[email protected] reviewed The Chrysalids by John Wyndham
Essential post-apocalypse science fiction
5 stars
"The Chrysalids" is one of my favourite novels and it stands up well on each re-reading. The heart of it is the religious zealots who insist on genetic purity. Their leaders make compelling villains, analogous to the religious authoritarians we still have today. Shockingly they are in the ascendancy in some political settings as I write, ensuring the ongoing currency of "The Chrysalids".
Wyndham's deliberate move away from the action-packed sci-fi of his pulp days led him to more contemplative narrative styles, often relating events through second hand accounts by lesser characters (especially in "The Kraken Wakes"). Here he puts his protagonist at the heart of the action, making it a thrilling read, but never diluting the novel's themes. The telepathic link between the characters takes the internal narrative to a higher level, culminating in what amounts to a description of the erotic intensity of telepathic sex. Wyndham's biographer Amy …
"The Chrysalids" is one of my favourite novels and it stands up well on each re-reading. The heart of it is the religious zealots who insist on genetic purity. Their leaders make compelling villains, analogous to the religious authoritarians we still have today. Shockingly they are in the ascendancy in some political settings as I write, ensuring the ongoing currency of "The Chrysalids".
Wyndham's deliberate move away from the action-packed sci-fi of his pulp days led him to more contemplative narrative styles, often relating events through second hand accounts by lesser characters (especially in "The Kraken Wakes"). Here he puts his protagonist at the heart of the action, making it a thrilling read, but never diluting the novel's themes. The telepathic link between the characters takes the internal narrative to a higher level, culminating in what amounts to a description of the erotic intensity of telepathic sex. Wyndham's biographer Amy Binns feels this episode is inspired by the author's relationship with his long-term partner Grace. He wrote many heartfelt love letters to her, some of them so soppy and over-the-top you can't believe it's the same writer. But he adapts the experience beautifully in the fictional setting.
The villainous children of "The Midwich Cuckoos" in their bucolic present setting are also inverted here, with the post-nuclear mutant children hunted by the elders of their own community.
The only jarring note was the "ubermensch" attitude of the children's rescuers. It had a hint of the master race about it. I note from the wikipedia entry on the book I'm not the only one to be slightly disturbed by the "kill or be killed" approach. Maybe it's not so bad coming from the aliens in "The Midwich Cuckoos", but from the future residents of New Zealand, it doesn't ring true. Our kiwi cousins would never abandon compassion and decency so readily!
