''The Inheritors'' is a work of
prehistoric fiction
Prehistoric fiction is a literary genre in which the story is set in the period of time prior to the existence of written record, known as prehistory. As a fictional genre, the realistic description of the subject varies, without necessarily a c ...
and the second novel by the British author
William Golding
Sir William Gerald Golding (19 September 1911 – 19 June 1993) was a British novelist, playwright, and poet. Best known for his debut novel ''Lord of the Flies'' (1954), he published another twelve volumes of fiction in his lifetime. In 1980 ...
, best known for his first novel, ''
Lord of the Flies
''Lord of the Flies'' is a 1954 novel by the Nobel Prize-winning British author William Golding. The plot concerns a group of British boys who are stranded on an uninhabited island and their disastrous attempts to govern themselves. Themes ...
'' (1954). It concerns the extinction of one of the last remaining tribes of
Neanderthal
Neanderthals (, also ''Homo neanderthalensis'' and erroneously ''Homo sapiens neanderthalensis''), also written as Neandertals, are an extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans who lived in Eurasia until about 40,000 years ago. While the ...
s at the hands of the more sophisticated ''
Homo sapiens
Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, ...
''. It was published by
Faber and Faber in 1955.
Background
Like ''
Lord of the Flies
''Lord of the Flies'' is a 1954 novel by the Nobel Prize-winning British author William Golding. The plot concerns a group of British boys who are stranded on an uninhabited island and their disastrous attempts to govern themselves. Themes ...
'', ''The Inheritors'' began life in a
Bishop Wordsworth's School
Bishop Wordsworth's School is a Church of England boys' grammar school in Salisbury, Wiltshire for boys aged 11 to 18. The school is regularly amongst the top-performing schools in England, and in 2010 was the school with the best results in the ...
notebook. This handwritten manuscript and the typescript that ensued are now held in the
University of Exeter
, mottoeng = "We Follow the Light"
, established = 1838 - St Luke's College1855 - Exeter School of Art1863 - Exeter School of Science 1955 - University of Exeter (received royal charter)
, type = Public
, ...
's Special Collections Archives, where they can be used for further research and study.
Golding began work on ''The Inheritors'' in the autumn of 1954, mere weeks after the publication of ''Lord of the Flies''; Golding was concerned that he would be unable to write another novel
and had sent a 'long, anxious letter in return' to his editor
Charles Monteith when asked what his next publication would be. He had started writing a novel exploring the father-son relationship through the mythical character of
Telegonus (son of Odysseus)
In Greek mythology, Telegonus (; Ancient Greek: Τηλέγονος means "born afar") was the youngest son of Circe and OdysseusHyginus, ''Fabulae'' 127 and thus, brother to Agrius and Latinus or Nausithous and Nausinous. In some accounts, he wa ...
, titled ''In Search of My Father'', a year prior; Monteith requested a chapter, the typescript for which demonstrates 'some of Golding's most spectacular prose'. Monteith was 'enormously interested', but after favourable reviews of ''Lord of the Flies'', it was left unfinished owing to Golding's belief that it would come off as a cheap imitation of other historical epics.
Golding finished his first draft of ''The Inheritors'' on 11 November 1954, though he deemed his own handwriting illegible and worked on the novel significantly over Christmas, redrafting, reworking, and typing the manuscript to submit to Monteith. The following February, Monteith received the revised typescript along with a letter from Golding featuring a host of disclaimers that betrayed his nervousness surrounding the novel that would follow up ''Lord of the Flies''. Golding had also wanted to finish the book sooner rather than later; after moving house to the Victorian vicarage across the road, his increased rent had made him 'consequently hard up'.
[Carey p. 177] But Golding had no reason to worry and, in fact, soon found that the book would be completed more quickly than he had previously anticipated; after a few proof readings, Monteith saw that the book was fit to publish.
There was little editing required and, although he was initially unsure about having cavemen as the subject of a novel, Monteith knew that the book was a masterpiece that was 'perfect as it stood'.
Plot introduction
This novel is an imaginative reconstruction of the life of a band of Neanderthals. It is written in such a way that the reader might assume the group to be modern ''Homo sapiens'' as they gesture and speak simply among themselves, and bury their dead with heartfelt, solemn rituals. They also have powerful sense impressions and feelings, and appear sometimes to share thoughts in a near-telepathic way. As the novel progresses it becomes more and more apparent that they live very simply, using their considerable mental abilities to connect to one another without extensive vocabulary or the kinds of memories that create culture. They have wide knowledge of food sources, mostly roots and vegetables. They chase hyenas from a larger beast's kill and eat meat, but they don't kill mammals themselves. They have a spiritual system centring on a female principle of bringing forth, but their lives are lived so much in the present that the reader realizes they are very different from us, living in something like an eternal present, or at most a present broken and shaped by seasons.
One of the band, Lok, is a point of view character. He is the one we follow as one by one the adults of the band die or are killed, then the young are stolen by the "new people", a group of early modern humans. Lok and Fa, the remaining adults, are fascinated and repelled by the new people. They observe their actions and rituals with amazement, only slowly understanding that harm is meant by the sticks of the new people.
The humans are portrayed as strange, godlike beings as the neanderthals witness their mastery of fire,
Upper Palaeolithic
The Upper Paleolithic (or Upper Palaeolithic) is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. Very broadly, it dates to between 50,000 and 12,000 years ago (the beginning of the Holocene), according to some theories coin ...
weaponry and sailing.
All save the last chapters of the novel are written from the Neanderthals' stark, simple
stylistic perspective. Their observations of early human behaviour serve as a filter for Golding's exercise in
paleoanthropology, in which modern readers will recognize precursors of later human societal constructs, e.g., religion, culture, sacrifice and war.
