The Day of the Triffids (John Wyndham, 1951)

 'Everyone starts by knowing nothing about anything, but God gives him - and even her - brains to find out with. Failure to use them is not a virtue to be praised: even in women it is a gap to be deplored' - p. 148

At Christmas I watched the decidedly boring BBC big-budget adaptation of The Day of the Triffids. Distinctly under whelmed, I picked the original novel off the shelf last Friday, and from the first page I was hooked. I can’t remember the last time a book drew me in so quickly, and then kept me going until I finished it on Wednesday, less than a week later.

The first few chapters were very closely adhered to in the BBC version, and there were certain story elements that survived in one way or another, but the book was much more satisfying and a really pleasurable read. There was no superfluous Nun character, no Eddie Izzard pantomime villain, and no bloody Dougray Scott!

The strangest thing about The Day of the Triffids is how little the book contains the titular killer plant life. They’re always lurking in the background, but the core of the story is made up of the after effects of a catastrophic (man-made?) celestial event that leaves all but a few people around the world blind. Bill Masen is our sighted narrator, guiding us through his experiences from the morning he wakes up from an eye operation sighted, while everywhere around him lies chaos as everyone fails to adjust to their blindness. Wyndham spends more time exploring how such a blighted society can possibly function without electricity, medicine or wide-scale food production. He explores themes of anarchy, dictators, and free-loving through interesting characters, particularly the compelling Masen.

The Triffids merely add an extra science-fiction layer to the problems the blind world faces. It is suggested that the Triffids were engineered in Soviet Russia and then stolen by the West for their oil production, and Bill theorises that the celestial event was not a comet shower, but a man-made toxin released in space. These extra layers add a great deal of intrigue to the plot, and reflect the Cold War era in which the action takes place. Also indicative of the era is the occasionally sexist views taken by the characters (and Wyndham?) towards women, and what roles they could (and should) have in the coming rebuilding of society. Should they just be having babies, or should they work with the men? Having said that, Josella, Bill’s companion through much of the book is a strong female character who knows her own mind, and who has faced prejudice as she gained infamy by writing a sexy novel.  

A lesser book would not have been able to handle such great themes as society’s destruction and rebirth, let alone with the added science fiction element, but The Day of the Triffids works wonderfully, and I would recommend it to any fiction lover. There’s also a distinct vein of humour running throughout that adds another edge.