- Paperback: 240 pages
- Publisher: Faber and Faber; New edition edition (7 April 2005)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0571225470
- ISBN-13: 978-0571225477
- Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.4 x 2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 166,090 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
'An astonishing and original tour de force ... Golding is a genius.' Daily Telegraph
When the spring came the people - what was left of them - moved back by the old paths from the sea. But this year strange things were happening, terrifying things that had never happened before. Inexplicable sounds and smells; new, unimaginable creatures half glimpsed through the leaves. What the people didn't, and perhaps never would, know, was that the day of their people was already over.
From the author of Lord of the Flies, The Inheritors is a startling recreation of the lost world of the Neanderthals, and a frightening vision of the beginnings of a new age.
About the Author
William Golding was born in Cornwall in 1911 and was educated at Marlborough Grammar School and at Brasenose College, Oxford. Before he became a schoolmaster he was an actor, a lecturer, a small-boat sailor and a musician. A now rare volume, Poems, appeared in 1934. In 1940 he joined the Royal Navy and saw action against battleships, and also took part in the pursuit of the Bismarck. He finished the war as a Lieutenant in command of a rocket ship, which was off the French coast for the D-Day invasion, and later at the island of Welcheren. After the war he returned to Bishop Wordsworth's School in Salisbury and was there when his first novel, Lord of the Flies, was published in 1954. He gave up teaching in 1961. Lord of the Flies was filmed by Peter Brook in 1963. Golding listed his hobbies as music, chess, sailing, archaeology and classical Greek (which he taught himself). Many of these subjects appear in his essay collections The Hot Gates and A Moving Target. He won the Booker Prize for his novel Rites of Passage in 1980, and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1983. He was knighted in 1988. He died at his home in the summer of 1993. The Double Tongue, a novel left in draft at his death, was published in June 1995.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
21 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I have never been a huge fan of William Golding, to be honest, and I never managed to finish Lord of the Flies.
Being older and wiser I decided to try again, as so much has been written and broadcast about Golding, I thought it was worth another reading.
The inheritors is, from one point of view, a very simple story. It tells of a small Neanderthal family group, who make their way back to their normal Summer hunting and living area after the winter has passed. At first all seems as it should, but then people start to disappear, movements and fires are seen where there should be none, and finally - well I'll leave that for you to enjoy for yourself.
Basically, it tells of the destruction of the Neanderthal people by us, that is to say Homo Sapiens. The language is difficult, but for me that enhances rather than detracts from the experience, as I feel I am actually having to work through the story inside the head of a different thinking human being.
We'll never know, of course, how accurate this is, but it is a very captivating book, and one which has made me thing seriously about having another crack at Lord of the Flies.
One of the most telling sentences in the book is spoken by Lok, a Neanderthal, who looks at the way these new people ravage and consume the earth for their own ends, without a thought to the consequences, and says, simply "they are like a winter".
Brilliant stuff and highly recommended.
Being older and wiser I decided to try again, as so much has been written and broadcast about Golding, I thought it was worth another reading.
The inheritors is, from one point of view, a very simple story. It tells of a small Neanderthal family group, who make their way back to their normal Summer hunting and living area after the winter has passed. At first all seems as it should, but then people start to disappear, movements and fires are seen where there should be none, and finally - well I'll leave that for you to enjoy for yourself.
Basically, it tells of the destruction of the Neanderthal people by us, that is to say Homo Sapiens. The language is difficult, but for me that enhances rather than detracts from the experience, as I feel I am actually having to work through the story inside the head of a different thinking human being.
We'll never know, of course, how accurate this is, but it is a very captivating book, and one which has made me thing seriously about having another crack at Lord of the Flies.
One of the most telling sentences in the book is spoken by Lok, a Neanderthal, who looks at the way these new people ravage and consume the earth for their own ends, without a thought to the consequences, and says, simply "they are like a winter".
Brilliant stuff and highly recommended.
17 of 19 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
When Spring comes back, the people return to their cave. Incredibly, things have changed. A log that bridged a marsh has disappeared. Food, that was once plentiful, has become scarce. And then one by one, the people themselves begin to disappear.
The people are Neanderthal, about to have their first contact with Homo Sapiens who will destroy them. The story is told through Lok, who by his own admission, "has few pictures in his head"; Golding imagines the Neanderthals as both verbally very limited and extremely conservative in their mental abilities. Though it is testament to his skill as a writer that this does not render them unsympathetic to a modern reader, it does mean that it can be hard work to figure out exactly what is going on, particularly when we observe the 'new people' through the eyes of the Neanderthals, and see just how incomprehensible drinking from a wineskin, hunting ceremonies or just arguing can become.
This is probably a book that one will either love or hate. As I read it just after the insipid novels of Jean Auel, I loved it. The thrill of discovering a totally new world (mine of the Neanderthals, as well as theirs of the new people) at the same time as knowing that these beautiful people were doomed, was quite incredibly moving.
Not for those requiring a fast plot and lots of sex, but for anyone who has ever paused to think whilst reading a book, deeply recommended.
The people are Neanderthal, about to have their first contact with Homo Sapiens who will destroy them. The story is told through Lok, who by his own admission, "has few pictures in his head"; Golding imagines the Neanderthals as both verbally very limited and extremely conservative in their mental abilities. Though it is testament to his skill as a writer that this does not render them unsympathetic to a modern reader, it does mean that it can be hard work to figure out exactly what is going on, particularly when we observe the 'new people' through the eyes of the Neanderthals, and see just how incomprehensible drinking from a wineskin, hunting ceremonies or just arguing can become.
This is probably a book that one will either love or hate. As I read it just after the insipid novels of Jean Auel, I loved it. The thrill of discovering a totally new world (mine of the Neanderthals, as well as theirs of the new people) at the same time as knowing that these beautiful people were doomed, was quite incredibly moving.
Not for those requiring a fast plot and lots of sex, but for anyone who has ever paused to think whilst reading a book, deeply recommended.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
An incredibly powerful imagining of prehistorical human lives. Bristles with sensory information and creates a world that's utterly alien. Stupendous.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Beautiful, imaginative and important
This is a work of considerable imagination and tense prose and provokes a new way of considering the plight of weak minorities. It is also an exciting story. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Ashencrump
not great
Like other people who read this, I found it a bit heavy going and slow. Worse, I didn't find the depiction of the Neanderthals convincing at all. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Jason
Difficult
It is a difficult to read book. I could hardly make myself to continue after few first pages. At first I had to go back and read again to understand what I'd just read. Read more
Published 16 months ago by Lana
sheer power of vision
The imagination, and the ability to make you feel inside the protagonist are breathtaking. Towards the ending, the 'camera', which has been so close and intimate, suddenly turns... Read more
Published 16 months ago by Nonvegetarian
lucy port
Not much to say about this,very very dull. I gave up all hope with reading it to the end.Maybe its just me! I have read some of his other books and i thought they were dull to! Read more
Published on 16 Aug 2008 by lucy port
GREAT BOOK
I was looking for this book yesterday in a major bookstore that will remain nameless (ryhmes with daughterstones lol)but couldn't find it, disgusting!! Read more
Published on 7 April 2007 by Mr. Benjamin M. Wright
Another excellent Golding novel
This is my third Golding novel as I make my way through his complete works. The Inheritors was Golding's first novel and apparently his personal favourite. Read more
Published on 16 Aug 2006 by Philip Murray
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