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A review by bookscatsandjazz
The Inheritors by William Golding
5.0
In The Inheritors we follow the disastrous first contact between a tribe of neanderthals and a tribe of homo sapiens. The story is told from the point of view of the neanderthals (focusing especially on a male called Lok), and Golding is quite successful in limiting his descriptions to their rather incomplete understanding of what's taking place.
The overall effect of this viewpoint is both heartbreaking and disorienting and, at several points in the story, I found myself just as confused as Lok. As we powerlessly watch the dawn of this tribe, an undeniable pessimism about the human nature can be seen in Golding's writing - but he manages to inject some hope and nuance in the story through his powerful and touching ending.
As a side note, I was pleasantly surprised (this being a book by a classic white male writer) by how Fa, the main female character, is portrayed. At the beginning of the story we see that the tribe adheres to somewhat strict gender roles. But once Lok and Fa need to survive on their own, it quickly becomes clear that this model isn't particularly well suited to their specific skills, and they are forced to adapt. And BOY would things have ended up better if Lok had fully followed Fa's lead.
The overall effect of this viewpoint is both heartbreaking and disorienting and, at several points in the story, I found myself just as confused as Lok. As we powerlessly watch the dawn of this tribe, an undeniable pessimism about the human nature can be seen in Golding's writing - but he manages to inject some hope and nuance in the story through his powerful and touching ending.
As a side note, I was pleasantly surprised (this being a book by a classic white male writer) by how Fa, the main female character, is portrayed. At the beginning of the story we see that the tribe adheres to somewhat strict gender roles. But once Lok and Fa need to survive on their own, it quickly becomes clear that this model isn't particularly well suited to their specific skills, and they are forced to adapt. And BOY would things have ended up better if Lok had fully followed Fa's lead.