# The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham



## Anthony G Williams (Jun 22, 2012)

John Wyndham wasn’t just the best-known British SF author of the 1950s – he was one of the best known authors in fiction. It may be hard to recall, but in the UK SF used to be a lot more mainstream than it is now. In my childhood, Jules Verne was still very popular (I still have my ancient copy of *20,000 Leagues Under the Sea*) as was H.G.Wells (*The War of the Worlds*, among others). In the 1930s, Huxley's *Brave New World* and Orwell's *1984* raised the literary status of SF to the highest level. In the 1950s, Fred Hoyle, the most famous astronomer of his day, wrote *The Black Cloud* and *Ossian's Ride*, and in the 1960s went on to co-write the script for the *Andromeda* TV series. One of the most popular radio series in the 1950s was *Journey into Space* (I can still recall our family clustering around the radio to hear the weekly instalments) while *Quatermass* was a successful 1950s TV series.

Wyndham’s novel *The Day of the Triffids* (published in 1951) therefore met a receptive audience and created something of a sensation at the time.  Most people seemed to have read it and everyone knew what a triffid was, just as they know what a Dalek is today. As was pointed out by another reader on a discussion forum, some people even now (myself included, I realised) still jokingly refer to any large, strange and imposing plant as a "triffid". Nowadays Dr Who and the Harry Potter series are just as well known, but they differ in two important respects: they are primarily aimed at children, and they are fantasies rather than SF (I suspect that Tolkien was partly responsible for that). In the 1950s, SF in the UK was mainstream adult entertainment rather than the niche interest it has become. 

*Triffids* was followed by several other best-sellers by Wyndham, especially *The Midwich Cuckoos* (filmed exceptionally well in the UK in 1960 as *The Village of the Damned*, with a poorly-regarded Hollywood remake in 1995) but *Triffids* has survived better than the others. I hadn’t read it since the 1960s, so I was interested to see how it stood up today. One warning: this review contains some spoilers in describing the plot, but most readers will probably be aware of them anyway.

The first point to strike me was the quality of the writing. This isn’t just fiction, this is literature, and the care with words and descriptions plus the perceptive observations spread throughout the book all stand out from the great majority of SF.  No wonder it had a good critical reception. However, in this case "literary" does not imply "slow and unexciting", as it tends to today. The initial chapter, when the protagonist Bill Masen is in hospital having been temporarily blinded, is chilling in its evocation of the helplessness and dawning horror as he realises that something is terribly wrong with the world. This is emphasised by the story being told in the first person, making his emotions all the more intensely felt. 

I had a more negative response to the next two chapters which told the story of the triffids. Frankly, this pushed my credulity well over my limit. The potential dangers of genetically modified plants are of course just as topical today, and I would have no problems believing in a commercially valuable crop which was also dangerous to be around due to poisonous thorns or some such.  But plants which detect movement with sufficient precision to be able to strike accurately with a poisonous lash from several feet away? Which can pick up their roots and walk? Demonstrate collective intelligence and organisation? Communicate with each other via a drumming code (how did they devise and learn that)? Know that the eyes are the most vulnerable target in a human despite having no vision of their own? Sorry, but such an assembly of impossibilities, accidently emerging in one plant as a side-effect of developing edible-oil quality, would be met with derision if a modern author presented such a concept. Most modern SF might not be as well written, but its attempts at such developments tend to make more scientific sense.

In fact, I am rather baffled by the need to include the triffids at all. The conventional guidance to SF authors wanting to base their stories on some change taking place in the present day is that they should only introduce one “MacGuffin”; one key element, the consequences of which can then be explored. Wyndham has two right at the start: the triffids plus the intense atmospheric flashes which blind nearly all of humanity. I can’t help thinking that the concept of the triffids probably occurred to him first, and that he invented the global blinding in order to enable the triffids to become dangerous. If the global blinding had occurred to him first, the consequences of that would surely have provided quite enough drama to fill a novel without needing the impossible plants at all. In fact, I suspect that without the triffids, the story would have been even more chillingly realistic, and thereby even easier for the readers to relate to. On the other hand, the triffids are what the book is best remembered for, so perhaps he was being clever after all.

