The Day of the Triffids

Seems like I have been reading a lot of classic science fiction lately. The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham is another one. I remember something like 50 years ago seeing the movie, or part of the movie. It did not leave much of an impression with me. All I remember was something about attacking plants. It seemed par for the course for 1960’s horror movies. But I heard someone recommending the book and decided to give it a try.

What I found was that this was not so much an attacking creature kind of book, as it was post-apocalyptic fiction. Most of the tropes we have come to associate with post-apocalyptic fiction are there. But this book (written in 1951) predated most science fiction books in that subgenre. The Day of the Triffids did not invent post-apocalyptic fiction, but I think there were many books which copied aspects of it. Figuring out how to start over after civilization suddenly came to an end. How to organize a workforce, grow crops, fashion tools and weapons. The endless things we take for granted that make our lives easier, which now had to be rediscovered or to find new ways of doing them.

These fictional tropes seem familiar to us now, in fact I just recently reviewed a couple of books with them. But The Day of the Triffids was one of the first to use them and so in this way one would have to call it influential in the genre. The book is a bit dated. There are certainly things in it that don’t sit right with a modern audience. Like the idea that blindness is so horrible that most people would just commit suicide rather than to live with it. One must think that even in 1951, there were blind people living productive lives. They might have been put off by this novel, and blind people today would be downright offended by it.

As for the triffids themselves -- walking plants that carry a lethal sting -- it is interesting that these are not some creatures from outer space, but (probably) were bioengineered in a Russian lab. As I said, this is not your typical 1950’s sci-fi story. If your only contact with this story in the 1963 movie (like me) I would recommend giving the book a shot.

Star Liner

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