Amazon.com: Customer reviews: The Inheritors

Top positive review

Thank You Cleve Blakemore...

Reviewed in the United States on June 24, 2018

...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!"

13 people found this helpful

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unhappy customer

Good, but boring

Reviewed in the United States on September 9, 2019

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.

3 people found this helpful

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From the United States

Cleveland Confidential

Thank You Cleve Blakemore...

Reviewed in the United States on June 24, 2018

Verified Purchase

13 people found this helpful

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New Mexico Dirtbags

Personal touch

Reviewed in the United States on January 31, 2020

Verified 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.

3 people found this helpful

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unhappy customer

Good, but boring

Reviewed in the United States on September 9, 2019

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3 people found this helpful

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Kindle Customer

Thought-provoking

Reviewed in the United States on August 28, 1998

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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.

22 people 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

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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.

9 people found this helpful

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C. Collins

Fascinating parable about the nature of mankind

Reviewed in the United States on July 20, 2014

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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.

6 people found this helpful

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Dorothy-Jean Chapman

Entertaining, thought-worthy

Reviewed in the United States on April 10, 2019

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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.

3 people found this helpful

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Kindle Customer

Quite different, very interesting!

Reviewed in the United States on February 22, 2012

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"...It seemed to end a little abruptly; I felt like I was just beginning to get to know the humans, and would have liked to know more about them, if not in further chapters, then perhaps in a sequel. Most people are probably only familiar with an earlier novel of Golding's, Lord of the Flies, since it seems to be a required reading staple in high schools across the country. I really enjoyed reading that one when I took senior English, and I'm not sure now why it took me so long to read something else of his. I definitely recommend this for something a little out of the ordinary on your reading list, especially since this is Golding's favorite of all his own work."

For full review, please visit me at Here Be Bookwyrms on Blogger!

herebebookwyrms dot blogspot dot com

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Randall Shepard

Great concept, but tough to do well

Reviewed in the United States on February 14, 2018

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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.

One person found this helpful

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anne meinck

The Inheritors William Golding

Reviewed in the United States on August 7, 2013

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This book is a deceptively simple story of a Neanderthal family and their first contact with Homo Sapiens.Golding has managed to tell the story through the eyes of Lok, a Neanderthal male who has the ability to feel but not really to think.He "thinks" via pictures which seem to often be shared with other members of the tribe through some form of telepathy or quasi-animalistic instinct, as though Neanderthals had not quite made it as "Man", or at least "Man the Thinker".

The superior planning ability of the Homo Sapiens who infiltrate Lok's valley contrasts strongly with Lok's inability to see ahead; to plot and plan, to use tools , to see the significance of what he sees.

It is different from probably any other book you have ever read and for this reason alone, is worth a try, apart from the obvious talent of William Golding, author also of Lord of the Flies and Pincher Martin, among others

2 people found this helpful

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