The triffids and their origin described, the tale then returns to Masen’s account of survival against the odds, which continues to grip the reader throughout the book. This is one of the classic “what would you do in his place?” novels, and the story doesn’t skate over the harrowing moral dilemmas about whether to try to help the blind survivors, knowing that it would only postpone the inevitable. Masen has great difficulty in casting aside his social conditioning to accept the new reality and change his attitudes and behaviour accordingly. In fact, the story isn’t really about SF at all, in the sense of focusing on bold futures full of gee-whiz technology and zooming rocket ships, as much SF was at the time. This is really about what it is to be human, and how people react so variously when placed in a situation which, while appalling, was not so strange that readers could not easily relate to it. This was, don’t forget, written in the early years of the Cold War, when the threat of nuclear annihilation was already rearing its head. Arguably, the disaster which befell the world in Wyndham’s story was even more disconcerting than atomic war would have been; the cities left untouched, apparently fully functioning, yet populated almost entirely by ordinary people whose lives were steadily unravelling and who were certain to be dead before long. The lethal disease which sweeps through the city, horrifying in other circumstances, comes as something of a relief since the alternative for most was a slow death by starvation.

One interesting aspect of the novel is that the female characters are far more than props for the men, as was so often the case at this time. They are drawn just as strongly, in both positive and negative roles; the characterisation of both genders is complex and rings true. One of the male characters rants furiously at the traditionally helpless attitude of a young woman when faced with vital technology - how to switch on a domestic generator to provide electric power - and the essential need in the changed situation for all of the sighted survivors to lose their ignorance and dependence. Even in this instance, the author has the woman responding with some spirit. 

That also made me realise that we are even more vulnerable to a global disaster today than the world was in 1951 - we have become highly dependent on a sophisticated web of infrastructure, communications, trade and just-in-time deliveries, and have even less idea of how everything works and what to do if it stops. To give one detailed example of our vulnerability, much of the tinned and dried food which could be expected to last for months or years has been replaced by chilled or frozen products which will start spoiling only a few hours after the power has failed.

As ever with novels from an earlier age, there are some unintentional glimpses into aspects of the past. The universality of cigarette smoking is a common one, but what struck me this time was the wonderment of the survivors at the clearness of the air in London, unaffected by coal smoke and fumes. That reminded me that the first Clean Air Act, which enforced the use of smokeless fuel in some urban areas, was not passed until 1956, and followed London's "Great Smog" of the winter of 1952/3, during which the capital (known colloquially at the time as "The Smoke") was occasionally immobilised by zero visibility and some 20,000 people were estimated to have died from the resulting respiratory illnesses.

The reasons for the runaway success of this novel are clear, and they still make it a compelling read today: the writing quality, combined with the way in which the reader is drawn into and fully engaged in the developing disaster, empathising with realistic and sympathetic characters. I know someone who was so horrified by the story as a young woman that she has never wanted to read it since, nor see any of the screen versions.  Yet she watches modern disaster films like *2012* and *The Day After Tomorrow* without any concerns at all, because they’re so unrealistic and superficial by comparison. In conclusion, *The Day of the Triffids* is an excellent, adult story which fully deserves its place in any list of classic science fiction. It’s just a pity about the triffids…!

(An extract from my SFF blog: http://sciencefictionfantasy.blogspot.co.uk/ )


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## Vertigo (Jun 22, 2012)

I find your comments on the scientific plausibility very interesting Anthony. I have been reading a few sf books from that era recently and I too have noticed that whilst the quality of sf writing was often exceptionally good (better than today? Maybe or maybe just different style), the quality of the science was often quite poor. Some of that is inevitably due to the huge advances science has made since that time, making their science obsolete, and some no doubt is down to the average person's understanding of science being much better today. However I wonder how much was simply because the writers didn't feel the need for the science to be as accurate or, maybe, without the benefit of the internet, it was just so much harder for a writer without a scientific background to get accurate information.





PS: it is interesting to note that none of Wyndhams books made it into the SF Masterworks series. I wonder if that was due to copyright issues?


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## Stephen Palmer (Jun 22, 2012)

Day Of The Triffids should certainly be there, and maybe The Kraken Wakes too.


