Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

    "The boy with fair hair lowered himself 

down the last few feet of rock and began

to pick his way toward the lagoon..." 

      Few works in literature have received as much popular and critical attention as Nobel Laureate William Golding's Lord of the Flies. Since its publication in 1954, it has amassed a cult following, and has significantly contributed to our dystopian vision of the post-war era. When responding to the novel's dazzling power of intellectual insight, scholars and critics often invoke the works of Shakespeare, Freud, Rousseau, Sartre, Orwell, and Conrad.

      Golding's aim to "trace the defect of society back to the defect of human nature" is elegantly pursued in this gripping adventure tale about a group of British schoolboys marooned on a tropical island. Alone in a world of uncharted possibilities, devoid of adult supervision or rules, the boys attempt to forge their own society, failing, however, in the face of terror, sin, and evil. Part parable, allegory, myth, parody, political treatise, and apocalyptic vision, Lord of the Flies is perhaps the most memorable tale about "the end of innocence, the darkness of man's heart."

 

William Golding

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Born: September 19, 1911 in St. Columb Minor, England, The United Kingdom

died: June 19, 1993

   Sir William Gerald Golding was a British novelist, poet, playwright and Nobel Prize for Literature laureate, best known for his novel Lord of the Flies. He was also awarded the Booker   Prize for literature in 1980 for his novel Rites of Passage, the first book of the trilogy To the Ends of the Earth.  In 2008, The Times ranked Golding third on their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945".

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7624.Lord_of_the_Flies_Penguin_Great_Books_of_the_20th_Century_

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Sharp Teeth by Toby Barlow, A book review by Mark Flanagan

Sharp Teeth by Toby Barlow

Review By Mark Flanagan, About.com Guide

     The myth of the werewolf, the man who by curse or design transforms himself by the light of the full moon into a wolf or into some sort of man-wolf beast and then roams the countryside killing and feasting upon the tender flesh of unsuspecting villagers, has long been a well-loved and well-trodden motif. From the ancient Greek story of Lycaon, who fed human flesh to Zeus and was summarily transformed into a wolf by the angry god, to the 1940's Lon Chaney portrayal in The Wolf Man, we've long loved this terrifying folktale. Werewolf fiction is as alive and well today as it ever has been, but no recent author has so quickly and uniquely lifted the genre from its limited fan base to the center of popular attention as Toby Barlow has done with Sharp Teeth.

     Sharp Teeth takes the werewolf myth to new heights. It poses the question, "if there were werewolves - not just a single werewolf or even sporadic instances of lycanthropy, but lots and lots of werewolves - what would they do?" According to Barlow, they would form packs like wild dogs, except they wouldn't be dogs - they'd be men. Sometimes, they'd be intelligent, powerful men like, for instance, lawyers. Such an individual would become the alpha dog of a werewolf pack, would grow the pack's strength, bind it together, and give it purpose. What sort of purpose? Well, the same as any pack of wild dogs, or men for that matter - power.

Packs of werewolves, like any urban gangs - like the Sharks and the Jets, like the Crips and the Bloods - roam the streets of L.A. cutting each other down, vying for power. The main difference of course is that these gangs eat their kill. Yes, Sharp Teeth is brutal and will make an equally brutal movie someday to rival the likes of The Wolf Man or any other in the oeuvre. In fact it's not unlikely that Quentin Tarantino is at this very moment closing a deal to turn Toby Barlow's novel into a vicious and blood-soaked film.
     Sharp Teeth is a gang story, but it's also a love story and a detective story in which werewolves clean the city of meth labs and enter bridge tournaments. Yes there is humor in Sharp Teeth - the sort of anthropomorphic humor popularized in the cartoons of Gary Larson, except much much darker. And there are tongue-in-cheek references to to children's books like Go Dog Go.
     Sharp Teeth is truly a pleasure to read. I had no idea how I would approach reading a novel in free verse, but the answer is pretty much like any other novel, except different. Free verse is verse without meter or rhyme, so it's not at all like reading poetry, though the novel is very poetic:

Her teeth hit his neck.
The last thing he sees are her eyes.
The last thing he feels is the heat of her breath on his neck.
The only thing he hears
is the might of the surging blackness
as it softly growls
for him.

