CamReads discovers new life in Lord of the Flies

Welcome to CamReads, my book club. I’m the only member. I keep it small so that my opinion is the only one that counts.

CamReads meets sporadically at my place. It has only thoughtbubble discussions. Our latest book is Lord of the Flies by William Golding.

We chose it for two reasons. First, it was on our shelf. And second, we’ve never read it.

Don’t judge. There are many books that CamReads hasn’t read. Catcher in the Rye evaded our grasp for decades until, yes, we noticed it on our shelf. Catcher in the Rye provoked the following discussion at CamReads:

“So that’s what all the fuss was about.”

Did I mention our motto? “Less Talking. More Reading.”

If there’s one thing CamReads members have learned, it’s how hard it is to know what’s in a book without reading it. Oh, you can try to fake it. Whenever young people are getting out of hand, you can say, “It’s just like Lord of the Flies in there!” Nobody is going to call you on it. Nobody is going to say, “Really, how so?” — because they probably haven’t read it, either.

Therefore, CamReads knew but one thing about Lord of the Flies — that some kids torment Piggy. We intuited that Something Really Bad happens but, at that point, the storyline merged with the movie Deliverance and the river ran dry.

So we read it. Lord of the Flies features a group of stranded schoolboys. Ralph seems the natural leader. There’s an unnamed “fat boy” with glasses and asthma who gravitates toward him. He tells Ralph he doesn’t care what anybody calls him as long as it’s not the nickname he had in school, which was Piggy. (The members of CamReads did a face-palm at that point. “You idiot. Now they’re going to start calling you that!”)

Conflict arrives in the form of Jack Merridew, a kid who won’t accept Ralph as leader. There’s a split, with Jack’s side eager to sharpen sticks and hunt while Ralph’s side gathers fruit. So, it’s about carnivores versus vegetarians? Not really.

What we witness is a civilization’s descent into savagery, with Jack gaining followers and forming a vicious, violent society. If they had access to AR-15 assault rifles instead of spears, everybody would get one.

“The world, that understandable and lawful world, was slipping away,” writes Golding.

Symbolism abounds in the book. When the boys start to imagine a “beast” watching them, Jack skilfully exploits their fear to unify his followers. Then there’s the iconic conch shell. Whoever holds it can speak without interruption. Hmm.

The significance of these things was not lost on the CamReads book club. In fact, they seemed oddly familiar, almost as if there was a current world leader seeing ethnic and religious “beasts” in the shadows, promising to build walls and close borders, a leader who makes fun of “losers” like Piggy, a great communicator who never has to listen as long as he’s holding a conch shell named Twitter.

That’s the great thing about great books. They are universal and timeless.

But maybe it hits even closer to home. Maybe we don’t have to look at another country to see what might be reflected in Piggy’s glasses. As the winter of our discontent drags on in a culturally, socially and economically fractured Saskatchewan, maybe we can find Golding ’s beast where he always said it was: In the mirror.

CamReads will reflect on that sobering thought at its next meeting.