juliwi's review against another edition
4.0
I'm still on the John Wyndham train and my obsession shows no signs of weakening. Literally yesterday I said The Kraken Wakes may be my favourite Wyndham read and yet here we are now, with The Chrysalids coming in strong. This is a fascinating story that had me on the edge of my seat.
This is my third Wyndham book in the span of 2 months, and the second in the span of a week, and one clear message seems to ring true in all of his books. And this is Wyndham's theory that humanity can not and will not deal well with any other intelligent species encroaching upon their territory. In The Kraken Wakes it was an undefined intelligence living at the bottom of the sea, while in The Chrysalids it is merely the appearance of difference within humanity itself. Any divergence from the "norm" is seen as a threat and activates the worst elements of humanity's desire to survive. Wyndham's point on this is frequently expressed explicitly by one of his characters, literally spelled out, yet he doesn't beat the reader over the head with it. It is something that as a reader sinks in, to be considered and debates later on. Because now that I have heard this idea repeatedly I am considering it more and more. I do, indeed, think that humans don't do well with difference, especially difference that can be seen as an advantage. This is literally what the X-Men comics and movies are about. And this concern on Wyndham's behalf also explains to me why he insisted so vigorously on the role of Sci-Fi can play in society. Alongside his warnings about unsustainable industrialisation and the dismissal of science, which are still so current, if not more so than in the '50s, this novel once again brought home to me indeed how important the role that literature plays is to society.
David Storm is aware of difference and how dangerous it is to be different in his world. An unspecified disaster has poisoned the land and the bloodlines and in the UK a strong determination exists to not let anything divergent live. Whether it's livestock, crops, or humans, everything that differs will be removed, one way or another. But being young, the danger of such strict dogma doesn't truly strike David until he comes to realise just how harsh the removal is and how different he himself is. Hiding his gifts from his family becomes a more and more difficult challenge until the danger comes so close to home he is forced to make a choice. Saying anything more would spoil the complexity of The Chrysalids. Suffice to say that David and his friends find themselves in numerous dangerous situations, each of which drives home the point that society's obsession with homogeneity and "purity" is a true evil.
Again I was struck by how familiar many of Wyndham's themes and plot points in this novel were. Not in the sense that I could predict where it was going to go or that elements of it didn't surprise me. But rather the sense that yes, these were themes we were still working on, plot devices that were still being used. I wonder how new this was in the '50s, as some of the reviews of this book from then seem to suggest it wasn't quite as ground-breaking as I imagine it would have been. I must also say that there was one instance specifically, which I don't want to spoil but do want to discuss, between David and Rosalind in the last third of the book really struck me in its gentleness and beauty. There was such softness to this moment of connection between two people in the midst of so much chaos and hatred that I found myself repeatedly thinking of it as we came to the conclusion. While The Chrysalids doesn't have the body-count of The Kraken Wakes, not even near it, it nonetheless feels more violent. The dogma and hate behind this desire for purity is really bitter to encounter and the weight of it on David and Rosalind becomes really clear. This plea for tolerance and understanding that much of the novel builds up is not necessarily upheld throughout. While The Kraken Wakes leaves redemption to be guessed at, The Chrysalids edges into deus ex machina territory towards the end which runs the risk of undermining the power of the rest of the story.
The Chrysalids is a stunning and gripping story about difference and acceptance, asking the question what is truly human.
URL: https://universeinwords.blogspot.com/2022/09/audiobook-review-chrysalids-by-john.html
This is my third Wyndham book in the span of 2 months, and the second in the span of a week, and one clear message seems to ring true in all of his books. And this is Wyndham's theory that humanity can not and will not deal well with any other intelligent species encroaching upon their territory. In The Kraken Wakes it was an undefined intelligence living at the bottom of the sea, while in The Chrysalids it is merely the appearance of difference within humanity itself. Any divergence from the "norm" is seen as a threat and activates the worst elements of humanity's desire to survive. Wyndham's point on this is frequently expressed explicitly by one of his characters, literally spelled out, yet he doesn't beat the reader over the head with it. It is something that as a reader sinks in, to be considered and debates later on. Because now that I have heard this idea repeatedly I am considering it more and more. I do, indeed, think that humans don't do well with difference, especially difference that can be seen as an advantage. This is literally what the X-Men comics and movies are about. And this concern on Wyndham's behalf also explains to me why he insisted so vigorously on the role of Sci-Fi can play in society. Alongside his warnings about unsustainable industrialisation and the dismissal of science, which are still so current, if not more so than in the '50s, this novel once again brought home to me indeed how important the role that literature plays is to society.
