The Inheritors by William Golding: book review

The Inheritors (1955, this edition 2012) is William Golding’s second novel, after his successful Lord of the Flies, but it is the novel he regarded as his best, although I still prefer Lord of the Flies (1954) and Free Fall (1959).

Set on an island, the Neanderthals – the gatherers with the language of telepathy, gestures, and dance – are confronted by the advent of the new people, the Homo sapiens.

The Neanderthals practice shamanism and worship the matriarchal ‘ice’ goddess Oa. Life was fulfilled until the new people abduct a Neanderthal baby called Ha. The first half of the book is about the Neanderthals before the arrival of the new people, and the second half is about ‘life changes.’

The island themes of civilisation and savagery in Lord of the Flies are repeated (as are survival, isolation, integration, and conformity). These themes are extended to the ‘evolutionary life-force’ which drives the new people upwards, higher than the Neanderthals. Newton’s second law of thermodynamics is applied, which implies that everything runs down and finally stops ‘like an unwound clock.’

The central symbol is the waterfall. Nature too – the life of the stream, rain, sea, fire, flames, sun, wind, and rocks. The pictures, the knowledge, and the thinking – are all elements of civilisation, and different ways of communicating, living, and surviving. With the onset of the new people the Neanderthals must compete, bringing conflict and evolutionary changes: ‘certain things were gone and done with like a wave of the sea … the misery must be embraced painfully as a man might hug thorns to him and it sought to comprehend the new people from whom all changes came.’

The novels explores an ‘us versus them’ mentality – the similarities – the ‘likeness’ of the two civilisations, but also the differences. There are both good and bad aspects to the new people – attracting and repelling the Neanderthals simultaneously: ‘the new people are like a wolf and honey … like a fire in the forest.’

Simple concept, timeless themes.

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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