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## Toby Frost (Jun 22, 2012)

I had some thoughts on Triffids a while back and noted them down here:

http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/47584-thoughts-on-the-day-of-the-triffids-by.html

Basically, I agree that it's a very powerful and skillfully-written book. To my mind only The Midwich Cuckoos betters it. My mental image is of it being set slightly before now, rather than just after WW2, which goes to show how well it has aged, I think. However, I found the women quite weakly-portrayed, and felt that they had that childish, act-on-a-whim quality that ages a lot of novels for me. That said, Wyndham is no worse than many other (later) writers for this, and perhaps slightly better than usual.


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## Extollager (Mar 3, 2013)

Here's conservative columnist Peter Hitchens on Wyndham (_Daily Mail _3 March 13):

Entry into the USA these days involves  a lot of queueing. On principle, I don’t object to this in any way.  Countries have an absolute right to examine visitors carefully and good  luck to them. Serious countries also give priority of entry to their own  citizens or subjects, as we do not because EU law forbids it.  Most US  immigration officials are, when politely approached, relaxed and  humorous individuals just like anyone else. To make the wait bearable, I  have something to read. The last time I visited the USA, I was happily  reading my e-reader when an agitated Homeland Security official began  barking ‘Sir! Sir! ‘ at me. Those familiar with the USA will know that  the word ‘Sir!’ from an official is an infallible sign of danger. It  means more or less the opposite of what it appears to mean. Anyway, it  turned out that *all* electronic devices were banned in the waiting  area. And that was that. You don’t argue. Once again, I’d really like to  know what possible danger an e-reader could present in these  circumstances.  
 But I wasn’t going to be caught again  this time, and packed, for re-reading purposes in the immigration queue,  a favourite John Wyndham book, ‘The Kraken Wakes’ Actually, I’d been  planning to take ‘The Midwich Cuckoos’, but like all badly-wanted books,  it had vanished from the shelf where it ought to have been. And  (Wyndham always does this) it had me in its grip so completely that I  forgot I was waiting. And I thought, once more, how strange it is that  this superb writer has never really gained the reputation he deserves. I  believe his centenary passed virtually unmarked a few years ago. And  more ‘adventurous’ writers of so-called ‘science fiction’ have tended to  dismiss him as ‘cosy’. This is of course absurd.His books do indeed  begin in cosy 1950s Britain, sleepy villages, broadcasting offices,  among middle-class people. But their cleverness consists of the way that  these apparently stable, safe circumstances can be revolutionised by  events observed but usually misunderstood.

 He’s marvellous at describing the way  the media miss the point, trivialise the important, and resist thought  until the last possible moment. He’s also extraordinarily keen on women.  By that, I mean, most of his books have highly intelligent, witty,  self-possessed and resourceful female characters. His ‘Trouble with  Lichen’ ( a word I still insist on rhyming with ‘Hitchin’ whatever the  pedants say) understands quite wonderfully the female dread of ageing,  and the injustice of it. His satirical dystopia ‘Consider Her Ways’  suggests that some sort of feminist revolution is inevitable because of  female intelligence, but will also be disastrous for women, who need men  more than they think they do. His short stories on time shifts, in one  of which the Second World War does not happen, are disturbing  masterpieces of imagination. I could go on. I suspect many of you will  treasure one or more of his books, or will at least have seen the (often  unsatisfactory) TV and cinema attempts to adapt them. 

 I’m pleased that he was obviously a  commercial success. But it seems to me that he was more than that. In  some ways, his books (with the exception of ‘The Chrysalids’ which  stands entirely on its own) offer a rather good social history of  educated, professional middle-class England in the tranquil years before  Lady Chatterley. He has a wonderful ear for the way in which English  people actually speak, and I have always treasured the moment where he  says a female character ‘used the word “darling” with the edge  uppermost’, which has a flash of really good Wodehouse in it. If you  haven’t, read him. If you have, re-read him. Like all good writers, he  is better each time.


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## Stephen Palmer (Mar 4, 2013)

nice 1!


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## Sourdust (Mar 4, 2013)

Stephen Palmer said:


> nice 1!



Yes, if you can get past the encomium to authoritarian transport policies. His reflections on Wyndham may be innocuous enough, but Hitchens the Younger is one of the most egregiously reactionary hacks in UK journalism. (I say that as someone who peruses the _Telegraph_ as well as the _Guardian_, and doesn't have a great deal of time for either of them.)

Don't mean to derail the thread, though.


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## Extollager (Mar 4, 2013)

Sourdust said:


> Yes, if you can get past the encomium to authoritarian transport policies



I thought he was complaining about them.