David Storm is aware of difference and how dangerous it is to be different in his world. An unspecified disaster has poisoned the land and the bloodlines and in the UK a strong determination exists to not let anything divergent live. Whether it's livestock, crops, or humans, everything that differs will be removed, one way or another. But being young, the danger of such strict dogma doesn't truly strike David until he comes to realise just how harsh the removal is and how different he himself is. Hiding his gifts from his family becomes a more and more difficult challenge until the danger comes so close to home he is forced to make a choice. Saying anything more would spoil the complexity of The Chrysalids. Suffice to say that David and his friends find themselves in numerous dangerous situations, each of which drives home the point that society's obsession with homogeneity and "purity" is a true evil.
Again I was struck by how familiar many of Wyndham's themes and plot points in this novel were. Not in the sense that I could predict where it was going to go or that elements of it didn't surprise me. But rather the sense that yes, these were themes we were still working on, plot devices that were still being used. I wonder how new this was in the '50s, as some of the reviews of this book from then seem to suggest it wasn't quite as ground-breaking as I imagine it would have been. I must also say that there was one instance specifically, which I don't want to spoil but do want to discuss, between David and Rosalind in the last third of the book really struck me in its gentleness and beauty. There was such softness to this moment of connection between two people in the midst of so much chaos and hatred that I found myself repeatedly thinking of it as we came to the conclusion. While The Chrysalids doesn't have the body-count of The Kraken Wakes, not even near it, it nonetheless feels more violent. The dogma and hate behind this desire for purity is really bitter to encounter and the weight of it on David and Rosalind becomes really clear. This plea for tolerance and understanding that much of the novel builds up is not necessarily upheld throughout. While The Kraken Wakes leaves redemption to be guessed at, The Chrysalids edges into deus ex machina territory towards the end which runs the risk of undermining the power of the rest of the story.
The Chrysalids is a stunning and gripping story about difference and acceptance, asking the question what is truly human.
URL: https://universeinwords.blogspot.com/2022/09/audiobook-review-chrysalids-by-john.html
studiouslysarcastic's review against another edition
adventurous
hopeful
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
heathervg97's review
challenging
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
aruffz91's review against another edition
5.0
5/5
Listened to the Audible 2021 recording of this, a great rendition of a Sci-fi classic!
Listened to the Audible 2021 recording of this, a great rendition of a Sci-fi classic!
bundy23's review against another edition
3.0
Like the other Wyndham books I've read, I found the writing dull and the dialogue so tedious I found myself drifting away and missing major plot points regularly. If it weren't for what I perceived as an anti-religious message I'd have given it 2 stars
join_bookland's review against another edition
5.0
"The static, the enemy of change, is the enemy of life, and therefore our implacable enemy."
I haven't read much sci-fi, especially older sci-fi novels, so I wasn't sure what to expect with a John Wyndham novel. I was very pleasantly surprised with this classic from the 1950s.
The novel is set in the future in Labrador, Canada in a town that at first glimpse appears to be utopian, but is in fact dystopian. The story is related by David who is 10 at the beginning of the novel and reaches adulthood about mid-way through.
I don't know what it is about dystopian novels, but they really appeal to me, and this one was no different. I like how it questions what is considered normal or ideal. It brought to mind an episode of The Twilight Zone, Eye of the Beholder, where a woman has undergone a number of surgeries in an attempt to look normal, each one unsuccessful. When her face is revealed at the end we see she's a beautiful woman and then we see the doctors and nurses have distorted pig-like faces. She goes into exile with one of her kind (an "ugly" man) as they are not accepted in society.
The Chrysalids was very enjoyable and I'll definetely be reading more of this British author's works.
I haven't read much sci-fi, especially older sci-fi novels, so I wasn't sure what to expect with a John Wyndham novel. I was very pleasantly surprised with this classic from the 1950s.
The novel is set in the future in Labrador, Canada in a town that at first glimpse appears to be utopian, but is in fact dystopian. The story is related by David who is 10 at the beginning of the novel and reaches adulthood about mid-way through.
I don't know what it is about dystopian novels, but they really appeal to me, and this one was no different. I like how it questions what is considered normal or ideal. It brought to mind an episode of The Twilight Zone, Eye of the Beholder, where a woman has undergone a number of surgeries in an attempt to look normal, each one unsuccessful. When her face is revealed at the end we see she's a beautiful woman and then we see the doctors and nurses have distorted pig-like faces. She goes into exile with one of her kind (an "ugly" man) as they are not accepted in society.
