The Day of the Triffids

First of another confession that I’ve broken my own rules.  I was all set to blame the fact that I had to change the order I read my books in from the one I planned.  I went to renew a pile of library books the other night, only to find that The Day of the Triffids had been reserved by someone and so couldn’t be renewed.  I naturally assumed this was a ploy by some ultra-cool fourteen year old boy to sabotage my pattern.  Then I discovered that Louis de Bernières isn’t American and I was paddle-less up a creek a while ago.  This is a very obvious side effect of a glut of Victorian literature.  Anyway, after a swift reshuffle of my book plans I was left with the task of reading The Day of the Triffids in 24 hours to avoid library fines.  It wasn’t too difficult a task, and at least it made for an interesting Valentine’s Day.

This is another of those books that I knew a bit about without actually knowing the full plot of.  My previous knowledge can be summed up in the phrase; giant plants- humanity boned.  And, to be fair, that’s not far off the actual plot.  Triffid scientist Bill Masen wakes up in hospital on morning after a fabulous meteor shower.  Temporarily blinded after a triffid sting, Masen is one of the view people on the planet who hasn’t watched the shower and he quickly discovers that everyone who did watch it has been struck blind.  With the humans weakened the seven foot tall walking, stinging triffids become the dominant species on the planet and, while the remnants of society argue amongst themselves about how to survive the triffids get on with the business of taking the place over.  I think what surprised me most about this book is that the triffids aren’t really the bad guys.  Humankind is laid low by circumstance rather than an unrelenting exterior evil.  Most people are wiped out by their inability to cope with sudden blindness and those that survive are offed by a sudden plague.  The triffids have no malicious feelings towards man nor any motive but survival.  In fact, the only malice towards people comes from opportunists who grasp power.

The Day of the Triffids like The Island of Dr Moreau is one of those books that really reminded me of works that it has inspired.  The most frequent of these for me was Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later.  From the utterly obvious man wakes up in hospital to find the world changed beginning to the idyllic cottage in the country and moment of soaring hope when our heroes suddenly spot a plane, the links are undeniable.  Unlike in The Island of Dr Moreau, this wasn’t distracting and it made me feel a deeper appreciation for 28 Days Later even if it’s not particularly surprising that a sci-fi genre giant like John Wyndham would have his influence felt decades later in Brit horror flicks.  The image of an abandoned London is so unsettling that it’s no shock other people have adopted it for their own monsters.  Slightly more distracting were the tones of Dr Strangelove that came through in plans to rebuild a society which encourages polygamy and the breeding of women and the intellectual arguments for it.  The image of Peter Sellers spouting the same rhetoric in an exaggerated German accent makes it pretty difficult to take seriously.

John Wyndham does include some strange period typical politics though.  The book was first published in 1951 and, because society falls apart, it’s a mostly timeless book.  Every so often, though a glimmer of staunch Fifties morals come through.  The female lead, Josella Playton is the author of a book titled My Adventures in Sex, of which she seems unspeakably ashamed every time anyone mentions or attempts to discuss.  She belittles her work and her career.  Her introduction is also pretty problematic.  Despite being a strong modern woman she is introduced when she is despairing and in need of being rescued.  It seems that any later competence (and she shows a fair amount) is permissible due to her swooning heroine introduction.  There’s also this odd sense of entitlement present, that I don’t think would have been as prevalent had the novel been written later.  No-one questions whether the human race is worth preserving.  More than that, the British way of life and the British people must endure.  It’s a difficult concept to explain, but there is a sense that people deserve to live simply because they are alive and to remain the dominant species when they so clearly are not.  It doesn’t feel like a lamentation of a loss, more of a childlike tantrum that we’re not the best anymore.

I enjoyed this book.  It’s another quick and easy read that has clearly lasted for a reason; Wyndham came up with a simple but utterly terrifying concept.  Although the book isn’t scary by modern standards and it would be easy to write off as cheesy and ridiculous (there are giant killer plants) it’s not.  There’s something so uncanny about the idea of abandoned cities; it’s an idea picked up again in things like 28 Days Later and Stephen King’s The Stand because it’s such a good one.  Even the odd bit of 1950s sexism can’t detract from that.

Next time, is non-European (for reals this time) author Jorge Luis Borges and his collected works Labyrinths.  It’s a touch more serious that the giant killer plants.