enigmatic story titles
what title/s do find enigmatic or difficult to understand?
my first one is with:
William Golding
The Lord of the Flies
I am not sure why the word 'Lord' and in particular the word 'Flies' since the book is about a group of boys marooned on an island.
I am not sure how the title actually links.
could there another meaning for the word 'Flies' and if it meant flies as we know them then why not just 'lord of the fly'
The other thing is the word fly is similar to the verb to fly.
Last edited by cacian; 06-12-2013 at 08:08 AM.
it may never try
but when it does it sigh
it is just that
good
it fly
Have you actually read the novel?
The Lord of the Flies is a decaying sow's head that becomes a totemic symbol, with all the usual crazed quasi-religious zealotry that follows such things, for the boys on the island as they fall further from 'civilised' behviour.
"I should only believe in a God that would know how to dance. And when I saw my devil, I found him serious, thorough, profound, solemn: he was the spirit of gravity- through him all things fall. Not by wrath, but by laughter, do we slay. Come, let us slay the spirit of gravity!" - Nietzsche
No doubt.Originally Posted by Lokasenna
I used to wonder about the title London Fields by Martin Amis while I was reading it. London has many parks, but is not renowned for its fields. There is a part of London, or is it just a church, called St Martins in the Fields. The action takes place in London, but none of it in any fields. It's a good title though.
According to Aldous Huxley, D.H. Lawrence once said that Balzac was 'a gigantic dwarf', and in a sense the same is true of Dickens.
Charles Dickens, by George Orwell
The Earth Hums in B Flat by Mari Strachan. It's only in the very last few pages that the meaning of the title is revealed.
Lord of the flies is also the translation of Beelzebub.
London Fields is an area of Hackney, East London. Haven't read the book so I'm not sure if that's what the title refers to.
I've often wondered about Gravity's Rainbow (parabola of a rocket? time?) and Blood Meridian (geographical reference? zenith of a cyclical and violent history?). I think the title of a story can reveal a lot about the authors intentions.
It represents a different sort of enigma than some of the other titles mentioned here, but I'd like to bring up Marquez's A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings. Its mystery lies in its very directness.
Delillo's Underworld turns out to be a little-known film by Eisenstein that's given a showing by artsy types in Manhattan.
No American troops were harmed during the Watergate cover-up.
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