From the Bookshelf of Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge…

The Day of the Triffids

John Wyndham

Start date: September 28, 2015

Finish date: October 3, 2015

Discussion: 2015 Challenge Prompts

Find A Copy At

Libraries

Group Discussions About This Book

Showing 2 of 51 topics — 2,511 comments total

2015 Challenge Prompts

Prompt 25: A book you were supposed to read in school but didn't
By Ann · 67 posts · 992 views

last updated Jan 17, 2023 03:51PM

Prompt 39: A book with magic
By Ann · 48 posts · 446 views

last updated Jan 02, 2019 05:46AM

What Members Thought

Jun 02, 2013 Jeff Scott rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001books, fiction, science-fiction

Many of the Science Fiction stories of the 1950s possess a political message that underlies a futuristic disaster. In Day of the Triffids, most of the story has barely anything to do with Triffids, but the collapse of society. It is only later in the story due the Triffids play a prominent role, but even then, it is overshadowed by another menace, mankind itself.

Due to a comet show, almost all living creatures on the planet have been blinded. We begin the story with Bill in a hospital bed tempor ...more

Like · see review

Mar 28, 2008 Willa rated it really liked it · review of another edition

What would happen if the world really did finally slip off the tightrope we've been precariously balanced on for decades now? John Wyndham explores that question in a very entertaining way in The Day of the Triffids. This book is difficult to discuss while avoiding spoilers, but I'm going to do my best. Basically, a worldwide event makes 99% of the population 95% helpless. The other 1% must then decide what to do. Should they aid or abandon those left helpless? If they choose to aid them, do the What would happen if the world really did finally slip off the tightrope we've been precariously balanced on for decades now? John Wyndham explores that question in a very entertaining way in The Day of the Triffids. This book is difficult to discuss while avoiding spoilers, but I'm going to do my best. Basically, a worldwide event makes 99% of the population 95% helpless. The other 1% must then decide what to do. Should they aid or abandon those left helpless? If they choose to aid them, do they aid everyone equally or ration their assistance to the most 'worthy'; and how is that worthiness determined? How do they move forward to try to rebuild society? Is it best to hold to beliefs and/or traditions or to forge ahead with new rules which may or may not be suited for the new circumstances?

This situation on its own is difficult enough to deal with, but add in a new race of beings which now have a distinct advantage over most humans and you have a whole new level of hardship to deal with. This book will make you realize just how thin is the line between civilization and chaos and make you pause to consider just how prepared you would be if you woke one day to find the world entirely altered. It's also enjoyably creepy.

Quotes from this source:

"From August 6, 1945, the margin of survival has narrowed appallingly. Indeed, two days ago it was narrower than it is at this moment. If you need to dramatize, you could well take for your material the years succeeding 1945, when the path of safety started to shrink to a tightrope along which we had to walk with our eyes deliberately closed to the depth beneath us."

"But it is a necessary part of our mechanism that we should be able to cry only for a time over even an ocean of spilt milk - the spectacular must soon become the commonplace if life is to be supportable."

"You'd think she'd be reasonable," he muttered.
"Most people aren't, even though they'd protest that they are. They prefer to be coaxed or wheedled, or even driven. That way they never make a mistake: if there is one, it's always due to something or somebody else. This going headlong for things is a mechanistic view, and people in general aren't machines. They have minds of their own - mostly peasant minds, at their easiest when they are in the familiar furrow." ...more

Like · see review

Jul 20, 2009 Leslie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2009-reads

Classic sci fi that raises a lot of moral and philosophical questions about how people should act and react after an apocalyptic event, and how to go about rebuilding from there. Loved it.

Like · see review

Oct 29, 2019 Jessica Haider rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001-books, classics, sci-fi, its-the-end-of-the-world, 1000_books

Classic sci-fi that is at least a bit under the mainstream radar. In this tale, most of the population goes blind after a meteor shower...at the same time, a mobile, carnivorous plant species called Triffids is on the rise and takes the opportunity of humanity's blindness to go on the attack.

There were spots where this book was slow for me, but overall I am glad that I read it. ...more

Like · see review