Subway Books -- Bookreviews: Lord of the Flies; Spud

I spend roughly around 10+ hours a week on public transport in Korea. That is about two hours for every work day, and occasionally over weekends. To kill this useless commuting time, where one stand or sits for long extended periods, I read. I actually look forward to this reading time, as I seldom have the time to read in my “normal” time during the day or even evenings, as I’m usually busy preparing for classes. I call these books my “subway books,” for that is where I do most of the reading.

I like to write little "reviews" of these books, mostly for my own benefit so that I can come back to my reviews in the future and be reminded of the attitudes and impressions I had of the book at the time I read it. Unfortunately, since this semester started (in August) I haven’t written one review, as I just haven’t had the time. The last review I wrote was in July on The Old Man and the Sea. I’ve probably read ten books since then.

Allow me to catch up on a couple of books:

Lord of the Flies

William Golding’s novel about a group of school boys getting stranded on a deserted island during a World War have always been on my reading list. As a literature major there are many classics that one have come in contact with on so many numerous times that one actually “knows” the story, but without ever having read it. Nonetheless, I was determined to read it eventually and get acquainted with the primary material.

The story records the inevitable moral decay of a society where law and authority is absent. Slowly the innocence of the children, especially the older ones, starts to crumble and our (humanity’s) inherent selfishness (i.e. sinfulness) comes to the front. It is the choir boys, those typically associated with the high arts and religious settings, who become most barbaric. And it is especially when they start to paint their faces—while hidden behind masks—that they perform the worst atrocities.
That Golding should highlight this issue of “hiding behind masks,” I thought, was especially insightful. It reminds me of Philip Zimbardo's “How ordinary people become monsters . . . or heroes”:

Does it make a difference if warriors go to battle changing their appearance or not? Does it make a difference if they're anonymous in how they treat their victims? We know in some cultures they go to war, they don't change their appearance. In other cultures they paint themselves like "Lord of the Flies." In some they wear masks. In many, soldiers are anonymous in uniform. So this anthropologist, John Watson, found 23 cultures that had two bits of data. Do they change their appearance? 15. Do they kill, torture, mutilate? 13. If they don't change their appearance only one of eight kills, tortures or mutilates. The key is in the red zone. If they change their appearance, 12 of 13 -- that's 90 percent -- kill, torture, mutilate. And that's the power of anonymity.

It is well worth watching Philip Zimbardo discussion of Evil on TED.

(AP Photo/Jacqueline Larma -- Source)

The shocking thing to me about this is how recent events at the G20 meeting in Pittsburg (USA) again proved these findings: the militia brutalized civilians while hidden behind their Storm Trooper outfits. In the anonymity of their “masks” they performed unthinkable acts in the name of the law; things they would be ashamed to do “in the nude,” so to speak.

While I didn’t find the writing to be particularly good, it is the message—communicated clearly—that makes this classics one of the great and ever apt books, from the 20th century.

Spud

Another book about children is by the South African author John van de Ruit. "Spud" is the nickname for a South African boy named John Milton, who, like his name sake, has a knack for writing. Spud gets a scholarship to go to a high-class school, where he stays in the dormitory with a weird, but interesting, collection of boys. This bildungsroman is written as a diary, in which Spud share the numerous crazy events through his first year at high school. This was one of the funniest novels I have read in a very long time and I’m looking forward to reading the next two novels in the series. It also brings out some of the strange (but nevertheless true) oddities in South African culture. "Spud" is a great book for South Africans that want to laugh at themselves, as well as for non-South Africans that want to get to know a little of the culture seldom seen from the outside.

In many ways I could associate with the main character, which of course made the book ever more enticing to read. We would have been around the same age, judging by the socio-political events occuring in the novel, and Spud and I read most of the same books.

Apparently Spud is being made into a movie; I hope it will be as enduring as the novel.