The Inheritors

So yesterday I mentioned that I was some way down on my usual book tally this year - mainly due to the stresses of the house move, I was so wound up for a few months at the beginning of the year I couldn't concentrate to read any books. Anyway, having finished all the massive Song of Ice and Fire tomes, I've turned to some shorter books to get my count up (although most books are shorter than the George RR Martin ones!).

The other week in the Big Issue magazine there was a really interesting article about William Golding's less well known second novel The Inheritors, which sounded really interesting. So I duly reserved a copy from the library and have finished it over the weekend. It's quite a poignant story - Golding imagines what it might have been like for the Neanderthals to encounter homo sapiens, and writes from the Neanderthal point of view. I won't go into the details, but I came away feeling sad for them, not being able to compete with the (slightly evil) "modern" men. I heard that Golding was interested in the problem of evil, which is clearly a major theme in his most famous work Lord of the Flies. It's also a theme in the inheritors, with the Neanderthals painted as (relatively) simple but loving and honest, who are attracted, confused and afraid of the more complicated and aggressive homo sapiens. I'm glad I read it.