# The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham



## Vertigo (Jul 20, 2017)

The sleepy village of Midwich in rural post-war England is unremarkable in almost every way until it is cut off from the rest of the world by an unknown field that renders unconscious anyone venturing within its influence. Some time later it is discovered that all the women of child bearing age in the village have simultaneously fallen pregnant. The cuckoo has laid its eggs.

The Midwich Cuckoos is very different to Wyndham’s normal science fiction fare; it is neither apocalyptic nor post-apocalyptic and, although Wyndham was not exactly an action thriller writer, here there is almost no action at all. Instead this is a very thoughtful book with extensive philosophical discussions and musings, which, though very interesting and well presented, might have tried the patience of his readers had the book been longer. But, at just under two hundred pages, the slow pace should not be a problem and his examination of difference and society’s response to such difference – both tolerance its absence – is fascinating and still surprisingly relevant.

Another interesting and recurring theme throughout this book and, arguably, present in many if not all of Wyndham’s other books is his rejection of the cosy fuzzy tree-hugging view of Nature so prevalent these days:

_“I wonder if a sillier and more ignorant catachresis than “Mother Nature” was ever perpetrated? It is because Nature is ruthless, hideous, and cruel beyond belief that it was necessary to invent civilization. One thinks of wild animals as savage, but the fiercest of them begins to look almost domesticated when one considers the viciousness required of a survivor in the sea; as for the insects, their lives are sustained only by intricate processes of fantastic horror. There is no conception more fallacious than the sense of cosiness implied by “Mother Nature”. Each species must strive to survive, and that it will do, by every means in its power, however foul – unless the instinct to survive is weakened by conflict with another instinct.”_

And he is right, there is nothing kind and gentle about “Mother Nature.” Nature is ruthless and absolutely all about survival. That ruthlessness has been, and always will be, what drives evolution and if there are two species that need the same resources to survive then the superior one – better adapted, better armed, more intelligent – will always dominate and drive out the weaker one. That is really the crux of this book and, as always, Wyndham presents it exceptionally well.

Not my favourite Wyndham nor the easiest to read but still very good and still containing lessons relevant to the modern day.

3/5 stars


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## mosaix (Jul 20, 2017)

Good review, Vertigo.

I like that there's a different character in the village to represent every possible opinion of the unexpected pregnancies.


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## farntfar (Jul 20, 2017)

A very perceptive review.

In the final chapters we see some possible ways that an apparently superior competitor may still be beaten by acts of courage, sacrifice or just by applying plain and simple ruthlessness in return.

A similar theme of survival of the fittest is given in his book The Chrysalids, but often in a rather more preachy way. (That's not to say that for a long time it wasn't my favourite of his books.)


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## Vertigo (Jul 21, 2017)

Thanks both! 


mosaix said:


> Good review, Vertigo.
> 
> I like that there's a different character in the village to represent every possible opinion of the unexpected pregnancies.


Yes I thought that was very clever and also probably very realistic.


farntfar said:


> A very perceptive review.
> 
> In the final chapters we see some possible ways that an apparently superior competitor may still be beaten by acts of courage, sacrifice or just by applying plain and simple ruthlessness in return.
> 
> A similar theme of survival of the fittest is given in his book The Chrysalids, but often in a rather more preachy way. (That's not to say that for a long time it wasn't my favourite of his books.)


Yes he made that point well, though he was also making the point that you must act early whilst the superior species is still weak and low in numbers.



Spoiler



And very touching that the person who perceived the need for the sacrifice and who carried it out was also the person who was probably closest to the Children and loved them the most, at least intellectually rather than maternally.


I also thought there were some strong parallels with The Chrysalids (should have mentioned that in the review... never mind!) though this was a much more philosophical look at the issue.


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## Stephen Palmer (Jul 21, 2017)

Great review.
It's interesting isn't it that John Wyndham has remained an author of note for so long.


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## Vertigo (Jul 21, 2017)

Stephen Palmer said:


> Great review.
> It's interesting isn't it that John Wyndham has remained an author of note for so long.


