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William Golding

The Inheritors Paperback – September 25, 1963

by William Golding (Author)

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Eight Neanderthals encounter another race of beings like themselves, yet strangely different. This new race, Homo sapiens, fascinating in their skills and sophistication, terrifying in their cruelty, sense of guilt, and incipient corruption, spell doom for the more gentle folk whose world they will inherit. Golding, author of Lord of the Flies, won the 1983 Nobel Prize for Literature.

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About the Author

Born in Cornwall, England, William Golding started writing at the age of seven. Though he studied natural sciences at Oxford to please his parents, he also studied English and published his first book, a collection of poems, before finishing college. He served in the Royal Navy during World War II, participating in the Normandy invasion. Golding's other novels include Lord of the Flies, The Inheritors, The Spire, Rites of Passage (Booker Prize), and The Double Tongue.

Series: Harvest Book
Paperback: 233 pages
Publisher: Harvest Books; First edition (September 25, 1963)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0156443791
ISBN-13: 978-0156443791
Product Dimensions: 0.8 x 5.2 x 7.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Customer Reviews: 78 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #875,706 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #3521 in Deals in Books
- #3797 in Classic American Literature
- #22844 in Classic Literature & Fiction

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5 star		36%
4 star		18%
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2 star		13%
1 star		11%

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Cleveland Confidential

Thank You Cleve Blakemore...

Reviewed in the United States on June 23, 2018

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

...for recommending this thought-provokingly wonderful story about the Neanderthals. I was able to see myself as one of them and experience also, their dismay at the subhuman spear invaders. Read this book -- it's sort of a pre-historic version of "Lonesome Dove!"

5 people found this helpful

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unhappy customer

Good, but boring

Reviewed in the United States on September 8, 2019

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

The book gave a tale of our ancestors as promised. It, however, was very confusing in some aspects of the inaccuracy. The bookshelf was pretty difficult to interpret and hard to keep up with all the characters. I wouldn’t recommend to anyone who doesn’t read on a very regular basis. Also, many of the characters were unnamed, causing a dissonance with caring about what would come to happen of them.

One person found this helpful

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Neil

I didn't like it at all at first

Reviewed in the United States on October 1, 2014

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

This is an older novel. I didn't like it at all at first: confusing to follow and know the main characters and their relationships to each other. But it is written from the point of view of the Neanderthal-like pre or very early homo sapiens, and I came to feel that even though there has been a lot of discoveries since this novel was written, it is quite a plausible understanding of both their and the early homo-sapiens advantages and disadvantages. By the end, I found it quite moving in the two species' reactions to each other.

7 people found this helpful

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New Mexico Dirtbags

Personal touch

Reviewed in the United States on January 31, 2020

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Great price, excellent condition, fast shipping... all the good stuff. The hand-written "thank you!" note from Rusty along with his personal email (in case I had issues or concerns) was icing on the cake, and it's this little touch that will make me inclined to think of Mockingbird Media in the future. Online shopping has all but destroyed local bookstores & the personal touch I miss, and I'm all about supporting small merchants who haven't lost the sense of importance (despite the size of their purchase) of treating each customer like they're valued & appreciated.

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Kindle Customer

Thought-provoking

Reviewed in the United States on August 28, 1998

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Golding takes us back to one of the earliest clashes between Homo sapiens and another culture, that of Homo neanderthalensis. In doing so, Golding seems to be pointing out that humanity's distrust of, and often violent response to, alien beings and ideas goes back a long, long time. The Neanderthals are the protagonists for most of this story and we see virtually all the action through their minds. They have a different way of thinking about the world in which they live and in communicating about it. They are the innocents who have the misfortune to encounter an encampment of Cro Magnon men. At the very end, Golding switches the point of view to the Cro Magnons and provides us with a different take on events.
As a teacher, I've found this to be a terrific novel for teaching about the clash of cultures, fearing what we don't understand, different ways of seeing, thinking about and imagining the world in which we live. Students never fail to enjoy it.

15 people found this helpful

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Dorothy-Jean Chapman

Entertaining, thought-worthy

Reviewed in the United States on April 10, 2019

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

I wanted a copy of my own in order to share with family and friends. The concept of cognition in early man is pure speculation based on their implements. Golding provides a perception of life among our ancestors.

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C. Collins

Fascinating parable about the nature of mankind

Reviewed in the United States on July 20, 2014

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

This is a unique and fascinating novel and demonstrates Golding’s inventive narrative powers. In this novel, the reader is taken into the lives and minds of very primitive men with few verbal skills but who have learned to live in harmony with the rough and challenging natural world. The story is told from the perspective of a family unit that spends the cold months by the ocean living on shellfish and then moving in the warm months into the mountains to escape the heat. They migrate to find food sources. They eat insects, often protein rich grub worms that they dig out of rotten trees. They worship a goddess they call the ice woman which appears to be a glacier which releases fresh water as the glacier gradually melts in the heat of summer. The melting glacial ice becoming fresh water streams is analogous to a nursing woman in their beliefs.

