The Chrysalids

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If you've yet to savour THE CHRYSALIDS, a perennial front runner in the field of soft science fiction, I can't think of a better time than right now. Highly recommended indeed. There’s nothing that creeps me out more than hardcore bible thumpers. I’m not about to go Rust Cohle and step onto some imaginary soap box and start throwing shade on those who believe in a higher power. I understand the purpose in believing that there’s some omnipotent being that guides us through this thresher (OK, maybe a little Rust won't hurt) but when you start forcing your beliefs onto the general population and allowing it to govern the way you operate as a society, I get a little upset. Petra Strorm is the youngest of the Strorm children. The group of telepaths discovers that her ability is extraordinarily strong and difficult to resist, placing the group at greater risk of discovery. Chapter 2 discusses David’s family tree and his grandfather, Elias Strorm, the founder of Waknuk. Elias' son, Joseph, who is David's father, is an important man in their town and is a very religious individual—as is his wife, Emily. The Strorm’s family life is filled with religious practices. The religion is focused on keeping the “pure” form of humans, as defined by their text Nicholson’s Repentances. Anyone who does not conform to the norm is considered Deviant. Most Deviants live in the Fringes, the area outside of Waknuk and the surrounding farming communities. As a farming society, Waknuk is also concerned with destroying any genetically mutated plant or animal, known as Offences. For mutant crops, they are burned. Mutant animals have their throats slit at dawn. The dream that David has of Sophie being sacrificed in a Purification ceremony serves a few literary purposes. The Purification process itself is an allusion to the sacrificing that took place in the Old Testament, as a way of pleasing God by sacrificing a lamb. The dream is also a hyperbolic form of foreshadowing how David’s community will treat Sophie when she is discovered as a mutant. In addition, it is an allegory for the morally exacting way David’s society feels about people who fall outside of their definition of pure.

Case Two: We’re in the future and the United States needs to immediately take over all Middle-Eastern oil fields. It’s a matter of life and death. Via military superiority, such a takeover can be effected next week, no problem. Again, “survival of the fittest” requires this action.On the way home, David suddenly realizes that in his religion’s texts, it states that any person who falls outside of the guidelines of the correct number of body parts, etc., is not considered human and is considered a “Blasphemy against God.” David is puzzled and perturbed: he does not understand how it would be possible that Sophie is not an ordinary little girl. we can make a better world than the Old People. They were only ingenious half-humans, little better than savages; all living shut off from one another, with only clumsy words to link them. Often they were shut off still more by different languages, and different beliefs. Some of them could think individually, but they had to remain individuals. Emotions they could sometimes share, but they could not think collectively. When their conditions were primitive they could get along all right, as the animals can; but the more complex they made their world, the less capable they were of dealing with it. They had no means of consensus. They learnt to co-operate constructively in small units; but only destructively in large units. They aspired greedily, and then refused to face the responsibilities they had created. They created vast problems, then buried their heads in the sands of idle faith. There was, you see, no real communication, no understanding between them. They could, at their best, be near-sublime animals, but not more." (p.156)

John Wyndham has firmly managed to cement himself as a new favourite author for me after reading this as my second book by him (the first was Day of the Triffids). I think the way Wyndham writes, with inspiration drawn from a cosy British living in the 50s, and the fears brought about from the wartime before, mixed with a great blend of SF elements, just really works for me as a reader, and I find I can really enjoy his stories. The inhabitants of post-apocalypse Labrador have vague knowledge of the "Old People", a technologically advanced civilization they believe was destroyed when God sent " Tribulation" to the world to punish their forebears' sins. The inhabitants practise a form of fundamentalist Christianity; they believe that to follow God's word and prevent another Tribulation, they must preserve absolute normality among the surviving humans, plants and animals, and therefore practice eugenics. Humans with even minor mutations are considered blasphemies and either killed or sterilized and banished to the Fringes, a lawless and untamed area rife with animal and plant mutations, and suggested to be contaminated with radiation. Arguments occur over the keeping of a tailless cat or the possession of over-sized horses. These are deemed by the government to be legitimate breeds, either existing before or achieved through conventional breeding. The government's position is considered both cynical and heretical by many of the orthodox frontier community, and it is suggested that they support the usage of these animals for the sole purpose of their greater efficiency.Joseph Strorm is the father of David and Petra. He is a domineering personality, deeply religious, and unyielding on the subject of mutations and blasphemy, even punishing David severely for an unintentionally blasphemous remark about "needing an extra hand" to apply a bandage. Re-Birth (The Chrysalids) was one of the first science fiction novels I read as a youth, and several times tempted me to take a piggy census. Returning to it now, more than 30 years later, I find that I remember vast parts of it with perfect clarity…a book to kindle the joy of reading science fiction. –SciFi.com David Strorm is the narrator of the story. David is one of a small group of youngsters who can communicate with each other via telepathy. However, their community's theological prejudice against anyone who is abnormal means he and the others must keep their abilities carefully hidden. David and Rosalind's love for each other is kept secret from their parents because of a bitter feud between their families. Wyndham is a gifted story teller. He makes the reader feel alarmed and cosy at the same time without compromising on the pace of the narrative which is consistently thrilling right to the very end. It is a sound treatise on what it means to be different and why that doesn’t have to be a bad thing, but is most often considered to be one. David introduces John Wender, Sophie’s father, with whom he has a serious “man to man” understanding. David reflects that years later he could appreciate how grave the situation was for the Wenders, given that David knew their secret and was the son of one of the most powerful men.

There are a few weaknesses to the book - the "wise uncle" character is a bit too good and knowledgeable to be true, and once our characters are on the run, the plot feels a bit rushed... but...The adolescents are betrayed when one marries a “norm” only to commit suicide after confiding in her unsympathetic spouse. Uncle Axel murders the callous husband, but Petra’s awakened and uncontrolled powers send psychic blasts that paralyze the others, arouse suspicion and a witch hunt, and draw telepathic responses from Sealand (New Zealand), which sends an aircraft to rescue them. Pursued by Joseph Strorm and his troops, David, Petra, and Rosalind battle their way to the Fringes, where David’s banished uncle, Spider, captures them. Spider brutally beats David and leaves him to die, having announced his carnal designs on Rosalind. Sophie, her innocence corrupted, conceals David and murders the albino guarding Rosalind. As the posse descends for the kill, the Sealanders arrive, annihilating everyone except the young telepaths, whom they transport to Sealand to help build the world anew.