Chocky

So it’s blog time again and once more I have a book to rave about.  I’ve missed this.  It feels like it’s been an age since I’ve had a run of books that I really enjoyed and now I’m in one again and hope it lasts.  It never lasts.  I’ve been sporadically on about how much I love John Wyndham all year and I can’t believe I never tried his stuff before now.  I know we’re only half way through, but he’s shaping up to be my personal discovery of 2015.  Suffice to say, like The Midwich Cuckoos and Day of the Triffids before it, Chocky is just excellent.

It tells the story of David Gore, distant father to his two children: ten year-old Polly and her adopted older brother Matthew.  To be fair, he’s kind of a shit father to Polly.  He’s never really that interested in what she has to say- usually it’s nonsense about Twinklehooves the pony, main character in her favourite book series (as an aside, these are a pretty hilarious parody of kids’ books and include stories of Twinklehooves joining the circus and ballet).  Anyway, Matthew hears voices; or more specifically a voice, in his head and so is the more attention worthy child.  As the book goes on David and his wife Mary become more convinced that Chocky is more than just an imaginary friend, especially once they discover that she has the ability to control Matthew’s body.  As benevolent as these possessions are Chocky is an unknown and so Mary fears her to the point where it becomes clear that Chocky has to go.

There’s a hell of a lot to like in this book.  The more I read of Wyndham, the more I think that he was just decades ahead of his time.  Chunks of Chocky centre around the fact that Earth is pretty backward scientifically speaking and that we will, eventually need a new source of power.  This is a book written in 1968 implying that solar power is primitive.  I didn’t even know the technology for solar power existed in 1968. 

There’s also some marvellous gender politics at play.  Chocky, not being human, finds the delineation between male and female ridiculous.  While her confidant Matthew is find with this, she is only into using a gendered pronoun because no-one else can get their head around the idea.  You can see why she picked him.  Where this does however fall apart is the characterisation of Mary Gore.  Sometimes, it’s hard to see why David married her- she is the main negative influence in the book and David has a tendency to come across as scornful of her concerns for her child.  He doesn’t respect her worries.  He lies to her and makes Matthew complicit in his lies.

This is more cerebral sci-fi than Wyndham’s other books that I’ve been going on about this year.  Rather than concerning events that effect entire towns or countries, it’s the story of one family and their ability (or lack therefore of) to cope with extraordinary circumstances.  The actual science-y bit is theoretical in the extreme and not all that important to the plot.  In the end, it’s the family dynamic and the relationship between Chocky and Matthew that decides the story’s outcome far more than any science deus ex machina.

My next read is Hanif Kureishi’s Intimacy.