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The Chrysalids

Started by nedthemumbler, October 19, 2017, 10:17:34 PM

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nedthemumbler

I don't believe I have met anybody in real life who has read this, but it had a huge impact on me when I was a young teen.  Along with Z is for Zachariah and my mum's old issues of Mad magazine, it was my introduction to the terror of nuclear war, religious fundamentalism and alternate histories.

Anyone else?

Bingo Fury

Yep, I read several Wyndham books in a row when I was in my teens and The Chrysalids was my favourite at the time. Whether it would be now I don't know, as I can remember practically nothing about it any more except a bit when the central character comes across some kind of mutant animal in a forest, and I may have dreamt even that. This isn't much help, I know, but at least you know someone else on here has read it.

Serge

Yeah, I love Wyndham, though it's a few years since I've read it....actually make that a few decades......so my memory of the actual plot is a bit sketchy! Once I get my stuff out of storage, it might be time for a grand Wyndham re-read, he was definitely my favourite author in my teens.

Serge

I've only just realised that all three posts in this thread have talked about us being Wyndham fans in our teens!

The only book of his that I've re-read relatively recently, and which I've read so many times that it's practically hardwired into my brain, is 'The Day Of The Triffids'. I first read it when I was eleven (looking it up online, I see that I must have seen the BBC TV version before I read it), and I have a strong memory of finishing it off in a car when my brother and I were being taken to Skegness for the day by our grandparents! Why that has remained with me all of these years, I don't know.

That lead me on to reading all of his other books, and I remember 'The Midwich Cuckoos' being my other favourite. I struggled with 'The Kraken Wakes' when I first tried to read it, but gave it another go a couple of years later and zipped through it. Although I had no trouble reading it, I remember being less keen on 'The Chrysalids' because it was set in America! I think I preferred the others because, even though I was reading them three decades after they were written, the England I was growing up in was still - just - recognisably the England where these things were meant to be happening. Funny how I now read more American fiction than anything else......

His two short story collections are great as well. I think one of my all time favourite short stories is 'A Long Spoon', where the narrator accidentally manages to summon a demon whilst playing a tape backwards (and a pentacle is formed by ribbons of tape on the floor) and struggles to get rid of him without having to sell his soul.

nedthemumbler

I can't begin to tell you how important Triffids was to me, and thank you for your responses but I'm currently fighting shit wifi.

popcorn

I was another young Wyndham fan. I discovered him when my mother told me about the premise of Triffids, that a man wakes up in hospital and society has collapsed. It immediately captured my imagination - funny how those stories are ten-a-penny now. 28 Days Later in particular struck me as a beat-for-beat adaptation of Triffids, but with zombies instead of plants.

Chrysalids was my favourite, though. I loved how it was about a bunch of kids with ICQ in their heads. Or at least that's how I thought of it aged 13.

Quote from: Serge on October 20, 2017, 10:21:54 PM
Although I had no trouble reading it, I remember being less keen on 'The Chrysalids' because it was set in America!

Canada mate. Stop getting Wyndham wrong.

Serge

Quote from: popcorn on October 21, 2017, 08:35:40 AM28 Days Later in particular struck me as a beat-for-beat adaptation of Triffids, but with zombies instead of plants.

Oh yeah, that was pretty blatant, wasn't it? I think Alex Garland has admitted as much at some point.

QuoteCanada mate. Stop getting Wyndham wrong.

It's over 25 years since I read it last! And my memory is shocking at the best of times.

mothman

Chrysalis was a class book. As in, my English class had it to read one term. From that I also went on to do Midwych Cuckoos and Triffids. Yet not, not until many years later, Kraken Wakes which is my favourite and the one I re-read most often.

Kishi the Bad Lampshade

Yeah, for English A-level we had to choose two out of about eight dystopian novels to read and write an essay on, and the Chrysalids was one of them, along with the usual suspects like Nineteen Eighty Four, Brave New World etc. So I would put it in the box of 'recognised classics'.