     Though werewolf fiction doesn't normally fall into my bailiwick, Sharp Teeth has happily risen above the genre and has garnered a good deal of buzz. Does a werewolf novel have to be written in verse to gain attention or be taken seriously? I don't know. What I do know is that Barlow has breathed such life, such intensity into his lycanthropic tale, through verse or otherwise, that I found myself compelled from page one to rip straight through it. Like teeth through flesh.

http://contemporarylit.about.com/od/sciencefictionreviews/fr/sharpTeeth.htm

Serena by Ron Rash - A review by John M. Formy-Duval

Serena by Ron Rash

A review by John M. Formy-Duval

     There was an image of a woman on horseback. She was haughty, blond, tall, elegant. The sun was behind her illuminating her hair and creating a shimmering crown as she rode in the fog. Somehow, he saw her between Earth and Olympus. It was 1929-30 in the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina. So, in a voice straight out of the mountains of North Carolina, where his family has lived since the 1700s, Ron Rash described how Serena came about. The image stayed with him, a sign that he was destined to write the story.
     He was interested in two major plot elements. The first was the fight for and against the creation of the Smoky Mountains National Park. The Park was rescued at a crucial point by a $5m donation from Rockefeller. The second issue was how nasty the fight between those with the timber interests and those who supported the Park became.   There were elements of environmental destruction and loss of jobs as the talons of the Great Depression sank into the peaks and coves of the mountains. He wanted to bring Serena to this world and give her control of the timber camp. She quickly assumed mythical status among the men.

     Although she married an important, powerful man from an old Boston family, she was the dominant force. Rash wanted something to ratchet up her control to impress the men in the logging crew. He knew that in the wild eagles kill rattlesnakes, a real danger to the loggers. Could she train an eagle to respond to her commands, he wondered? He began to research the concept, quickly learning to go to the fanatics so he called around. "I've got the right accent. They'll think I'm afflicted" and listen to me. He knew he was on the right track when various people said, "You've got to talk to Scott" one of only twelve people in the United States who are licensed to hunt with eagles. Scott explained how, and then suggested using a Mongolian eagle, a Berkute, which has been used for hunting since Kublai Khan. She trains the eagle, which adds to her mythic status among the men.
     Rash has always appreciated Elizabethan drama, including Shakespeare, but especially Marlowe. He wanted the novel to read like a drama. He created 4 parts and a brief "Coda" which, in a nod to Marlowe, provides a fitting end to the tragedy of Serena. Serena's speech is loosely iambic pentameter to elevate her status from the common people. There is a Chorus of "good ole boys" to contrast with her, to comment on the action, and provide comic relief. Snipes sees himself as a philosopher while McIntyre is a preacher who sees Serena wearing pants as a sign of Satan. The eagle at one point drops a rattlesnake right in front of him. This causes him to be taken to the "nervous hospital" where they "electrocute" people.

     This novel succeeds on two levels. First, it is a really good story, immediately engaging and interesting. You could easily enjoy reading this while lounging on the beach. It has action, sex, and memorable characters. Second, it is highly literate, drawing on Elizabethan drama at its best. Truly, Rash has done exactly what the Elizabethans did. He took an old story – primarily "Macbeth" – and reworked it for contemporary times with the complexity and richness in character development one hopes for but seldom finds in modern novels. This is truly "contemporary literature."
     His background as a narrative poet enlivens the imagery of this story. Rash captures the language of the mountains, long reputed to be Elizabethan in character and pronunciation, a myth that reinforces the reality of the characters' speech. The historical reality of the fight for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is brought to life here, both sides being presented.
     Serena is a reference to Selena, Goddess of the Moon. Rash saw it as an erotic name. She is certainly not serene in any sense of the word. The doctor who delivered her says she kicked hard to get out. Her fatal flaw is an inability to admit to her humanity. She has allegiance to design not to people and is willing to sacrifice those she loves. She shows shades of Absalom, Absalom or an evil Gatsby who cannot accept Daisy.

He did not know the end when he began writing. "I never outline. That sets up limitations on me as a writer and on the characters. There needs to be ‘free will' for the characters….If I have an image which stays with me, I believe the novel is always there. Michelangelo believed the statute was already in the marble and he just chipped away the stone to reveal it."
     Asked about critics' tendency to see Southern writers as having only regional appeal, Rash noted that Ulysses is about as "regional" as one can get, yet it is undeniably a classic. "I want to write about the universal through the particular." Clearly, he does not see "regional" writing as a negative. Faulkner was certainly a regional writer, and critics outside the US have recognized Southern writers for years, he said. "I see two types of writing. There's local color writing" that does little more than show what makes a place. "Regional writing" uses the local to illustrate universal themes, Flannery O'Conner being a prime example.
     Rash described Serena as a great story well told, on a different scale, more ambitious than his previous efforts. It is, by his judgment, the apotheosis of his career. "I was obsessed by this one," thinking about it 10 – 12 hours per day. He worked on it for 6 hours per day, 6 days per week, for 3 years, completing 12 full drafts. Friends knew that "something had let go when I finished." "I feel that this is the best thing I'll ever write. It contains Elizabethan drama, environmental issues, rich language. I hope it worked."
     It worked beautifully. This is a must-read novel.

http://contemporarylit.about.com/od/historicalfictionreviews/fr/serena.htm