The Book Tower

• Since picking up William Golding’s Lord of the Flies I’ve been looking for symbolism in the novel. This dates back to my subjection to The Spire as as A level English student. According to my Golding-mad teacher, everything in that book was symbolic. So with Lord of the Flies I’m thinking about the meaning of the boys and their roles, the island, the fire, the wild pigs. Even the palm trees on the island caught my attention. Golding describes them as growing to a certain height and then falling to the ground, the sand unable to support them any more. Something to do with the future of the shipwrecked boys?
• I’m already worried about Piggy. If first impressions really count, he’s doomed right from the start. Unjustly given a name he will never shake off in the first few pages, this boy only appears useful for the strong lenses in his glasses used to relight the fire on the mountain when it burns out. If natural selection plays its part, this boy isn’t going to get out of there alive.

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Most people probably know that Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? was turned into the film Bladerunner. The novel was published in 1968, although the film wasn’t released until 1982, just a few months after the author’s death. So Dick didn’t get to see this cinematic reworking of his future, along with other films based on his work (Total Recall in 1990 and Minority Report in 2002).

Continue reading From the Stacks: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?