The Chrysalids was very enjoyable and I'll definetely be reading more of this British author's works.
fictionfan's review against another edition
5.0
Those pesky apocalypses…
When young David Strorm meets Sophie, a little girl with a secret, he sympathises, because David has a secret too. Sophie’s secret is visible – she has six toes on each foot, and to the inhabitants of Waknuk this shows she is not a human being since all humans are created in God’s image and therefore must conform to the specifications laid down several generations ago. David’s secret is easier to conceal but even more threatening to normal humans, for David and some of the others can share their thoughts. From a young age they know this makes them different and difference is dangerous, so they learn to keep the secret among themselves. Until Petra comes along, with a talent for sending and receiving thoughts far greater than any of the others, and too young to know how to control it…
First published in 1955, the book takes its inspiration from the Cold War fears of nuclear devastation that influenced so much science fiction of that era. However, as in The Day of the Triffids, Wyndham is not so much interested in the fact of war or destruction as in the societies that may arise following an apocalyptic event.
Here we’re in Labrador, in one of the few populated areas left on Earth where only the far north and south have recovered enough from the nuclear winter to allow some kind of normal life to be resumed. A little further south are the Fringes, where mutations in plants and animals run wild, and to where mutants are exiled to fend for themselves. Further south again are the Badlands, where human life is unsustainable due to continuing nuclear pollution. In the conflict and disaster that followed a few hundred years ago, all technological knowledge was lost and the small population of remaining people have since gone back to old-fashioned methods of farming and living in small village settlements. The Bible survived, however, and faith is strong. People believe that God sent Tribulation as a punishment for sin, and are determined to root out any new signs of sin in order to appease him. Sin has come to include any form of deviation from the norm, physical or behavioural. David’s father is a staunch and harsh believer, always first to condemn sin and brutal in his insistence on driving out and destroying any kind of mutation. The basic story is of the danger in which David and the others find themselves when their secret leaks out, and the tension is in knowing whether they can find a way to survive.
But along the way Wyndham is mulling over wider philosophical questions. What is normal, he asks, and does our humanity rest in our physical selves? Since the Bible doesn’t physically define what a man or woman should be, how can the people of Waknuk know that their definition is right? We hear of other communities, far away, from where intrepid explorers have returned with reports of people who look very different – they may be hairless, or have hair all over their bodies, the woman may have six breasts rather than two, they may be taller, or shorter – and they all think they’re “normal” too and that any other form is a deviation. Some societies don’t seem to care about mutations in their children so long as the child is viable, while others, like David’s, refuse to even accept that a newborn is human until it has been inspected and passed as meeting the specifications set down.
The question of evolution is also at the heart of the book, even if evolution in this case has been triggered by a profoundly unnatural event. Through his characters Wyndham debates whether two diverging arms of a species can co-exist or whether the less evolved will always try to eradicate the more evolved through fear. I found the way he did this fascinating, although I’m not sure he intended me to feel as I did – that his characters at each level soon came to believe in their own superiority and to de-humanise anyone different from them. At first it is David’s father and his like who set out to destroy all deviations, but soon David and the other telepaths seem to believe just as firmly in their own superiority and to convince themselves that their survival justifies the killing of “normal” people. I felt Wyndham expected me to agree with David’s people on that one, but I came to see them as just as blinded and blinkered and cruel as his father. I’m trying to avoid spoilers, but there is another group who appear later in the book, and they also seem to consider themselves highly superior to all others and, indeed, to see those others as little better than dangerous vermin. Survival of the fittest, perhaps, but this seems like more than survival – it seems like hatred.
The introduction in my copy, by M. John Harrison, picks up on another theme which I missed but feel is valid; namely, that the book was written just at the beginning of what became known as the Generation Gap, when young people suddenly had the opportunity to get a good education, including living away from the parental home at universities and colleges, and be upwardly mobile, leaving their parents’ generation behind and often scandalised by the new moral codes the younger people were forging. Again, though, I felt this made the evolutionary theme less, not more, credible – the younger generation didn’t want to eradicate their elders and the older generation didn’t kill their deviant young (in most cases!).
