A cop in a colonized territory, no less! and he writes so well about the excitement and the degradation of having that kind of power. I didn't encounter anything like that again until much later in Paul Scott's Raj Quartet.
What is your take on Lord of the Flies? I think it's not supposed to be about human nature, but the writer originally meant it to be a devastating portrayal of the ruling British upper class. (Proof: David Cameron, Boris Johnson, need I go on....) But instead it gets turned into like "Rousseau was WRONG!" and IDEFK. (It was interesting, altho overlooked by most outlets I saw, that the "anti Lord-of-the-Flies" Triumph of the Human Spirit story that was being linked everywhere, was about Australian kids escaping a (probably culture-erasing) boarding school. Not a whole lot of assumed privilege there.
I know Heart of Darkness is supposedly about the evils of colonialism, but omfg I bounced off it every time I read it. (I bounced off a lot of Conrad, I don't even know why.) No Telephone to Heaven, otoh, was one of the first books I read (shamefully late) BY actual colonized people, with that stark slogan students tack up in response to a "KEEP BRITAIN WHITE" banner -- "as if in response, as if there could be a dialogue, a poster appeared the next day on a bulletin board: "WE ARE HERE BECAUSE YOU WERE THERE." Bam.
no subject
What is your take on Lord of the Flies? I think it's not supposed to be about human nature, but the writer originally meant it to be a devastating portrayal of the ruling British upper class. (Proof: David Cameron, Boris Johnson, need I go on....) But instead it gets turned into like "Rousseau was WRONG!" and IDEFK. (It was interesting, altho overlooked by most outlets I saw, that the "anti Lord-of-the-Flies" Triumph of the Human Spirit story that was being linked everywhere, was about Australian kids escaping a (probably culture-erasing) boarding school. Not a whole lot of assumed privilege there.
I know Heart of Darkness is supposedly about the evils of colonialism, but omfg I bounced off it every time I read it. (I bounced off a lot of Conrad, I don't even know why.) No Telephone to Heaven, otoh, was one of the first books I read (shamefully late) BY actual colonized people, with that stark slogan students tack up in response to a "KEEP BRITAIN WHITE" banner -- "as if in response, as if there could be a dialogue, a poster appeared the next day on a bulletin board: "WE ARE HERE BECAUSE YOU WERE THERE." Bam.