The Day of the Triffids – John Wyndham

Prompted by a list of books to read compiled by the BBC I decided I have not read enough classics. So here we have The Day of the Triffids one book down on my own two page list of books to read … oh well it is a good start. The Day of the Triffids was first published in 1951 and was seen as a ground breaking piece of writing. There had already been science fiction books but not quite like this, John Wyndham himself called his work ‘logical fantasy’. Which I would agree best describes the mixture of fantasy and reality he has perfectly created in The Day of the Triffids. When I mention that I’ve been reading this most people seem to think back to the 1962 film adaptation which I’m afraid I haven’t actually seen to comment on. This was not the only work of Wyndham’s to be adapted so was his The Midwich Cuckoos filmed as The Village of the Damned. So I was very excited to read some of Wyndham’s work for the first time and I certainly wasn’t disappointed.

We join the story not quite at the beginning as Bill Masen awakes blindfolded in hospital, he becomes anxious when no nurse comes to him or anyone for that matter. Bill can eventually not stand the tension any more and removes his own bandages to find that out of all the patients and doctors he is the only one who can see. It appears that everyone that witnessed the meteor shower the night before has now become blind, so Bill sets out on the hope of finding other people who can see. However blindness is not the only problem to contend with there are the triffids. Having only appeared a decade or so before this catastrophe triffids are huge venomous plants who have large roots which allow them to ‘walk’, they were found to eat anything including human flesh but they move so slowly that we have classed them as mostly harmless. But now that humans have lost there sight we find that it was our only advantage over the triffids who can now creep up on us silently. Now it becomes a fight for survival for the human race as they battle blindness, disease, the triffids and even other humans eager for power.

Wyndham has woven into the narrative of The Day of the Triffids many of the concerns of the period it was published in such as the Cold War, biological experimentation and man made apocalypse. You find out during the book that the triffids were actually created by humans which then some how escaped out of the laboratories and farms into the countryside. So it is the fear of biological experimentation or as we refer to it now genetically modified plants that is even more relevant today. As scientists and biologists warn that we are heading towards a global food shortage, our world begins to mirror the terrifying world of The Day of the Triffids rather too closely for comfort. What makes The Day of the Triffids more terrifying is Wyndham’s so matter of fact writing, he writes as if he were writing a history book or documentary rather than a piece of fiction.

I believe that this book is a must read although I do realise that science fiction isn’t for everyone, however if your opened minded when it comes to reading you must try this.