The story is told through the eyes of these people with their very basic linguistic skills and conceptualizations. Their thoughts are not complex and they indicate to each other their “pictures” or visions. They depend much more on sense of smell than do Homo sapiens. They refrain from killing large animals such as deer but will eat deer if it has been killed by a tiger or other large cat. They will frighten away hyenas from a kill to obtain the meat.

Golding is able to evoke the world prior to technology when conscious creatures were required to live in absolute harmony with changing seasons, plant life, and food sources. The natural world around them was the only information they had for survival and interpretation. This small band of eight Neanderthals, a family unit, is confronted with invading homo sapiens who have more advanced cognitive skills but who may have other negative traits and characteristics. This is the theme of the book, that homo sapiens can be a cruel and destructive force. We create painful weapons, we create and use alcohol and the negative consequences that follow, we think the natural world is there for our taking and entertainment as exemplified when the homo sapiens capture two Neanderthal children. Lok, the primary Neanderthal character, is amazed and mystified by the technologies of bow and arrow and the use of canoes and paddles for transportation. Lok continues to think the canoes are logs since he has difficulty mentally grasping the technology. But for the most part the Neanderthals are terrorized by the destructive force of the homo sapiens and it is to Golding’s credit that the reader absorbs this sense of terror and horror that the Neanderthal’s experience.

I found that I read the novel very fast and realized that the lack of complex dialogue and the dependence on the action of the characters accounted for this feeling that I was speeding through the novel. Golding takes the reader into the primitive mind of Lok and Fa and the way that they conceptualize their dilemma and the strategies they develop for survival are fascinating. Golding is able to create vivid characters without the use of complex verbalizations from these characters. However the underlying message of this novel is not lost and is a fascinating warning sign to modern man about our own destructive nature.

3 people found this helpful

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Randall Shepard

Great concept, but tough to do well

Reviewed in the United States on February 14, 2018

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Great concept, but tough to do well. Writing about a people who had no language to express their thoughts and actions. Golding did not write as an omniscient observer en toto but often tried to write as a Neanderthal which of course would be impossible.

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Judyta Szacillo

apes and humans

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 7, 2018

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My first urge is to stress that it is NOT a novel about Neanderthals. Everyone seems to believe so, and perhaps even the Author was thinking about them when he was writing it, but that's just the result of old misconceptions and the lack of data in the 1950s. Today we know that the Neanderthal people were not apes - they were, well, people. The primitive race described by Golding is much more ape-like.

Having said that, it doesn't really mattter. They are not called Neanderthals in the book, because there is no-one in that world to call them so. Most of the book is written from the perspective of Lok, a male of 'the people' as they call themselves. It is gradually made clear throughout the book that their mental and physical capabilities are rather closer to those of the early Homo erectus than those of Homo sapiens. They have a limited control of fire; they are scavengers but not hunters; and they need to work their heads hard in order to come up with the simplest ideas. When they eventually come into contact with humans, they are completely overwhelmed by their ingenuity, resourcefulness, by their restlessness, violence, passion, fears and joys.

It was an intense and surreal experience to look at the human race from the perspective of that primitive mind, to share its confusion, anxiety, fascination, and pain. I am in great awe of the Author who made it possible for me to really imagine how it felt in a simpler animal's mind. I am heartbroken for what befell Lok and his small tribe. I am deeply saddened, reflecting upon the human race capable of inflicting so much pain and despair on themselves and on others, not even because of malice, but because of fear, and because of being too smart for our own good.

I'm still very glad of our existence. of our imagination, of our books. Some of them are very good. This is one of them.

8 people found this helpful

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Review of novel

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 17, 2019

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Quite slow in places and it takes awhile to get used to the strange names but this is quite a good novel. The last 2 chapters change things quite a lot. It’s a typical study book, by that I mean it’s the kind of thing you read for A level English Literature.

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Miss S. Brittlegill

Unusual book, well worth a read. Thought provoking.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 1, 2014

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This was recommended by a friend as we were discussing how we had both been forced to read 'Lord of the Flies' at school. This book is a better read, in many ways. It deals with a clash of cultures, in essence, and how progress has winners and losers. The focus of the book is a male 'neanderthal', though this is never stated, and his loss of the tribe to the new usurpers, whose speech and tool-making abilities give them the edge when it comes to survival in a world of limited resources.
Many modern parallels, if you think about it. Enjoyed reading it.

2 people found this helpful

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Sophia Lorenzo

Revisited classic

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 26, 2019

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

A book I read many years ago and enjoyed reading again.

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Eric A Schuss

Read this great novel

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 22, 2015

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

I thought this was a really important novel. It works reasonably well as a story, but seeing the world only through Lok's eyes is a disadvantage. But the essential idea, that early humans, or humanoids, night have been a peaceful community, like bonobo apes, if nasty homo sapiens hadn't come along, is brilliant.

One person found this helpful

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AMC

Rather strange

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 7, 2019

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Found it quite hard work

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gabrielle macdonald

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 28, 2015

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

excellently written

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I S H

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 25, 2014

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Amazing book! I see something new in it every time I read it.

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Scraggsville

Four Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 30, 2015

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

As good as Lord of the Flies in my opinion.. Wrote in a interesting way

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crazy72

The novel is confusing me... I want reading other stone age novels...

