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I recently re-read The Day of the Triffids for the first time for about 15 years. The setup is this: in order to produce high-grade vegetable oil, a new plant strain is engineered, probably using some animal DNA. Unfortunately, the plants – the triffids – also have poisonous stings and limited powers of movement, and in their natural state are dangerous, if rather slow and stupid. As a result they are kept tethered and docked in their farms, harvested for oil, and all is well.
That is, until lights in the sky turn everybody blind. Whether these are natural or some sort of malfunctioning satellite weapon is never explained, but the next morning the human race is reduced to groping its way around. It’s not long before the triffids up sticks (literally) and go hunting. Mankind is no longer the top species, order breaks down, and the human world starts to decay as nature returns to claim the land.
The story follows one man who did not witness the blinding lights, and his attempts to adapt and survive in the depopulated countryside. He, and a few others, struggle to remain alive and to keep up a reasonable standard of existence as civilisation rots around them.
DOTT has been called a “cosy catastrophe”: the action is confined to England, the characters are all well-spoken and there are none of the graphic horrors of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. But, like Geoffrey Household’s excellent thriller Rogue Male, a lot of the horror comes from understatement. The world needs order and repopulation, and there are hints of fascism and rape in the countryside. Most of humanity, basically, is starving to death, and the hero is stuck with the issue of whether to delay the inevitable by helping the afflicted. And the triffids too are subtly nasty. There is something particularly unpleasant in the image of a triffid sitting beside a corpse, waiting for it to decay sufficiently to be broken down for plant-food.
It’s still an excellent book; one of the first SF apocalypses and, in the hordes of shuffling, idiotic triffids, perhaps an influence on the zombie films of George Romero. Its vision of genetic engineering gone wrong is also remarkably advanced and more telling now than ever, even if the plot is rather thin.
The one thing that really dated it for me was the portrayal of the women. Now, Wyndham may be exaggerating slightly to show how important it is for people to become tough and self-sufficient in times of crisis, but the women in DOTT seem not just timid but dim and deeply immature: prone to incomprehensible rages and crying fits and liable to do anything, however selfish or dangerous, to be centre of attention (even when surrounded by killer mutant plants).
It’s perhaps somewhat inevitable, but disappointing to find such weak characterisation in such a good book. Undoubtedly this is due to the time when it was written, but the impression I come away with is that the fault comes from attempting to write women as, basically, another species (a common flaw with male writers, I suspect. Eddings, anyone?).
But otherwise DOTT is highly recommended. Powerful, subtle and interesting: an unusually organic apocalypse.
That is, until lights in the sky turn everybody blind. Whether these are natural or some sort of malfunctioning satellite weapon is never explained, but the next morning the human race is reduced to groping its way around. It’s not long before the triffids up sticks (literally) and go hunting. Mankind is no longer the top species, order breaks down, and the human world starts to decay as nature returns to claim the land.
The story follows one man who did not witness the blinding lights, and his attempts to adapt and survive in the depopulated countryside. He, and a few others, struggle to remain alive and to keep up a reasonable standard of existence as civilisation rots around them.
DOTT has been called a “cosy catastrophe”: the action is confined to England, the characters are all well-spoken and there are none of the graphic horrors of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. But, like Geoffrey Household’s excellent thriller Rogue Male, a lot of the horror comes from understatement. The world needs order and repopulation, and there are hints of fascism and rape in the countryside. Most of humanity, basically, is starving to death, and the hero is stuck with the issue of whether to delay the inevitable by helping the afflicted. And the triffids too are subtly nasty. There is something particularly unpleasant in the image of a triffid sitting beside a corpse, waiting for it to decay sufficiently to be broken down for plant-food.
It’s still an excellent book; one of the first SF apocalypses and, in the hordes of shuffling, idiotic triffids, perhaps an influence on the zombie films of George Romero. Its vision of genetic engineering gone wrong is also remarkably advanced and more telling now than ever, even if the plot is rather thin.
The one thing that really dated it for me was the portrayal of the women. Now, Wyndham may be exaggerating slightly to show how important it is for people to become tough and self-sufficient in times of crisis, but the women in DOTT seem not just timid but dim and deeply immature: prone to incomprehensible rages and crying fits and liable to do anything, however selfish or dangerous, to be centre of attention (even when surrounded by killer mutant plants).
It’s perhaps somewhat inevitable, but disappointing to find such weak characterisation in such a good book. Undoubtedly this is due to the time when it was written, but the impression I come away with is that the fault comes from attempting to write women as, basically, another species (a common flaw with male writers, I suspect. Eddings, anyone?).
But otherwise DOTT is highly recommended. Powerful, subtle and interesting: an unusually organic apocalypse.
