The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham

Title:  The Day of the Triffids

Author: John Wyndham

Year: 1951

Publishing Details: Doubleday, a division of Random House Inc., 2003 Modern Library Paperback Edition

Genre: Science Fiction

Topical Category: Man-eating Plants, Post-Apocalyptic

Synopsis and Background:

Post-apocalyptic imaginings are a fixture of science fiction. From the hypothesized post-Martian future of War of the Worlds (1898),  to Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend (1954) which became the prototype for the massively popular “zombie apocalypse”, there are many different imagined futures. Sometimes aliens have invaded, sometimes biological warfare has made the planet almost unlivable. Sometimes a dystopia has risen up after another World War, as in We (1921) by Yevgeny Zamyatin or Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) by George Orwell. Sometimes humans are no longer even the dominant species as in La Planète des Singes (1963) by Pierre Bouille. 

This genre predates the Cold War, but found its most prolific expression from the 1950s on when nuclear holocaust seemed always around the corner. Other kinds of ecological holocausts brought on by pollution, unfettered science, robot uprising, climate change, or alien lifeforms were sprinkled liberally among the tales of nuclear devastation, especially once the environmental movement took off in the late 60s. Honestly, with the fears of germ warfare, ecological collapse, a Cold War turning ‘hot’, and the Doomsday Clock ticking ever closer to midnight it’s a wonder more apocalyptic fiction wasn’t produced.

The Day of the Triffids is an early example of this phenomenon that manages to put its own unique spin on the end of the world. On a seemingly average Wednesday, our protagonist awakes in the hospital. Bill Masen, a triffid scientist, has had his eyes injured by a triffid sting. He is anxious to finally have the bandages removed so he can see again. But something is wrong. Bill comes to find that nearly everyone in London and the world was dazzled by a display of ‘green comets’ the proceeding night. The next day everyone who witnessed the display woke up completely blinded. Bill escaped this as his eyes were already bandaged.

As he ventures out into the world, Bill witnesses the effects that this has had on civilization and gradually begins to meet the few people who, like himself, retained their sight. He meets a young woman named Josella and the two form a partnership as they search for a place or group of people with which to live and survive.

But then there are the triffids. Ambulatory plants that may or may not have been engineered in Soviet Russia, the triffids were cultivated as a rich source of a substitute for fish oil. The ‘tri’ comes from their habit of awkwardly swinging themselves about on their three ‘legs’ in order to walk around. They are carnivorous, consuming flies and decomposing animal flesh in a ‘cup’ on the top of their stem that dissolves their food. Possessed of a whiplike sting and venom they use to defend themselves and hunt their prey, domesticated triffids were easily rendered harmless by ‘docking’–removing the sting– a procedure that only had to be performed every year or so. Triffids became fashionable garden editions, productive crops, and were cultivated all over the world. Bill Masen was a triffid specialist, before the world ended.

But with humanity handicapped en-masse by their loss of vision, the triffids are able to expand, to grow unchecked, to reproduce. They also seem to be much more intelligent than was first assumed, able to coordinate their attacks and learn from experience. And where there were once thousands of triffids there are soon millions.

SPOILERS BELOW

My Thoughts:

The Day of the Triffids is very much a product of its time in that the end of the world and roaming through an increasingly apocalyptic landscape is related in a very rational and matter-of-fact way. Or perhaps that is because it is British? Regardless, Bill Masen manages to keep it together much better than some other protagonists I have seen in this kind of situation. As he himself helpfully points out at the end of the third chapter, he has no real family or emotional attachments still living, and that broadens his horizons considerably.

Luckily the author realizes that any good protagonist needs a goal, quest, or something to aim for and quickly introduces Josella. Josella is a ‘modern woman’ of a type that is quite quaint nowadays, having broken out from her stuffy family by publishing a piece of purple prose called Sex is My Adventure. The reputation of which amusingly follows her even after the apocalypse has occurred. Josella is also an eminently practicable person so she and Bill are well matched. I hope that should I ever live through the robot uprising or some similar event I will be half as logical as these two.

Wyndham does an excellent job of showing modern society disrupted and gradually crumbling with all the usual players: people with strong personalities forming small bands of their own, people with utopian or messianic social plans, hedonists crowing the end of social restraint, proto-fascists and proto-socialists and every kind of ideologue convinced that since the old order has been swept away it is finally time to start a new one. The main four options presented are:

• A group led by a Michael Beadly and philosophically driven by a former professor of sociology with a decidedly utilitarian take on preserving humanity. Which considers ‘preserving the race’ to be paramount and has no issue with ‘free love’ or assorted disruptions of former social mores as long as they increase survival. 
• A group led by a Miss Durant who consider preserving social mores paramount and have formed a sort of tiny Christian theocracy where they intend to carry on the usual program of Christian England unchanged. They are portrayed as  a poorly managed throwback that meets with ruin.
• A group of proto-fascists led by a Mr. Torrence who want to set up a feudal society with the blind as a kind of serf or slave class and prepare an army so that they can be sure of becoming the dominant power in Europe as society recovers. They favor violent solutions to all conflicts. 
• Striking out on your own with a small band of family and making a go of it as rugged self-sufficient individualists. Which our protagonists try for several years but then have to deal with the constant encroachment of the triffids. 

