From the Bookshelf of Apocalypse Whenever…

The Day of the Triffids

John Wyndham

Start date: May 1, 2011

Finish date: May 31, 2011

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What Members Thought

May 28, 2011 Amy rated it really liked it

Shelves: post-apocalyptic, kindle, 2011-books-read, book-club-pick

Day of the Triffids was this month's read in GoodReads' Apocalypse Whenever group, and it pleasantly surprised me. The premise is that most of the world goes blind after looking at comets in the sky and that the earth is overtaken by semi-intelligent carnivorous plants. Thus, I expected it to read more like an implausible B movie on the sci-fi channel or be like the silli-riffic Little Shop of Horrors. However, it was nearer to a plausible reality, and it sucked me in to read it during every spa Day of the Triffids was this month's read in GoodReads' Apocalypse Whenever group, and it pleasantly surprised me. The premise is that most of the world goes blind after looking at comets in the sky and that the earth is overtaken by semi-intelligent carnivorous plants. Thus, I expected it to read more like an implausible B movie on the sci-fi channel or be like the silli-riffic Little Shop of Horrors. However, it was nearer to a plausible reality, and it sucked me in to read it during every spare moment.

In reading post-apocalyptic fiction, I find it interesting to note how different authors have their characters survive in the immediate aftermath of disaster. By eliminating most of the population through plague, there wasn't much competition for supplies. Thus, the author had its characters loading at least a year's supply of goods into large trucks from warehouses and gathering seeds to start farming measures for the future.

Another interesting component the author adds is how ethics sometimes needs to change to fit the situation. Can a few sighted people really take care of a world full of blind people? Should those few with sight take pity on the blind or worry about their own survival? The right thing is often colored with more shades of grey than we suppose.

While reading, I tried to plot out if it would be possible to go blind and successfully find my way to the nearest grocery store. I took a walk this afternoon through the neighborhood and realized just how likely it would be that I'd get lost before I found it. I'd probably end up turning down people's driveways instead of down the streets that would lead me there. But, luckily, there's one only about 2 blocks up and 3 blocks over, so it wouldn't be impossible ... as long as there weren't deadly, carnivorous plants roaming around the neighborhood as well. I'd like to think that I'd be left among the sighted, having been too busy reading a good book to go outside and have comets blind me. Luckily, this entire scenario is fairly unlikely. ...more

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Jul 03, 2009 Zach rated it really liked it

Shelves: post-apocalyptic, science-fiction

You know, the triffids don't really play much of a role for most of this book-it really should have been called BLINDNESS (sorry, saramago).

That said, aside from the absolutely atrocious approach to gender (yeah, yeah, 1951, I know), this was an enjoyable little book, with an oddly optimistic atmosphere for a novel of the apocalypse. ...more

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Jul 06, 2011 Schnaucl rated it really liked it

Shelves: library, fiction, post-apocalyptic, july, read_2011

It's interesting to see how many of the post-apocalyptic tropes remain basically the same after 60 years. The cities are thought to be death traps because there won't be enough food and eventually the bodies will pose serious health risks. There are concerns that people have become so specialized that almost no one knows how to produce food or clothing. There's concern that a military weapon might get out of control and cause unintended problems. Although Edmund Morris says Wyndham's take on wom It's interesting to see how many of the post-apocalyptic tropes remain basically the same after 60 years. The cities are thought to be death traps because there won't be enough food and eventually the bodies will pose serious health risks. There are concerns that people have become so specialized that almost no one knows how to produce food or clothing. There's concern that a military weapon might get out of control and cause unintended problems. Although Edmund Morris says Wyndham's take on women is dated I didn't really feel that way. Yes, the women are wearing dresses rather than pants, but the idea that in a post-apocalyptic society men will do the hard labor and women will be baby factories and take care of the domestic tasks is still pretty prevalent in today's fiction. Even in Battlestar Galactica women are forbidden from having abortions (although there's no expectation that women have to have children and women were certainly doing the same work as the men). There was certainly some paternalism, particularly when it came to sighted women being better off with a blind man than alone but I wouldn't be surprised (appalled, but not surprised) to see a similar sentiment in contemporary fiction.

