The Inheritors: Introduced by Ben Okri

Lovely book and well worth reading.

I read this for a second time recently, and the second reading didn't quite live up to the first. I first read it as a sixth-form A level text and remember how vivid the imagery was and recall marvelling at how Golding had written a book about a tribe of pre-language people which felt so visceral and real. On the first reading I remember almost being able to smell the primeval mud and marvelled at the way he described a flight of arrows fired from a competing tribe and other 'new' things, without having a ready-made context or dictionary of language with which to describe them. As I say the second reading didn't quite deliver that same level of resonance, but perhaps my initial reading had grown nostalgically in my imagination in the intervening years and I'm judging it too harshly. I still think it is a brilliantly crafted novel and one of the most inventive contemporary reads around.

Writing from the mind and perceptions of the last of the Neandertals as the face Homo Sapiens is a challenge few could have mastered as well as this. But for me the narrative moves too slowly. There are nearly 40 pages of description of what two people see whilst they are sitting in a tree. Too slow for me. Felt for the characters, but in the end they didn't come alive for me. Learned a lot though.

I first read this book aged about 15 and am now (ahem) quite a bit older. I've read a very tattered copy of this book several times over the years and have now bought a version for my kindle. Every time I read 'The Inheritors', I find it difficult to put the book down and integrate with my modern life. I love the way the the nature of the main characters is revealed to the reader as these characters are also discovering new people. You yearn for Lok and his family group to be more cautious, more savvy, but only Fa can piece together enough 'pictures' in her mind to possibly salvage the most desperate situation. Despite being written over 55 years ago, 'The Inheritors' is a book bringing pre-history to life in a way that, I understand, is still consistent with modern thinking on neanderthals. The author successfully demonstrates how similar the neanderthals are to modern man. Once again, after reading this book, I wonder how much they might have developed if individuals with the relative genius of Fa had existed. You've got to love a good story that makes you reflect on the big stuff in life!

There are some books that you come across which you know are powerhouses in the literary world and which I would love to say I really enjoyed, but the fact is that they merely serve as proof that I am no literary critic. Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall would be a modren example for me, and The Inheritors is another. I not only found the language of the book difficult, I also didn't feel that it added anything and instead found particular phrases repetitive and annoying to the extent that seeing the line "I have a picture" coming along caused a sense of dread. I can recall other books written in slightly challenging styles for effect that really worked for me. Ridley Walker by Russell Hoban for example or The Gospel According To Jesus Christ by Jose Saramango, but Golding's book just irritated me for the most part. i have read about what i was supposed to be able to get from this (insight into the dreadful things that human beings are etc), but this was just hidden too obscurely for me by the writing style. I couldn't get any pictures in my own head of the Neanderthals, the Homo Sapiens, the place, nothing, and for me that made it hard to get much from. I struggled my way to the end and put the book down with a real sense of relief that I had finished and, not for the first time, a nagging question as to why I had bothered to soldier on to the end.

Bizarre but not a bad read. Worth ploughing though it for the flashes of intense emotion and head-scratching reflection it engenders.

My first urge is to stress that it is NOT a novel about Neanderthals. Everyone seems to believe so, and perhaps even the Author was thinking about them when he was writing it, but that's just the result of old misconceptions and the lack of data in the 1950s. Today we know that the Neanderthal people were not apes - they were, well, people. The primitive race described by Golding is much more ape-like. Having said that, it doesn't really mattter. They are not called Neanderthals in the book, because there is no-one in that world to call them so. Most of the book is written from the perspective of Lok, a male of 'the people' as they call themselves. It is gradually made clear throughout the book that their mental and physical capabilities are rather closer to those of the early Homo erectus than those of Homo sapiens. They have a limited control of fire; they are scavengers but not hunters; and they need to work their heads hard in order to come up with the simplest ideas. When they eventually come into contact with humans, they are completely overwhelmed by their ingenuity, resourcefulness, by their restlessness, violence, passion, fears and joys. It was an intense and surreal experience to look at the human race from the perspective of that primitive mind, to share its confusion, anxiety, fascination, and pain. I am in great awe of the Author who made it possible for me to really imagine how it felt in a simpler animal's mind. I am heartbroken for what befell Lok and his small tribe. I am deeply saddened, reflecting upon the human race capable of inflicting so much pain and despair on themselves and on others, not even because of malice, but because of fear, and because of being too smart for our own good. I'm still very glad of our existence. of our imagination, of our books. Some of them are very good. This is one of them.

I read this because despite his Nobel prize William Golding is seriously underrated or perhaps it is more a case of under read. For a short book this has an ambitious aim- to ask what it is to be human in a way which avoids the intercession of our own feelings and opinions. The device Golding uses- a portrayal of the world from people close but not quite human and their perception of us- is brilliant. Therein lies the originality. It is so well done l found it difficult to understand the world of Lok, just as he found it difficult to comprehend our world.