To The Ends Of The Earth

[poliphilo]

William Golding's Lord of the Flies is read in schools, but the rest of his novels are a minority taste.

Maybe this will change now the BBC has filmed his trilogy, To The Ends of the Earth.

Set on board a clapped-out man-of-war turned emigrant ship at the close of the Napoleonic era, To the Ends of the Earth is a bracing riposte to the Hornblower mythos. The cabins drip, the bilges stink and the sailors are into buggery. The characters are all flawed in unlikeable ways. The hero is callow, arrogant, snooty and unfeeling.

The film gives us the creased uniforms and sweaty faces but misses out on Golding's poetic intensity. It's less visual than the book, less cinematic. We get lots of reading aloud from journals but only odd, perfunctory glimpses of sea and sky. The book deals with sex, class and the romantic imagination; the film deals with sex and class.

I'll watch the next two episodes. But what I really want to do right now is go out and buy the novels.

Comments

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

I just found out what is happening in London--so awful.

Thinking of you today-Jackie

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

I just watched Bergman's Autumn Sonata.

What a beautiful face Ingrid Bergman has! And what an actress!

I hear that Bergman wants to direct another movie. Wouldn't that be great?

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

Oh my goodness. First of all, it's difficult to know what to say about the attacks in London. I too am thinking about you.

I have no wish to read this book. I read Lord of the Flies and hated it. Not because it wasn't well written, but because of the subject. I found it very upsetting....

[zen-punk.livejournal.com]

Erm, what is buggery?

What's going on in London? Was there a terrorist attack? I hadn't heard anything until I saw the comments.

[ex-kharin447.livejournal.com]

I wrote a review of The Spire and Pincher Martin a few weeks ago:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/kharin/79353.html

There are some plot spoilers for Pincher Martin though.