This happened a few times where I thought some action had occurred and then it apparently didn't, or the old 'Are they on the shore or the island? I'm not sure'. Maybe I'm not smart enough to understand Nobel Prize level writing, but I doubt it. This book probably explains why I could never get in to Lord of the Flies. Ah well. I plan to read a short library book on Egyptian Hieroglyphs over the next few days (more in my line of thinking anyways than fancy high-falutin' literarture) and then back to some SF. Depending on what Santa brings me. There may be one of those ebook readers from Barnes and Noble. I was out at the parental units a few weeks ago and there was a B&N box. Mom said 'I should have wrapped that' instead of 'I should have wrapped those' and I got to thinking. That dang Holmes method again. So we'll see tomorrow morning. Show Less
LibraryThing member john257hopper
Abandoned. Just couldn't get into the writing style despite my interest in the subject matter. Will try again at some point. No rating so far.
LibraryThing member stephencbird
I am in awe of this book, Golding's craft, and his work in general (I have also read "Lord of the Flies" and "Darkness Visible"). The writing itself, whatever one thinks of the plot, is transcendent. I am impressed by what must have been prodigious research on Golding’s part to gain insight in
The prose within "The Inheritors" is highly poetic; Golding paints an intricate portrait of a primeval landscape, such as our planet will probably never experience again; this description in itself adds to the atmosphere of suspense the author creates in this novel. It is not just that landscape in itself that is impressionable, but also how it is perceived by the Neanderthals and their "mind-dream-pictures"; -IE- the heightened colors seen by Lok during his hangover from the honey-drink. Golding shrouds his worlds in mystery to create a background of heightened effect, which becomes an integral part of the story; Richard Wagner used a similar technique by employing the orchestra as an additional "voice" in “Der Ring des Nibelungen”. One of the major themes of this book focuses on the evolution of innocence into corruption; a problem that unfortunately still exists in humans today. Another theme is that of the Machiavellian nature of mankind as a whole, specifically in how that behaviour was starting to evolve in Golding's portrait of Homo sapiens. I actually think this work is more engaging than the more commercially accessible LOTF (and certainly more so than the experimental-yet-inconsistent "Darkness Visible”). Golding is a recent discovery of mine, and I am looking forward to reading more of his work.
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the world of the Neanderthals, about whose specific reality modern man can only speculate. Whatever the Neanderthals lacked in intellectual capability, they more than made up for in their ability to use their senses, especially that of smell. As well as their possible telekinetic activity, which would have been unencumbered by more advanced intellectual processes. Golding's Neanderthals have an intuitive grasp of their world that is lacking in the modern human; on the other hand, the Neanderthals also live more wholly at the mercy of "Oa" (Mother Earth). The innocence of the Neanderthals is endearing, the "new people" Homo sapiens are dangerous and menacing. I felt compassion for the Neanderthals, and contempt for "the new people". The emotion that binds both species together is fear; -IE- Homo sapiens refer to the Neanderthals as "devils"; Fa tells Lok that “the new people are frightened of the air”.The prose within "The Inheritors" is highly poetic; Golding paints an intricate portrait of a primeval landscape, such as our planet will probably never experience again; this description in itself adds to the atmosphere of suspense the author creates in this novel. It is not just that landscape in itself that is impressionable, but also how it is perceived by the Neanderthals and their "mind-dream-pictures"; -IE- the heightened colors seen by Lok during his hangover from the honey-drink. Golding shrouds his worlds in mystery to create a background of heightened effect, which becomes an integral part of the story; Richard Wagner used a similar technique by employing the orchestra as an additional "voice" in “Der Ring des Nibelungen”. One of the major themes of this book focuses on the evolution of innocence into corruption; a problem that unfortunately still exists in humans today. Another theme is that of the Machiavellian nature of mankind as a whole, specifically in how that behaviour was starting to evolve in Golding's portrait of Homo sapiens. I actually think this work is more engaging than the more commercially accessible LOTF (and certainly more so than the experimental-yet-inconsistent "Darkness Visible”). Golding is a recent discovery of mine, and I am looking forward to reading more of his work.
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Language
Original publication date
1955
Physical description
213 p.; 6.9 inches
ISBN
0671772481 / 9780671772482