Rated NC-18 (Nerdy Content from an 18-year-old): John Wyndham's Day of the Triffids
“Looks can be deceiving.”
- Some random dunce with too much free time
When it comes to pop culture we only expect one thing from our entertainment overlords: nothing but the best. We look for star-studded casts in films and television, Game Of The Year awards for video games, mentions of the New York Times Bestseller list for literature. However, once in awhile, you come across a work of fiction that makes you go “You’re kidding me, right”, only to find out after experiencing it that it doesn’t fall flat on its face. That’s where I introduce the acclaimed British author John Wyndham. He has a knack, that, despite the fact that some of his works often concern outlandish plots, premises, and settings, (such as a killer sea monster (The Kraken Wakes); and killer children (The Midwich Cuckoos)), he creates literature that can really knock the Wyndham out of you (*cricket chirps in the background* I’m sorry). But alas, those are books for other posts. The one that’s presented here is his magnum opus: Day of the Triffids, or basically the one that stars killer plants.
A spectacular meteor shower occurred while the protagonist, Bill Masen, was slumbering and the end result is that almost all of humanity was blinded as a result (with a few exceptions of course). Ironically Bill was recovering from sightlessness himself after he was blinded with triffid venom. Also, I just want to point out that the story begins with a classic apocalyptic fiction trope: the “I’ve woken up to find out the whole world has ended during my sleep”, something that’s been seen in equally horrifying dystopias such as the tv show The Walking Dead. Both have you haplessly groping about, but at least in one scenario, you’re already dead. Soon after the opening, the novel explains how the triffids came to play. Apparently, it was much suspected to be some sort of Soviet experiment and was accidentally spread across the face of the earth (“Oh, those Russians” -Boney M.). However they weren’t exterminated because it was soon discovered that triffid oil was a valuable commodity, but they were still kept in check…
...until the incident that was the freak meteor shower. And so poor, poor Masen has to learn to adapt to this drastically changed world; having to handle man-eating plants and the occasional group of looney human beings.
Now you're probably wondering how a premise so surreal can possibly be any good. What distinguishes it from the typical over-the-top B-Movie crap fests, is that instead of focusing on the mindless carnage, the whole carnage and nothing but the carnage, this text actually has a lot of depth to it. Thought-provoking questions are raised throughout such as: What kind of government should society have to live in these circumstances?; Does law and order still apply in a new world like this?; Is it a crime or a mercy to not save the countless amount of sightless people wandering about? The kind of elements that don’t leave a movie confined to the forsaken, backwater shelves at HMV. The plot and pacing are good as well, slowly revealing the world around the protagonist, and the moments of exhilaration where he confronts the triffids does wonders to balance out the thoughtful social commentary. One of my favourite scenes is when the Masen and a group of other survivors are left to continue off with daily life while triffids peer in through a large wire fence patiently waiting for the perfect opportunity. It reminds me of the kind of events that you see on Black Friday except the all the self-indulgent, narrow-minded shoppers have been replaced with 12-foot tall killing machines and the meat that on sale is well… you. However there are some rough edges throughout the text, most particularly the other characters feel a bit two-dimensional: such the timid melodramatic lover; the authoritarian wannabe; and so on. But regardless of all that, it still makes John Wyndham worthy of being called the “H.G. Wells of the 20th Century”.
