The Chrysalids

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Later, the existence of geographic areas far less affected by the nuclear exchange and fallout are established, particularly Sealand ( New Zealand), which is home to a socially and technologically advanced society where telepathy not only is the norm, but is encouraged and developed as a survival advantage. This is the story of David, a young boy who has a troubled upbringing in a rural farming community. He's brought into a culture where 'Deviation' is seen as Devil-work and anything that 'Deviates' in any way must be exterminated. This extends through all the crops that the farmers grow, right through to the children they birth. Any abnormality will mean death or desertion of children/burning of crops. Nothing is allowed to go against the True Image, and David's father is one of the most staunch in the community about enforcing this rule.

Honesty compels me to state that The Chrysalids suffers from being very familiar even if you never read it because there are (apparently) only so many thing that are ever going to happen after the nuclear holocaust. There will be granite jawed high and mighty God-intoxicated flawed leaders (Charlton Heston), there will be hotheaded youths (Leonardo DiCaprio circa 1998), there will be lissom ardent girls in inappropriate garments (Jenny Agutter from Logan’s Run), there is a strong chance of there being bands of roaming mutants led by Brad Dourif, aw, you know the drill. Perhaps the best sound-bite from the anti-evolution camp is the one about the tornado. If a tornado hit a junkyard, how likely is it that it would randomly create a 747? I was surprised to learn the other day that the line originally comes from Fred Hoyle, the brilliant but eccentric astrophysicist who also coined the phrase "Big Bang". Of course, it's not a fair comparison. The whole point, as everyone from Darwin onward has explained, is that evolution isn't a one-shot process; it's the result of a gigantic number of tiny incremental steps, where Nature each time throws away nearly all the results as unpromising and keeps only the few that gave something worthwhile. John Wyndham is often described in rather disparaging term as the main proponent of cosy catastrophe. This based on the allegation that his protagonists tend to be English middle class white males who are not much inconvenienced by the apocalypse, somehow continuing to live it up while the rest of the populace suffer. Having read three of his books I find that while the allegation is not entirely unwarranted it is also not quite fair. I hope to write more about this issue when I get around to reviewing The Day of the Triffids.

by John Wyndham

I know that the people of Waknuk were immoral in their thinking, but that did not justify mass-murder. They were simply uneducated and needed guidance. Telepathy is not a requirement for intelligence. The plot revolves around two stages of the life of the central character, David Strorm. The first is when he is about 10 years old and the next about 6 years later. Without including too many spoilers, it concerns a group of children/young people who are hiding the fact they have genetic variations. They live under constant fear of discovery and the novel builds to an exciting “man on the run” climax - except in this case it’s two teenagers and a child on the run. It’s done very well. Author John Wyndham brings us into the mind of David, a young man born with telepathic powers. Where his own personal deviation is not visible to the community, he and others who share this ability must keep their special talent a secret for fear of death or banishment. Can David and his fellow friends keep their special skills under wraps or are they doomed to live among the fallen? David tells his telepathic community of friends, via thoughts, about the incident with Sophie. In a conversation with the Inspector, David finds out Sophie and her parents were caught. Later, David confides in Uncle Axel and tells him that he wants to run away because he feels scared about his own deviance from the norm. Uncle Axel convinces David not to run away until he is older, and reasons that no one really knows what the real norm of humanity is. Axel bases this knowledge on his experience as a sailor, where he heard about numerous other societies with mutations that they thought were the norm. Uncle Axel also talks of the geographical aspects of Waknuk and the surrounding badlands. While David has been taught this definition, he has not internalized it, and he sees no problem with the fact that Sophie has six toes. He does his best to protect her, but eventually a boy named Alan sees her six-toed footprint and reports it to the authorities. Sophie and her family are forced to flee, and David learns to take deviations from the norm seriously.

