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When six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months (2020)

theguardian.com

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Re: When six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months (2020)

#91

Post by kuu »

lrem wrote: post #84
rossdavidh wrote: post #4

It's not quite as simple as "it works like 'Lord of the Flies' or it doesn't". Nicholas Christakis, in his book "Blueprint", devotes a chapter to a database that he and his grad students made of shipwrecks, where the survivors lived long enough, in enough isolation, that they had to more or less put together a temporary society. There were lots of cases where they turned on each other, and lots of cases where they di…

This review is obviously high effort. What's the incentive here? Is this what the community regularly does in Goodreads? Or are you somehow affiliated with the author and treat this as a favour?

I don't know why you're being downvoted when it's clear your question is out of curiosity.

High effort reviews are common on Goodreads, why? Because it's a community about passionate readers and probably those who write the very detailed reviews have enjoyed reading some other reviews and want to contribute back to the community. I think it's the same reason as people contributes to wikipedia: for the sake of sharing knowledge

Re: When six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months (2020)

#92

Post by goto11 »

beachy wrote: post #3

That's a wonderful story and and an uplifting rebuttal to Lord of the Flies. But to be fair, six Tongan boys were probably far hardier and well equipped than the typical British schoolboy of that time would have been. It seems they thought nothing of stealing a fishing boat and heading to sea, and they most likely had abundant life skills already - they basically relocated from life on one pacific island to another.…

There is a lot of complaining in this thread about English teachers over-interpreting literature. But I think it is pretty clear that the question Lord of the Flies tries to answer is not "what would happen to a bunch of boys stranded on an island?" but more like "how could the holocaust happen?".

The fact of the matter is that Nazism, WWII and the holocaust did happen and many people in 1954 was looking for some kind of explanation and understanding of how Europe could descend into barbarianism. Whether the book is insightful in its association between totalitarianism and tribalism and primitive religion is a different question.

The story is a "rebuttal" in the same way that it would be a rebuttal to Animal Farm to prove that pigs are not actually able to learn to walk on two legs.

Re: When six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months (2020)

#93

Post by rezic »

kuu wrote: post #91
lrem wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This review is obviously high effort. What's the incentive here? Is this what the community regularly does in Goodreads? Or are you somehow affiliated with the author and treat this as a favour?

I don't know why you're being downvoted when it's clear your question is out of curiosity. High effort reviews are common on Goodreads, why? Because it's a community about passionate readers and probably those who write the very detailed reviews have enjoyed reading some other reviews and want to contribute back to the community. I think it's the same reason as people contributes to wikipedia: for the sake of sharing…

It does come across somewhat accusatory. Without the suggested affiliation with the author it would sound less so.

Re: When six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months (2020)

#94

Post by robotmay »

Zamicol wrote: post #2

My high school's district required students to read The of Lord of the Flies. My freshmen English teacher hated the book so much he broke district requirements and told my class he was giving everyone A's on that assignment. He asked the class to read any substitute book in its place. To this day I still consider him to be a wise teacher.

What a dude. I too was forced to study that book in school and if my teacher would have let me do anything else they would have had my lifetime loyalty.

I hate that book.

Re: When six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months (2020)

#95

Post by jpttsn »

anotherman554 wrote: post #32
filleduchaos wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Distasteful" and "dumb" are far from the same thing, and the second world war happened for the former and not the latter.

It's a distinction without a difference- one could argue a less primitive species wouldn't have found itself caught in world wars. The man-children starting world wars are paralleled by the children-children killing each other on the island.

Your ”less primitive” species would have had what reason to split the atom?

Re: When six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months (2020)

#96

Post by Cthulhu_ »

axaxs wrote: post #63
beachy wrote: post #3

That's a wonderful story and and an uplifting rebuttal to Lord of the Flies. But to be fair, six Tongan boys were probably far hardier and well equipped than the typical British schoolboy of that time would have been. It seems they thought nothing of stealing a fishing boat and heading to sea, and they most likely had abundant life skills already - they basically relocated from life on one pacific island to another.…

This was my thought, as well. At the risk of sounding...I don't know some 'ist' word, people are just raised differently and the world varies so much. Picture you're on a beach, and behind you is a shirtless man with a machete. How you feel is completely dependent on where you are in the world. In LA, you'd run for cover. In south east Asia, it's Tuesday. I learned a lot from my travels, to back the adage about trave…

Yup, much as the world is becoming more and more culturally homogenous thanks to freely sharing information, there's still significant differences that shouldn't be underestimated.

I mean even though we consume the same media, I still strongly dislike many aspects of American culture.

Re: When six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months (2020)

#97

Post by jpttsn »

AbrahamParangi wrote: post #45
beachy wrote: post #3

That's a wonderful story and and an uplifting rebuttal to Lord of the Flies. But to be fair, six Tongan boys were probably far hardier and well equipped than the typical British schoolboy of that time would have been. It seems they thought nothing of stealing a fishing boat and heading to sea, and they most likely had abundant life skills already - they basically relocated from life on one pacific island to another.…

I think it's fair to say "don't bet against human ingenuity and spirit". I mean, we're here aren't we? We are alive, because of the will, intellect, and energy of those who came before us. Survival is essential to living things, so why expect that humans will degenerate to their worst in the absence of civilization rather than come together and make the best of it?

Those we ate to be alive are not.

I believe “human ingenuity and spirit” is not add odds with “our worst”.

Our most ingenious/sophisticated technology often works for its human wielder against their fellow humans.

Re: When six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months (2020)

#98

Post by jeffwass »

lumost wrote: post #29
Syonyk wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think it was all the deeper meaning analysis I was forced to do moreso than the book. It just seemed like we were going far beyond the author's intention in a joyless analysis exercise. That was literally my entire high school honors English program. You must interpret everything, to the satisfaction of the English teacher, or else. It quite reliably took people who absolutely loved reading and made them hate boo…

I recently learned that 19th century literature was often released one chapter at a time. This lead to substantial "filler" chapters which were required for the author to keep the story going. I sometimes wonder if at least some portion of literary analysis is equivalent to teaching contemporary fan theories while waiting for the next episode/sequel/release.

Stephen King released The Green Mile in serial form like this.

He said it was a major challenge because once the chapter is out there it’s committed, so you can’t go back and fix major plot holes that you didn’t foresee at the time.

Re: When six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months (2020)

#99

Post by eric-hu »

db48x wrote: post #83
edejong wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bit like modern television series, isn’t it?

Yes, a lot of modern television shows have been serial works rather than episodic ones. Babylon 5 comes to mind as one of the earliest serialized television shows, if not the earliest. Well, I suppose soap operas existed before that, but as far as I can tell they rarely had proper narrative endings; they were designed to last as many years as possible.

I was wondering why you wrote Babylon 5 when I can think of earlier long running shows, I.e. the original Star Trek, but I guess those are more like soap operas? Hm.

Re: When six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months (2020)

#100

Post by jgilias »

It shouldn't be glossed over that these were six boys from a boarding school on a getaway. So, unless there were only six pupils in the boarding school, it would mean that this was a group of boys who like and trust each other enough to let in on a plan which could get them into serious trouble if the wrong person found out about it. Also, the school being a boarding school implies that the group had a preexisting social structure, and that they had been literally living together before the event.

So, it's sort of a best case scenario of 'a group of boys forming a society on a deserted island'.

EDIT: Another commenter posted an audio interview with one of the survivors, highly recommended: https://www.rnz.co.nz/audio/player?audio_id=2018746636

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