Thanks, and, yes, it is interesting. His books are not overly dramatic, especially compared to the typical raygun style SF so prevalent at the time. Also he tends to write from the perspective of that quintessentially reserved, middle-class, English man or woman (more English than British I think). All very understated and unruffled and unruffleable (yes I know that's not a word but you get my meaning!). All very comfortable and suburban. And today probably rapidly heading for extinction. Yet somehow the content still seems relevant.

As I think I mentioned before on the Chrons, my English teacher despairing of ever getting me to take an interest in reading was the man who first put me onto Wyndham, and I've always been grateful to him.

I wonder whether his popularity will outlive people like myself who just about remember that era before motorways, when every village had a bobby on a bicycle, a village green where everything happened, and where the pub and frequently the mill were typically to be found, and middle class people genuinely referred to 'one' instead of 'I.' In other words I wonder how much of his appeal is nostalgia for a way of life that has pretty much disappeared.

[When I was 14 I actually worked in our local mill, still largely powered by water (turbine not wheel mind you), and I was paid 25p an hour (just a few years earlier and it would have been 5/-) and despite my age was working a 40 hour week for just £10 - them was the days...]


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## farntfar (Jul 21, 2017)

It reminded me of my childhood too.
Back then we didn't have contact lenses and the gold flecks were quite visible in my irises.

I haven't seen the more modern film, but the old one, with George Saunders certainly portrays the village character of which you speak.


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## Danny McG (Jul 21, 2017)

Boomtown Rats!

Also some Chrons had a gander at this book nine years ago...

The Midwich Cuckoo Book


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## Toby Frost (Jul 21, 2017)

I really don't think _The Midwich Cuckoos_ is comfortable at all, and I think Brian Aldiss was wrong to describe Wyndham as "cosy". If anything, Wyndham's books seem to me to be heavily overshadowed by WW2. Wyndham's early book, _Plan for Chaos_, was about a fascist conspiracy. Torrance in _The Day of the Triffids_ bears a fair resemblance to Oswald Mosely, and several of the characters are convinced that Americans will arrive to help fight the triffids. The first pub the hero goes in _Day of the Triffids_ is even called The Alamein Arms. If there is a merry little village, it's usually fighting for its life, much like the villagers in the film _Went The Day Well?_. 

_The Midwich Cuckoos_ is a very sinister book. It posits a sort of invasion that isn't a straight-up gunfight, and is all the more disturbing for it. Its moral element reminds me of _The Boys from Brazil_ by Ira Levin, where the hero has to decide what to do with a child who seems to be a clone of Hitler (WW2 again!). And after all that, when mankind wins, it's implied that the whole thing may have been a sort of alien research project. I think it's one of his most powerful novels and definitely worth a read.


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## Vertigo (Jul 21, 2017)

Yes I agree completely; his books are to me very dark and I think made all the more sinister by the initial setting being very 'cosy.' I think Midwich Cockoos is actually particularly dark simply because it is all so suppressed. It's almost a horror rather than SF, but a horror in that psychological way that Hitchcock was so good at.


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## Stephen Palmer (Jul 21, 2017)

I think he is "quintessentially English," but there is something else... He had a very weird, somewhat Lovecraftian imagination I think. But maybe it's also got something to do with tapping into that catastrophe thing, which so many of his novels are about. _Day Of The Triffids_ is one of a tiny number of novels I re-read. Recently BBC showed the early '80s adaption of Triffids, and it was as thrillingly strange as I remembered.


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## Stephen Palmer (Jul 21, 2017)




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## Danny McG (Jul 21, 2017)




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## Toby Frost (Jul 21, 2017)

I once read an interesting book about British landscape art in the 1950s, called _A Paradise Lost_. A lot of it was about avant-garde painting, which meant very little to me, but there was a chapter about science fiction, which the book saw as the equivalent of stylised visual art. John Wyndham got a lot of mentions, as did the Quatermass film where a man turns into a sort of plant-monster. There probably is a genre of British rural SF/Fantasy/horror, which would contain Wyndham and _The Wicker Man_, along with things like Clive Barker's novella _Rawhead Rex_.


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