King's introduction to new edition of Lord of the Flies

[mae]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/apr/11/stephen-king-william-golding-centenary


Both are famous for chronicling the darker side of adolescence, but where William Golding won a Nobel prize for his work, so far Stephen King has had to settle for bestsellerdom. Now King is writing a new introduction to Golding's seminal novel Lord of the Flies, as part of celebrations later this summer to mark 100 years since Golding's birth.

King rarely contributes introductions but, said publisher Faber & Faber, jumped at the chance to write one for Lord of the Flies when he was approached. The bestselling horror writer named Castle Rock, the fictional Maine town which features in many of his books, after the area that Jack makes his fort in Golding's novel, while a copy of Golding's book plays a role in King's novel Hearts in Atlantis.

"The dark powers of childhood are what King has been so interested in writing about," said Hannah Griffiths, who is publishing the book for Faber in August. "We only approached him because we knew he loved the book – writers like him must get 50 requests a day. [But] he was back on email really quickly and said 'I don't do a lot of these but this one I've got to do'."

King delivered his introduction ahead of deadline, and has written about how he first came across and read Lord of the Flies as well as giving his critical perspective on the novel. "It's quite autobiographical," said Griffiths, who described the introduction as "beyond my wildest dreams". There are "so many boring combos" of authors and introductions out there, she added, but King and Golding "is just the best combination of writers ever".

Faber hopes the new introduction, and a fresh look for the book, will send Lord of the Flies to the top of the book charts again, 57 years after it was first published in 1954. "We sell a lot of copies every year of Lord of the Flies [but] our goal in July is to make it a bestseller again," said Griffiths.

The publisher is also marking the centenary of Golding's birth with a new edition of his novel The Inheritors, with an introduction by John Carey, as well as a memoir by his daughter Judy Golding, The Children of Lovers, which is published in May. In addition, it will open its archives for a Golding exhibition this autumn.


http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Y6J601f4L.jpg

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0571273572/
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0571273572/

[harrison ryan]

Sweet! That's one of my favorite books. I can't wait to see what King did with it, especially since they describe his contribution as "quite autobiographical."

[mae]

Too bad it looks like it's only out in paperback and in the UK.

[Ben Staad]

Too bad it looks like it's only out in paperback and in the UK.

That's allright! SK's new introduction will make an all time classic even that much better regardless of format. :unsure:

[Bev Vincent]

From the London Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/authorinterviews/8653066/Stephen-King-on-Lord-of-the-Flies.html). This is an edited version of the introduction to Lord of the Flies (Faber), republished to celebrate William Golding’s centenary.

[mikeC]

I always wondered if Golding was the author SK mentioned in On Writing that was a real disappointment in meeting b/c he was such an ass to him.

[Ben Staad]

Thanks Bev!! This is a fantastic introduction to a wonderful book...After reading this I have to buy this edition :)

[DoctorDodge]

I studied it in high school. Several times, in fact, and not by choice, so I kinda got fed up with it for a while. But remembering how great it was - how dark, how violent, how brilliant - makes me think that I need to read it again. I'll keep an eye out for that edition. Cheers for the link, Bev!

[you ever seen a ghost?]

can anyone tell me if this is in the physical edition of the newspaper?

-justin

[mae]

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2011/07/stephen-king-william-golding-and-the-tree-of-life.html

The Telegraph has published an especially fine essay by Stephen King, excerpted from his introduction to a new edition of William Golding’s “Lord of the Flies.” In it, King writes about growing up in rural New England, where “there were more cows than people” and where books were delivered once a month by a woman in a green van called the State of Maine Bookmobile. It was there, at the age of twelve, that he was first given “Lord of the Flies” by the bookmobile driver, as a response to the remembered question: “Do you have any stories about how kids really are?”

In the novel’s pages, he found:
a perfect understanding of the sort of beings my friends and I were at 12 or 13, untouched by the usual soft soap and deodorant. Could we be good? Yes. Could we be kind? Yes again. Could we, at the turn of a moment, become little monsters? Indeed we could. And did. At least twice a day and far more frequently on summer vacations, when we were often left to our own devices.

King recalls the feelings of excitement and liberation, and then of grim terror, that he felt while reading “Lord of the Flies” for the first time. His description of his childhood, and of the self-discovery (of things good as well as bad) that children experience when “left to [their] own devices,” put me in mind of Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life,” which I’ve been thinking about a lot since I saw it last week.

Some critics have accused Malick of sentimentality (or, even, of reactionary politics) in his depiction of childhood in nineteen-fifties suburban Texas, where mothers wear clean aprons over crisp, line-dried dresses, and nobody locks their front or back doors. Yet that sweeping dismissal misses the vibrant dread that runs through even the most idyllic of Malick’s images of boyhood. Captured deep within the slants of perfect evening light, of shuffling rivers, of sun-dappled water coming from a garden hose are the darker secrets of consciousness that every boy and girl discovers—that is when they are given the space to explore. (That space exists today as it did in the nineteen-fifties, or can exist, and advocating for it as an absolute necessity of growing up, and exploring its power in reality and memory through art, does not necessarily make the artist a mid-century sentimentalist or an Eisenhower apologist or some kind of provincial rube.)

Any assembly of misbehaving boys is now likely to make us think of “Lord of the Flies,” so absorbed is that novel in our collective sense about the evil that lurks in the hearts of young men. And so that story came to mind when I saw the scene in “The Tree of Life” in which neighborhood boys get together to smash windows and the young protagonist, Jack, egged on by his peers, hitches a frog to a rocket and sends him, as one young boy exclaims “to the moon.” A far more ambiguous scene of violence, however, takes place in a quiet moment between Jack and his younger brother, when Jack lures him into putting his finger over the end of the muzzle of a BB gun. It is brutal and shocking then, coming as it does amidst the movie’s surface-level stasis, when Jack pulls the trigger, revealing his power to hurt, and later, in an equally unsettling scene of forgiveness, his power to command love.

Golding’s novel, King’s memory of reading it, and Malick’s are discrete distillations of childhood, reflecting the preoccupations of their creators, and in their evocation of particularity they move toward common experience, or as King writes, showing us, if such a thing is possible, “how kids really are.”

[Mr. Rabbit Trick]

I noticed today, that this book is now in the third printing!

[needfulthings]

Guess I lucked out the one I got yesterday from the U.K. was a 1st.

[Mr. Rabbit Trick]

Mine too. I got it last week.

[mae]

Paperback = not interested. :nope:

[Mr. Rabbit Trick]

It's interesting to see the differences from the UK newspaper version. They have corrected King's grammer in a few places.

[DanishCollector]

What's the title of this intro in the actual newspaper?

[Mr. Rabbit Trick]

Stephen King on 'Lord of the Flies'

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/authorinterviews/8653066/Stephen-King-on-Lord-of-the-Flies.html

[DanishCollector]

And that's also the title in the actual newspaper? I notice they often re-title them when they appear online.

[Mr. Rabbit Trick]

Sorry, I can't confirm that. I do not have the newspaper version.

[mae]

It was first published in the UK, but now there is a US edition. Still paperback though: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0399537422/

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