But the book has only one specific reference, to “the Reds”, hinting at the Cold War, and that vagueness has made it far more open to various interpretations over the decades. Carver says: “To begin with, people saw it in very clearly religious terms and made Simon, as I think he was meant to be, into a Christ figure.” More recently, she notes, “the environmental angle has come to the fore” – with people referencing, for example, the way the boys set fire to the island – while she also believes that today “it’s hard to ignore the rise of autocratic rulers around the world, and to not see that in terms of Jack… the rules of warfare, the rules of the right to a fair trial, all these things are on a knife edge and I think the book is relevant to that”.