Genetic variations and mutations, now commonplace (no doubt as a result of higher worldwide radiation levels), are seen as evil. "Deviant" crops and animals are burnt. Humans with even the most minor mutations from their highest religious ideal, a physical norm which the community calls God's "True Image", are labeled as blasphemies and are killed outright or banished to eke out their future existence in a wildly savage outlying area called "The Fringes". It is a young adult novel, but don't let that stop you, the issues are adult. David Strorm is the main protagonist, a young man who lives in a fanatical religious community, who is able to send telepathic messages to others like him. His farming village is very traditional. Their traditions include death or banishment for anyone who isn't "perfect". Perfect people have no odd physical deformations, and no mental ones either. So how has it stood up? Remarkably well but with big reservations, an ending that seemed very ham-fisted. The major protagonist David tells the story in the first person, and what a riveting tale it is of those that are not normal in his fundamentally religious society. After a nuclear holocaust, much of humanity has not survived. In a small patch in Labrador, those that did were full of fire and brimstone towards those that they found in their midst that were not in the image of man and women as they interpreted the surviving bible. So an individual that had 6 toes, for example, was outcast into the fringe lands. David and a few others find they are able to communicate via a form of telepathy but once found out had to make a run for it. It was a well written and stirring adventure that covered the story well in a YA type of delivery. The story is set in Labrador, Canada, which in the book has a warmer climate than today. The inhabitants are famers with a technology roughly equivalent to early 18th century Europe. They are aware that “the old people” once had a more advanced civilisation but believe God sent “tribulation” to punish humanity for its sinfulness. They are also ruled by a harsh form of Christianity that is focused on the destruction of “deviations” or “mutants”, whether human, animal or plant life. Radiation residues cause genetic abnormalities which the Church believes are the work of the Devil. The women of Labrador sew large Christian crosses onto their dresses, in the hope they can ward off the Devil and give birth to children “in the true image of God.” As might be expected in such a society, it is women who get the blame when things don’t go to plan. To the south of the settled area lies “The Fringes” where genetic variations are more common, and further south again are “The Badlands”, which are still uninhabitable as a result of the nuclear holocaust.

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David’s father is a no-nonsense preacher who presents select bible verses as fact and therefore is void of empathy when it comes to protecting the community from so called deviations from the devil, despite the fact that many pose no threat. Since nuclear waste has an approximate half life of twenty-four thousand years, there’s a good chance that the deformities are a result of radiation rather than the mythical man below. However, I guess the struggling society isn’t all that knowledgeable given the separation from the “Old People”. David Strorm's father doesn't approve of Angus Morton's unusually large horses, calling them blasphemies against nature. Little does he realise that his own son, and his son's cousin Rosalind and their friends, have their own secret abberation which would label them as mutants. But as David and Rosalind grow older it becomes more difficult to conceal their differences from the village elders. Soon they face a choice: wait for eventual discovery, or flee to the terrifying and mutable Badlands. . .

This isn't a nice cosy world for anyone—especially not for anyone that's different,' he said. 'Maybe you're not the kind to survive it, after all” If the authorities will ruthlessly destroy such outward Deviations, David can imagine what would happen if village leaders discovered he and several of his friends posses a particularly powerful Deviation: they are telepathic, capable of sharing mental images and speaking with one another internally, mind-to-mind. And David's younger sister Petra is born with super, mind-blowing telepathic powers, able to communicate with other telepaths halfway across the globe. Holy Deviation! Uncle Axel is a widely travelled former sailor, open minded and willing to question conventional religious precepts. Upon discovering David's telepathy, he counsels caution and extracts a promise that David take great care not to allow others to learn of his mutation.Miller, P. Schuyler. "The Reference Library", Astounding Science-Fiction, October 1955, pp. 144–45. David Strorm, the telepathic protagonist and his telepathic friends certainly do not have a good time lording it up to anybody. They live in a rural region called Labrador ruled by fascistic religious zealots. In this post apocalypse world the “Tribulation” (nuclear holocaust) has caused wide spread mutations among all life forms, and mutations of any kind are regarded as blasphemies: When the community discovers that David and Rosalind together with a small group of other young people have developed the ability to communicate telepathically, they are forced to flee for their lives. They are re-united with their friend Sophie, earlier banished to the Fringes for the disgusting aberration of having six toes instead of the normal five. David's younger sister, Petra, able to communicate her thoughts with a power and at a distance far beyond any of the other children discovers the presence of others like them in a distant community who mount a campaign to rescue the children from their persecutors. Michael is the most objective, perceptive and decisive of the telepaths, the best educated, and in many ways plays a leading role in the group despite his physical absence from events in the story. His telepathic abilities remain secret, and during the pursuit into the Fringes he joins the leading posse to give updates and warnings to David, Rosalind and Petra as they flee.

Another wonderfully written Wyndham book. Similar to some of the other reviewers I find that Wyndham's writing draws you in, and before you know it an hour has passed (Not lost as reading is never about losing time) and you want to carry on to continually find out what happens next.a b Wyndham, John. "Random House, Inc. Academic Resources | The Chrysalids by John Wyndham". Randomhouse.com . Retrieved 22 May 2010. The novel was adapted for BBC radio by Barbara Clegg in 1982, [6] with a further adaptation by Jane Rogers in 2012. [7] It was also adapted for the theatre by playwright David Harrower in 1999. [8] Plot summary [ edit ]