On the whole I found this excellent, but perhaps not quite as coherently worked out as the earlier Triffids. Telepathy seemed a strange mutation to choose, not directly resulting from the nuclear devastation in the way Sophie’s extra toe did, and the message seemed confused between a cry for us to embrace deviations from the norm and a kind of endorsement or at least acceptance of a survival of the fittest mentality being used to justify eradication of the “other”. However, I certainly found it thought-provoking, which can only be a good thing! So long as no one out there thinks “thinking” is a sign of deviancy…
When young David Strorm meets Sophie, a little girl with a secret, he sympathises, because David has a secret too. Sophie’s secret is visible – she has six toes on each foot, and to the inhabitants of Waknuk this shows she is not a human being since all humans are created in God’s image and therefore must conform to the specifications laid down several generations ago. David’s secret is easier to conceal but even more threatening to normal humans, for David and some of the others can share their thoughts. From a young age they know this makes them different and difference is dangerous, so they learn to keep the secret among themselves. Until Petra comes along, with a talent for sending and receiving thoughts far greater than any of the others, and too young to know how to control it…
First published in 1955, the book takes its inspiration from the Cold War fears of nuclear devastation that influenced so much science fiction of that era. However, as in The Day of the Triffids, Wyndham is not so much interested in the fact of war or destruction as in the societies that may arise following an apocalyptic event.
Here we’re in Labrador, in one of the few populated areas left on Earth where only the far north and south have recovered enough from the nuclear winter to allow some kind of normal life to be resumed. A little further south are the Fringes, where mutations in plants and animals run wild, and to where mutants are exiled to fend for themselves. Further south again are the Badlands, where human life is unsustainable due to continuing nuclear pollution. In the conflict and disaster that followed a few hundred years ago, all technological knowledge was lost and the small population of remaining people have since gone back to old-fashioned methods of farming and living in small village settlements. The Bible survived, however, and faith is strong. People believe that God sent Tribulation as a punishment for sin, and are determined to root out any new signs of sin in order to appease him. Sin has come to include any form of deviation from the norm, physical or behavioural. David’s father is a staunch and harsh believer, always first to condemn sin and brutal in his insistence on driving out and destroying any kind of mutation. The basic story is of the danger in which David and the others find themselves when their secret leaks out, and the tension is in knowing whether they can find a way to survive.
But along the way Wyndham is mulling over wider philosophical questions. What is normal, he asks, and does our humanity rest in our physical selves? Since the Bible doesn’t physically define what a man or woman should be, how can the people of Waknuk know that their definition is right? We hear of other communities, far away, from where intrepid explorers have returned with reports of people who look very different – they may be hairless, or have hair all over their bodies, the woman may have six breasts rather than two, they may be taller, or shorter – and they all think they’re “normal” too and that any other form is a deviation. Some societies don’t seem to care about mutations in their children so long as the child is viable, while others, like David’s, refuse to even accept that a newborn is human until it has been inspected and passed as meeting the specifications set down.
The question of evolution is also at the heart of the book, even if evolution in this case has been triggered by a profoundly unnatural event. Through his characters Wyndham debates whether two diverging arms of a species can co-exist or whether the less evolved will always try to eradicate the more evolved through fear. I found the way he did this fascinating, although I’m not sure he intended me to feel as I did – that his characters at each level soon came to believe in their own superiority and to de-humanise anyone different from them. At first it is David’s father and his like who set out to destroy all deviations, but soon David and the other telepaths seem to believe just as firmly in their own superiority and to convince themselves that their survival justifies the killing of “normal” people. I felt Wyndham expected me to agree with David’s people on that one, but I came to see them as just as blinded and blinkered and cruel as his father. I’m trying to avoid spoilers, but there is another group who appear later in the book, and they also seem to consider themselves highly superior to all others and, indeed, to see those others as little better than dangerous vermin. Survival of the fittest, perhaps, but this seems like more than survival – it seems like hatred.
The introduction in my copy, by M. John Harrison, picks up on another theme which I missed but feel is valid; namely, that the book was written just at the beginning of what became known as the Generation Gap, when young people suddenly had the opportunity to get a good education, including living away from the parental home at universities and colleges, and be upwardly mobile, leaving their parents’ generation behind and often scandalised by the new moral codes the younger people were forging. Again, though, I felt this made the evolutionary theme less, not more, credible – the younger generation didn’t want to eradicate their elders and the older generation didn’t kill their deviant young (in most cases!).
On the whole I found this excellent, but perhaps not quite as coherently worked out as the earlier Triffids. Telepathy seemed a strange mutation to choose, not directly resulting from the nuclear devastation in the way Sophie’s extra toe did, and the message seemed confused between a cry for us to embrace deviations from the norm and a kind of endorsement or at least acceptance of a survival of the fittest mentality being used to justify eradication of the “other”. However, I certainly found it thought-provoking, which can only be a good thing! So long as no one out there thinks “thinking” is a sign of deviancy…
annagreenwood's review
adventurous
challenging
emotional
inspiring
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
victoria06's review against another edition
4.0
I had to read this for school and it was actually really good and had a really interesting plot and premise
sopranoreader's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0