Quote: Griff @ November 8 2008, 2:37 PM GMTThat's bad. I was afraid there wouldn't be any other Golding books worth following up on, although I will take Timbo's suggestion and try out The Inheritors, giving The Spires a big swerve. I hadn't seen the conch as a vagina. Is that what English teachers are saying now or a personal insight Scats(*)? Our teachers never mentioned it. Mind you they were so prudish that they used to say things like "there are lots of rude jokes in this which we are NOT going to dwell on" when we read Shakespeare.
But I do love Lord Of The Flies. Forget all the stuff about it being an allegory for WWII etc. It's just a razor-sharp description of how kids (and many adults) would behave given half a chance. All sentimental adults who think ickle kiddywinks are cute (presumably because they've grown too old to remember their own childhoods) should be made to read it. The slow descent into savagery and murder is just mesmerising. I remember we all watched the film of it at school (the B&W Peter Brook version). There was sniggering at the beginning and by the time they dropped a big rock on Piggy and smashed his head in everyone was horribly enthralled.
And Alan Moore knows the score. (Even when he goes off the rails a bit like his Promethea stuff.) Next stop for Nick I would recommend From Hell, or as Sooty suggests, League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Or in fact anything else he ever wrote.
Just found my copy of TLOEG2 there's a short cartoon strip in the appendix about how he stabs to death people who complain about his stuff being late.
n.b. his old 2000AD stuff Halo Jones and Dr & Quich are also ace.