A review by neonskylite
The Inheritors by William Golding

challenging mysterious sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

This book was harder to read than Riddley Walker, a book entirely written in a decayed form of English.

I picked this up because I have an interest in prehistoric humans and as part of a readathon. If the readathon's rules let me get points from a book I didn't finish I would have DNFed by Chapter 5. You can see some interesting flashes of Golding's Neanderthals (they are mildly telepathic, they worship glaciers, they are almost entirely herbivorous but scavenge meat) underneath his prose written to emulate their speech which manages to be both sparse and completely unclear at some critical moments of action - a character died but I didn't know how or where she was dying to the point I had three different explanations in my mind, and at the climax there are two characters who I think are supposed to be dead but almost fell out of the narrative entirely.

At the end of this book, the main character

gives up and lies in a ditch in despair

which I felt like doing when finishing it. Maybe it is due to me being one of those cruel murderous Homo sapiens who couldn't connect with the Neanderthals but I will forget Lok and everything about him by tomorrow.