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MARCO CARACCIOLO, A Walk Through Deep History

wind to fill the sail), or of psychological motivation (Tuami’s complex
reasons for examining the hull).
But clarity comes at the expense of embodied proximity: as we en-
gage with Tuami’s calculating mind, we develop a sense of cognitive me-
diation that marks a sharp departure from the physical rawness of Lok’s
experience. The psychological divide between Lok and Tuami has im-
portant ethical implications, as Golding scholars have emphasized. 34
While Neanderthals are, for Golding, fundamentally incapable of vio-
lence, Tuami’s thought processes evince a predisposition towards conflict
and deception. It is precisely this predisposition, the novel implies, that
determines the evolutionary success of Homo sapiens and its eventual
obliteration of the Neanderthals. The novel ends with Tuami peering into
the horizon and perceiving a ‘line of darkness’ that serves as a symbolic
equivalent of the evolutionary future of Homo sapiens. Yet Golding’s
novel does not rule out the possibility of bridging the gulf between the
two species of Homo: the title already suggests that there might be con-
tinuity between them, that modern human may have ‘inherited’ some-
35
thing from their evolutionary relatives. What is inherited is, on my
reading, the capacity for somatic resonance—which is demonstrated by
Lok at the diegetic level, but also stimulated in readers by Golding’s
deeply embodied style. The upshot is that the audience may span the
evolutionary gap between themselves and Neanderthals by imaginative-
ly embodying the la er—and the distinctiveness of their cognitive make-
up. In turn, this embodied dynamic raises questions about Homo sapiens
and the troubled legacy of its encounters with other species, over the
course of evolutionary history as well as in today’s world.

34 See, e.g., Gregor and Kinkead-Weekes, William Golding: A Critical Study of
the Novels, 60-62.
35 This idea of “inheritance” resonates with current DNA evidence pointing
to interbreeding between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals. Traces of this in-
terbreeding can be detected in the genetic profile of living non-African hu-
mans. See Paul H. Mason and Roger V. Short, “Neanderthal-Human Hy-
brids,” Hypothesis 9, no. 1 (2011): e1. Of course, Golding’s probing of our prob-
lematic Neanderthal inheritance is cast in ethical and imaginative terms, in-
stead of strictly biological ones, but the convergence is remarkable.

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