One of the discussion group questions in the back of my copy of the book asks: “Which society would you yourself join and why?” Which is a much deeper question than I was expecting when I picked up The Day of the Triffids. I must say, I don’t find any of them particularly appealing and they each have their pros and cons.

Obviously the last option would require having or joining up with a family group experienced enough or good enough at research to figure out how to manage many tasks that few people I know have ever had to deal with. For example, farming, reaping, spinning, weaving, wood framing, hunting, preserving, milking, butchering… all things that in this modern technologic age many people have little idea how to practically accomplish. I think, ideally, you would want to hook up with some groups of people that didn’t exist in 1950s Britain. Preppers, Back-to-the-Land devotes, anarcho-primitivists, or the Amish spring to mind. They are considered weird now but they are gonna be more prepared for this kind of scenario than any average Joe or Jane.

The downside there is that a smallish group would be more easily overrun by triffids. Looking next at the feudal fascists, they are definitely my least favorite. I am not a fan of authoritarian bullies and the last thing I want to be worrying about during the apocalypse is fighting future wars (not against triffids). Pass. Though I will admit that strong arm protection rackets where the warriors with the weapons lord over the common people do seem to be the default form of human civilization since the agricultural revolution. Call them the aristocracy, warlords, the shogun, or the mafia, they pop up again and again. But I’d like to think that in the future we could do better than that.

The tiny Christian theocracy has appeal because they are, unlike the fascists, egalitarian and unlikely to enslave the objects of their charity. John Wyndham shows them to be the least effectively managed, unfortunately. Probably due to what he perceives as their unwillingness to grow and change and therefore adapt to the new world. But I do find the pre-written guidelines, say, against murder, to be attractive in a situation where a society of laws has collapsed.

Which brings us to the utilitarian group concerned about preserving the human race. On the face of it, I like them the best. And I think John Wyndham did too. They are the best organized and, unlike the fascists, when people disagree with them they don’t shoot them but let them go on their way. They realize the importance of acquiring expert knowledge and personnel, but also realize that unlike the back-to-the-land groups they need to maintain large numbers and a ‘higher’ level of civilization in order to effectively combat the triffids. A tiny farming community with pioneer technology levels would have trouble using biochemistry to defeat the triffids, for example. Still, their devotion to utilitarian solutions in the face of old values makes me uneasy. Their ‘free love’ plans sound a bit too eugenical to me. Doesn’t help that it also makes them sound like Doctor Strangelove, never a good look. 

If I really had to choose I think I’d go with a hybrid between the theocracy and the agrarian farming community. Maybe a set up like M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village (2004). You have the survival know-how, egalitarianism, and a lack of eugenics-adjacent social policies. And if you found a location you could effectively isolate from triffids, you might do okay. The danger there of course is going to be your folk-horror-style fertility cults. So assuming it doesn’t turn into The Wicker Man (1973), Harvest Home (1973), or “Children of the Corn” (1977), I think that one is my pick.

Overall, I found the triffids to be very effective antagonists and their biology was inventive. I commend Wyndham for choosing a home grown sort of foe, who nonetheless is very alien. Zombies used to be people and Martians come from another world, but triffids manage to be both distressingly different from humans and still  from Earth. I look forwards to seeing the movie adaptation from 1963.

The number of times during my reading marathon a pointless sex scene does nothing to advance the plot: 4

The number of times a lesbian character deserved better: 1

Rating:

2/3 Entertainment Value: This book doesn’t ever get wild and crazy and its…British-ness? 50s-ness? makes even passages that should be tense and fraught seem less than threatening. That said, I enjoyed reading it. I can see why it is considered a classic.

3/3 Quality: Stylistically and narratively this is a tidy little book. Detailed enough for you to get the relevant impressions, but brief enough that it never drags.

3/3 Originality: To my knowledge, no one had ever written a post-apocalyptic book with killer plant antagonists before this one. And the triffids themselves are substantially different from the man-eating plants that proceeded them.

1/1 Exceeds Expectations: For a book from 1951 I was expecting WAY more racism and sexist claptrap. There is some. Claptrap, I mean. But it manages to be charming rather than irritating (some of this is due to the brevity, I am sure). It also helps that Bill is of a type of chauvinist that manages to be funny rather than gross. For example the scene where Josella appears in a (presumably) stunning neglige and he nervously says, “Good God!” to which he receives, “Don’t be a fool.” It’s a refreshing change from the much more licentious male protagonists that pop up in the 70s and 80s and think about sex to the point that they basically endanger their own survival. Bill seems like a stand-up guy all around and Josella, while not as fleshed-out, is far from an empty-headed accessory.

Total Score: 9/10

Best Quote(s):

“There must have been plenty of them about, growing up quietly and inoffensively, with nobody taking any particular notice of them–at least it seemed so, for if the biological or botanical experts were excited over them, no news of their interest percolated to the general public. And so the one in our garden continued its growth peacefully, as did thousands like it in neglected spots all over the world.

It was some little time later that the first one picked up its roots and walked.”