tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2856547151523423474.post6391952968419005935..comments2024-03-12T12:38:23.542-04:00Comments on The Kind of Face You Hate: Kill the Pigbill r.http://www.blogger.com/profile/17748572205731857892noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2856547151523423474.post-50257656294130519302013-07-23T19:10:53.431-04:002013-07-23T19:10:53.431-04:00Okay, but keep in mind the focus of this post is o...Okay, but keep in mind the focus of this post is on the film, where the intention is impossible to miss. Maybe my memory of the novel is hazy (though I'm told by someone who reread it not long ago that it's pretty much the same as Brook's film), but even if it is I have no doubt that I'm reading Brook correctly, because I don't think you can read him incorrectly.bill r.https://www.blogger.com/profile/17748572205731857892noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2856547151523423474.post-78573574781150492542013-07-23T13:48:23.227-04:002013-07-23T13:48:23.227-04:00I'm not so sure. But even if I accepted the id...I'm not so sure. But even if I accepted the idea, there are other possible interpretations. Perhaps infinitely many, depending on how set you are on reading some intent into the material.<br /><br />The "savages" were mostly the older, stronger kids in the overall group. If anything, the face painting would suggest to me they were finding the whole situation a bit of a lark, that they were playing at fierce hunters and probably enjoyed putting a scare into the other group.<br /><br />And that other group was mainly just a bunch of little boys, the youngest, the weakest and the most timid of the bunch. Social outcasts, in effect, most of whom, unwilling or unable to fend for themselves, ended up joining with Jack's bunch by the end of the book, I believe.<br /><br />To me, if there's a lesson to be found there (not that I tend to care even when there is), it's about the corrupting influence of power, the strong preying on the weak, by force or by rigging the system to serve their own purposes, a situation that no civilization on earth has been immune to, or probably ever will.Johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05364322006357208797noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2856547151523423474.post-26516046336687481792013-07-22T21:33:09.842-04:002013-07-22T21:33:09.842-04:00But only the "bad" kids put on the paint...But only the "bad" kids put on the paint, only the ones who are shown to tip fully over into "savage." It's clearly intended to mean something.bill r.https://www.blogger.com/profile/17748572205731857892noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2856547151523423474.post-61802373232248344312013-07-22T20:20:18.202-04:002013-07-22T20:20:18.202-04:00I didn't know you felt that way about the book...I didn't know you felt that way about the book, Bill. It surprises me a little, because for me it's one of the first books I remember where I really felt like the characters I was reading about came alive, in a way. As little people with minds of their own, rather than just a bunch of names being shuffled around by the author. Kind of like watching a bunch of bugs trapped in a jar, each a different mix of confusion, fear, and just plain meanness, the group dynamics seeming to arise naturally from this spread of personalities. All the more impressive to me now, considering the story's strong allegorical overtones (though how much of that reputation, I now wonder, was intended by Golding, and how much of it has just been imposed on the book by decades of grade-school-level analysis).<br /><br />The movie I don't have much recollection of, though I must have seen it a couple of times (none of the other versions, though, I'm pretty sure). In any case, I don't recall feeling any more enthusiastic about it than yourself.<br /><br />But your remarks about the war paint and so on seem a little unfair. These are a bunch of kids we're talking about here, after all. Even with only your description to go on, I figure it's just the kind of thing kids (especially kids at an age when they probably still play "cowboys'n'indians" or whatever) would be likely to do, in that situation, without giving much thought to the matter.Johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05364322006357208797noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2856547151523423474.post-89839939067090696732013-07-22T08:13:55.310-04:002013-07-22T08:13:55.310-04:00Oops...Oops...bill r.https://www.blogger.com/profile/17748572205731857892noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2856547151523423474.post-28730727562642044722013-07-22T07:28:26.541-04:002013-07-22T07:28:26.541-04:00"what it comes down to is using something tha..."what it comes down to is using something that is observable as fuel for an allegory and fueling something that is observable with genuine understanding. Lord of the Flies does the latter."<br /><br />Unless my brain is fried, I think you mean 'former', not 'latter'.Jonathan Stoverhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07751600613741713162noreply@blogger.com