John
Wyndham
This
was the first of Wyndham's books which i read, for Barb Baker, or
Killough, whichever she was at the time; i can very clearly remember
sitting in my Dad's office
in the MacMillan Building on UBC, trying to read it and, a bit later,
explaining that i was having a difficult time getting into it, as it
all seemed to be introduction not action: As i was several chapters
into the book at the time i cannot now work out what my problem was,
as the action seems to start almost straight away. Evidently i was,
though enthusiastic, not quite as skilled a reader as i think i have
been developed into (i can scarcely take credit for it; i have just
been taught well).
The
Chrysalids is,
regardless of my first thoughts of it, one of Wyndham's best books;
there are probably four of the later, post-War, group he wrote, that
of his highest quality; in mine opinion, clearly this is one of those
four: It is a flawed book, in a couple of minor ways, but it is also
skilfully written, well thought through, cleverly imagined, and a
delight to read.
Flawed,
i say, though perhaps in conception rather than execution ~ as though
that makes the flaw the less! ~ because the appearance of the
Sealanders/Zealanders at the end to rescue David, Rosemary, and Petra
comes across as more of a deus
ex machina device than
Wyndham was wont to use. If i think of the others of his classics,
The Day of the Triffids
and The Kraken Wakes
both end with an amount of hope, but no certainty for the future, and
The Midwich Cuckoos
is resolved purely by the actions (within character) of one of the
leading residents of the village. At the time of my first reading
(and several afterwards) i did not find this to be a problem; now it
seems to me to be a weakness that might have been avoided, had
Wyndham changed some of his conception of his post-Tribulation world.
On the other hand, it is that world, close enough to ours to be
recognisable, yet different enough to horrify us, which makes this
such a powerful book.
A
second point which has arise on this reading, though i'm not sure i'd
go so far as to classify this one as a flaw, is the crosses which all
the inhabitants of Waknuk ~ indeed, all the citizens of the whole of
the civilisation of Labrador ~ wear so constantly as to surprise
David when he finds they are not worn in the Fringes. Certainly they
are intended to be related to the fundamentalist religion of the
Labradorians, based as it is on the Bible (implied to be what we
understand by that term, as it is the only book to have survived the
Tribulation) and Nicholson's Repentances.
The problem is that nothing other than the crosses implies that
their Bible contains the New Testament: There is nothing in their
practice or speech which points to a post-Jesus religion, quite the
contrary, it seems to be very dogmatic, legalistic, bound by Law. It
is not the lack of the New Testament which is an issue, as i can
easily postulate only an Old Testament survived; what i see as
problematic, though, is that the cross has no meaning at all in the
Old Testament, so why do they use it? I suppose it is merely one of
those puzzles an author is allowed to pose without necessarily giving
a solution. Flawed or not, The
Chrysalids is an
excellent book by an author i love, and i will continue to buy his
books when i come across them on market stalls and take them out of
the library when i unexpectedly see them.
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