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## J Riff (Mar 5, 2013)

Imagine writing this, and getting to the end and not having a way to destroy the evil plants figured out. After days of thought - sea water! Terrific.


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## Vertigo (Sep 16, 2014)

J Riff said:


> Imagine writing this, and getting to the end and not having a way to destroy the evil plants figured out. After days of thought - sea water! Terrific.


It is only in the film that they find a way to destroy the triffids with, as you say, sea water. In the book no such solution is found and we are left with a vision of the future in which they have still be dealt with.

Interestingly I'm usually hyper critical of implausible science in my SF but I didn't have the same problem as Anthony over the triffids themselves. Maybe it's just that I saw them as Wyndham's allegory for man's scientific greed turning back on himself and they didn't need to be too plausible for that role.


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## Vertigo (Sep 16, 2014)

Having just re-read The Day of the Triffids here are my thoughts:

I’d forgotten how much better this book is than the film, no surprise there when considering the usual book to film comparison, but I remember this film as being really quite good; it’s just that the book is so much better. Wyndham manages to convey so much in a relatively short book with almost no info-dumping; the reader is constantly fed information through the action almost without realising it. It contains two big SF themes – the blindness and the Triffids themselves – which are totally independent, though it suggests they may be linked by a common thread of human arrogance and greed. As with many of Wyndhams books it is post-apocalyptic and yet is ultimately hopeful. It has well-paced drama with an engaging romance and is just incredibly easy to read.

Considering it was first published in 1951 and seems to be set not all that far in the future (though no date is given) it has aged extraordinarily well. Obviously the language, dialogue and settings are very much of their time but the science was, and still is, both forward thinking and realistically possible. This was before sputnik (1957) and yet already Wyndham foresaw a sky full of satellites containing weapons, both nuclear and biological, and he deliberately leaves ambiguity around the cause of the universal blindness; was it the comet or a military satellite whose orbit was disturbed by the comet? Or possibly, and even more sinisterly, was the comet just a cover up for a satellite accident? Then the Triffids are believed to have been created by genetic tinkering to provide a cheap source of oil. These themes with the threat of an apocalypse caused by mankind’s own greed and aggression are still as relevant today as they ever were

Wyndham handles the breakdown of civilisation particularly well with an initial rapid collapse with the vast proportion of the population blind. But this in itself improves the chances of the survivors; there is initially plenty of food and materials for everyone and a complete collapse into barbarism averted simply due to the small numbers of survivors. Instead Wyndham presents a realistic possibility of a slow but inexorable disintegration as stocks of food diminish or spoil and machinery eventually breaks down without the manufacturing infrastructure to replace it. But the story never gives up hope and offers equally plausible solutions, though we are left to speculate on the protagonist’s future success or failure.

The Day of the Triffids most certainly deserves its reputation as one of the best science fiction horror stories ever told.

5/5 stars.


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## Stephen Palmer (Sep 17, 2014)

Good review! ^^


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## kythe (Oct 24, 2014)

I just finished "Day of the Triffids" for the first time.  I am very impressed with how thoroughly the situation is portrayed.  At first I found myself frustrated with Bill Mason.  He isn't your typical hero - he's not a natural leader, he isn't brilliant or overly compassionate.  (Then again, I'm a nurse and as such, I don't see myself choosing to leave the hospital in the first scene.  I would have been telling a very different story).  But he is a perfect vessel for exploring the concept of what it takes to survive an apocalypse.  Through his eyes - literally - we see the downfall of civilization and subsequent attempts at rebuilding a workable life for those who survived the catastrophe.  

We meet several survivor groups of various sizes and styles of leadership and see their strengths and weaknesses.  I find each one relatable in some way, and it very believable that the world would fall quickly into a tribal or eventually feudal system once central government has collapsed.  I like that the book did not end with a solution to either the triffid problem or the blindness issue.  It wouldn't have been believable to the magnitude of the catastrophe.  Yet there is hope that with the rebuilding of large enough communities that these problems can be addressed and eventually overcome.


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## Ray McCarthy (Oct 24, 2014)

I find the "science" in much modern SF (actual and not-really SF) much less plausible than Triffids. A lot only seems plausible to people that are not real mathematicians, computer programmers, electronic design engineers, physicists, chemists or biologists. 

It's a real classic.


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