The penultimate chapter employs an omniscient viewpoint, observing Lok. For the first time, the novel describes the people the reader has been inhabiting through the first-person perspective. Lok, totally alone, gives up in despair.
![Le Moustier](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Le_Moustier.jpg)
In the final chapter, we move to the point of view of the new race, more or less modern humans fleeing in their boats, revealing that they are terribly afraid of the Neanderthals (whom they believe to be devils of the forest) and of pretty much everything around. This last chapter, the only one written from the humans' point of view, reinforces the inheritance of the world by the new species.
The fleeing humans carry with them an infant Neanderthal, of whom they are simultaneously afraid and enamoured, hinting at
the later hypothesis of inter-breeding between Neanderthals and modern humans.
Reception
''The Inheritors'' was published on 16 September 1955, when Golding's literary reputation was still in its nascent stages. However, though few in number to begin with, reviews of the book were largely positive: two separate critics—Philip Day from ''
The Sunday Times
''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, w ...
'' and
Peter Green (who was later a friend of Golding's) from ''
The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally.
It was f ...
''—described the novel as a tour de force, whilst
Isabel Quigly
Isabel Madeleine Quigly FRSL (17 September 1926 – 14 September 2018) was a writer, translator and film critic.
Biography
She was born in Ontaneda, Spain, and educated at Godolphin School, Salisbury and Newnham College, Cambridge. In her ea ...
called it "a many-dimensional and astonishing book" in ''
The Spectator
''The Spectator'' is a weekly British magazine on politics, culture, and current affairs. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving weekly magazine in the world.
It is owned by Frederick Barclay, who also owns ''The ...
'' two weeks after its initial publication, along with similarly positive reviews from myriad newspapers and literary journals. These sat amongst two more negative reviews: one from a leading member of the Communist Party of Great Britain,
Margot Heinemann
Margot Claire Heinemann (18 November 1913 – 10 June 1992) was a British Marxist writer, drama scholar, and leading member of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB).
Early life
She was born at 89 Priory Road, West Hampstead, London NW6. ...
, who found the book hard to understand and disapproved of its allegedly negative portrayal of man's ascension; and one from ''The Times'', that would have preferred it if Neanderthals were the subjects of history books and not fiction.
The novel sold 1800 copies by 3 October and 3000 by 28 October. Sales figures of Golding's previous book in America affected American publishers' opinions on the novel, who worried that a novel like ''The Inheritors'' would only receive 'ivory-tower appreciation' and consequently chose not to publish it at the time.
In a recent review of 2021,
Ben Okri
Ben Okri (born 15 March 1959) is a Nigerian-British poet and novelist.[Ben Okri"]
British Council, ...
in the Irish Times admires its invention of the language it uses:
One of the great achievements of the novel is the language in which it is rendered. There is a special quality to the writing. Golding not only invents a world but invests it with a high degree of linguistic intensity. The language owes something to the liberating achievement of Joyce, Virginia Woolf and stream-of-consciousness. But its achievement is wholly Golding’s own.
The book, particularly the last chapter, was the inspiration for the 1976 song "
A Trick of the Tail
''A Trick of the Tail'' is the seventh studio album by English progressive rock band Genesis. It was released in February 1976 on Charisma Records and was the first album to feature drummer Phil Collins as lead vocalist following the departu ...
" by British rock band
Genesis
Genesis may refer to:
Bible
* Book of Genesis, the first book of the biblical scriptures of both Judaism and Christianity, describing the creation of the Earth and of mankind
* Genesis creation narrative, the first several chapters of the Book of ...
.
See also
*
Neanderthal interaction with Cro-Magnons
*
Neanderthal extinction hypotheses
* ''
The Clan of the Cave Bear
''The Clan of the Cave Bear'' is a 1980 novel and epic work of prehistoric fiction by Jean M. Auel about prehistoric times. It is the first book in the '' Earth's Children'' book series, which speculates on the possibilities of interactions b ...
'', a novel about a Cro-Magnon girl raised by Neanderthals, by
Jean M. Auel
Jean Marie Auel (; ; born February 18, 1936) is an American writer who wrote the '' Earth's Children'' books, a series of novels set in prehistoric Europe that explores human activities during this time, and touches on the interactions of Cro-Mag ...
* ''
Dance of the Tiger
''Dance of the Tiger'' (Swedish: ''Den Svarta Tigern'') is a novel by Finnish palaeontologist Björn Kurtén, published in 1978 and English translation in 1980. It is a prehistoric novel dealing with the interaction between Neanderthals and C ...
'', a novel depicting Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon interaction, by paleontologist
Björn Kurtén Björn Olof Lennartson Kurtén (19 November 1924 – 28 December 1988) was a Finnish vertebrate paleontologist, belonging to the Swedish-speaking minority of his country.
Early life and education
Kurtén was born in Vaasa.
Career
He was a profe ...
* ''
The Neanderthal Parallax
The Neanderthal Parallax is a trilogy of novels written by Robert J. Sawyer and published by Tor. It depicts the effects of the opening of a connection between two versions of Earth in different parallel universes: the world familiar to the re ...
'', a trilogy of novels written by
Robert J. Sawyer
Robert James Sawyer (born April 29, 1960) is a Canadian science fiction writer. He has had 24 novels published and his short fiction has appeared in ''Analog Science Fiction and Fact'', ''Amazing Stories'', '' On Spec'', ''Nature'', and numerou ...
depicting the effects of the opening of a connection between two versions of Earth in different parallel universes: the world familiar to the reader, and another where Neanderthals became the dominant intelligent hominid.
Citations
General sources
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Inheritors, The
1955 British novels
Faber and Faber books
Fiction about neanderthals
Novels by William Golding
Novels set in prehistory