I was a little uncomfortable at how the blind were portrayed as nearly helpless but a newly blind person would probably react that way. There is one blind person who was blind before the meteor shower who appeared to be confident and capable. But there's no indication as to how or whether he will survive.

One of the things that I liked about this book was that it was more cerebral than typical post-apocalyptic fiction. It wasn't just the literary quotes (which reminded me of classical literature) but the discussion of how social mores must change in order to assure survival and what it takes to have a thinking class.

The part about the thinking class has really stayed with me, though it's not the first time I've heard the idea expressed. Is that why there's been such a strong anti-intellectual movement in America over the last decade +? Is it because the thinking class is "sponging off the working class?" Of course, the political leaders of that movement aren't producing goods and services either.

The Triffids are an interesting concept but they never felt like they were as much of a threat as the mass blindness. They're tall enough that they should be relatively easy to spot. They're dangerous on an individual level, but for a sighted person they can be dealt with. They're like zombies in that their primary danger comes from large groups. But unlike zombies not every sting is fatal. It may be that part of the reason they felt less dangerous was because the story starts with Bill being stung by a triffid but surviving. Early on he discloses that he's been stung multiple times and survived. ...more

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Jan 19, 2012 Patrick Nichols rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: folio

A deeply disquieting apocalypse novel. Typically end-of-the-world tales slaughter humanity with abrupt alacrity - either with comets or quakes or atom bombs. Even if the universal death is a bit slower, the masses are at least consumed by forces beyond our power to aid - plague, zombies, bedbugs, gluten. In Wyndham's novel, though, the world is simply struck blind, and left to weep hopelessly at their fate from dead eyes as they stagger out into the streets, starving, to die horribly. Most of th A deeply disquieting apocalypse novel. Typically end-of-the-world tales slaughter humanity with abrupt alacrity - either with comets or quakes or atom bombs. Even if the universal death is a bit slower, the masses are at least consumed by forces beyond our power to aid - plague, zombies, bedbugs, gluten. In Wyndham's novel, though, the world is simply struck blind, and left to weep hopelessly at their fate from dead eyes as they stagger out into the streets, starving, to die horribly. Most of the rest of the novel is a series of contrivances designed to provide our (conveniently sighted) protagonist with a rationalizations for leaving all his suffering countrymen to die in misery and darkness.

Ostensibly the first half of the book wrestles with this dilemma - should the few sighted survivors try to help the blind (perhaps futilely). What moral hold do the great masses of the unlucky have over the privileged few? Those few people who insist on a moral imperative back it up against the sighted with violence and sanctimoniousness. The author makes is clear enough that these do-gooders are meant to be unsympathetic, and to underscore the point he rains down Apollo's plague arrows upon them.

Fortunately our hero quickly discovers and rescues a sexually-liberated love interest from the sightless hordes. "Things are a bit sticky", she purrs (a bit loudly so as to be heard over the incessant wailing of innocent children dying everywhere), "but at least we have each other!" Her rescue, repeatedly, allows for the heroes redemption. And eventually they find a nice little spot in the country where all they have to worry about it fighting off the occasional zombie. I mean, uh, Triffid.

Hey, I loved this book as I loved all apocalypse fiction, back when I was twelve. And perhaps I'm being unfair about the profoundly nightmarish subtext. Part of the appeal of most apocalypse fiction - at least for us misanthropes - is that it has the politeness of eradicating all those annoying people who cut the line in front of us in Dunkin Donuts, without our having to take any responsibility. The most perfect form of this is in Night of the Comet, where all those interfering adults are erased to a powdery brown dust. We can shed a tear and then get on with being king of the world. Perhaps Wyndham is pointing out the callousness of the genre, our capacity for indifference to mass suffering, the primal sociopathy in each of us.

Or maybe he just likes menacing shrubbery! Who can say.
...more

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