The beast eating our lives is cheered on by our dark souls

If I was to be the person to recommend only one book that everyone should read, it would be William Golding’s Lord of the Flies (1954). Over the past six decades, I have been privileged to read hundreds of books – thousands, even. And I have collected many more thousands. I hope someone will find the time to read them, perhaps my grandchildren, or great grandchildren, I don’t know. 

Of all these volumes, Lord of the Flies has captured my imagination more than any other book. It only comes second to the Bible, perhaps because of the central theme in both literatures. Both focus on the strife between good and evil, and the tendency of evil to dominate good. Religion attempts to give us comfort that often carries us away from the world we live in. It promises us eternal happiness in a different universe. In a sense, religion is itself in a state of surrender to earthly evil.