Reviewed in Germany on November 11, 2019

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I am not a native english speaker but i read a lot of english books. I am not shure i understood William Golding's "The inheritors". It seems the neanderthal people have visions or a kind of telekinese power. This was very confusing to me. I stopped reading after page 70

Reading about Jean Auel's earth children ist better for understanding. I read 3 books of this series (but there are supernatural events with the shamans and i want reading realistic novels without fantasy elements).

So i can recommend Bernard Cornwell's "Stonehenge". This is a great novel from the stone age. It was exciting and has also topics to think about in the present.

Have someone ideas about other stone age novels?

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John Moseley

Welcome to the beginning of the world

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 13, 2010

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I read this for a second time recently, and the second reading didn't quite live up to the first. I first read it as a sixth-form A level text and remember how vivid the imagery was and recall marvelling at how Golding had written a book about a tribe of pre-language people which felt so visceral and real. On the first reading I remember almost being able to smell the primeval mud and marvelled at the way he described a flight of arrows fired from a competing tribe and other 'new' things, without having a ready-made context or dictionary of language with which to describe them.

As I say the second reading didn't quite deliver that same level of resonance, but perhaps my initial reading had grown nostalgically in my imagination in the intervening years and I'm judging it too harshly. I still think it is a brilliantly crafted novel and one of the most inventive contemporary reads around.

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Mac McAleer

First contact

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 10, 2012

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WORDS
This was supposed to be William Golding's favourite book. It describes the arrival of modern humans, their effect on the Neanderthals and how the Neanderthals perceived the new neighbours.

Our understanding of the Neanderthals has improved since this book was first published, but that is not really what this book is about. It is about trying to understand our close relatives and comparing how they see the world with how we see it. The Neanderthals thought they understood the world and we think we know better, but how much do we really understand?

This is an exercise in getting inside the mind of not just a set of characters, but characters who have literally a different mind-set. Unfortunately, I was often as baffled as the Neanderthals. Do not read it too fast. If you read it quickly you will have words but no pictures. If you read it slowly, you will have many pictures.

PICTURES
The people moved along the trail from the winter place in the cave by the beach at the sea to the summer place on the terrace by the river below the overhang. There was Mal who could join a picture to a picture. There was Ha who had many pictures but few words. There was Lok who had many words but few pictures. There was the old woman who carried the fire. There was Fa, Nil, the new one, Liku who was little, and Oa.

Ha, Nil and the new one went to the forest for wood for the fire. They separated. When Ha did not return Nil followed the Ha scent to the cliff where the Ha scent stopped but where there was the scent of another, not of the people. Ha was gone. Mal was old and died. The people buried Mal on the terrace by the overhang. Lok searched for Ha. On the island in the river, where the people could not go, Lok saw smoke from a fire. These were new people. Lok saw the new people sitting on logs, digging the river. Where does such a log grow? This was a new thing. The new people had bone-faces and were thin like hunger. The new people killed the old woman. The new people killed Nil. The new people killed the fire by the overhang. They took Liku and the new one.

Lok and Fa watched the new people from the trees. The new people did not put their nose to the ground to smell the scent. They could remove their skin and had caves of twigs. They did not gesture much and did not dance their meaning. Lok and Fa tried to rescue the others, but could not. Fa said: "I will take fire when it falls from the sky or wakes among the heather." Lok said: "Now I am Mal. It is heavy to be Mal." Fa said: "It is heavy to be the woman. There will be fire again and I shall have children." Now Lok and Fa were the people.

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wazbud

Nothing like Lord of the Flies

Reviewed in Australia on August 18, 2014

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

The Inheritors seemed to promise a good read with a famous author and unusual plot line. Unfortunately it never grabbed me. Maybe the concept was too esoteric, maybe the lack of dialogue?? I found it slow moving and ponderous with characters I could not relate to. Maybe I just wasn't in the right mood.

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CeeBee

The suspense is still there, even on my 5th time of reading this!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 31, 2013

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

I first read this book aged about 15 and am now (ahem) quite a bit older. I've read a very tattered copy of this book several times over the years and have now bought a version for my kindle. Every time I read 'The Inheritors', I find it difficult to put the book down and integrate with my modern life.

I love the way the the nature of the main characters is revealed to the reader as these characters are also discovering new people. You yearn for Lok and his family group to be more cautious, more savvy, but only Fa can piece together enough 'pictures' in her mind to possibly salvage the most desperate situation.

Despite being written over 55 years ago, 'The Inheritors' is a book bringing pre-history to life in a way that, I understand, is still consistent with modern thinking on neanderthals. The author successfully demonstrates how similar the neanderthals are to modern man. Once again, after reading this book, I wonder how much they might have developed if individuals with the relative genius of Fa had existed. You've got to love a good story that makes you reflect on the big stuff in life!

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MMM

A book that has a fairly small cult following. ...

Reviewed in Canada on March 25, 2018

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

A book that has a fairly small cult following. More challenging than Lord of the Flies, and also more provocative in its portrayal of human nature.

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