day_of_the_triffids

THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS by John Wyndham

1969. (1951) Penguin Books. Paperback.

This is a book I've owned for years and I've only just now got around
to reading it for the first time. I blame Penguin Books. The cover and
back cover use a sickly green colour; very close to the colour that
plain-packaged cigarettes are sold in in Australia. This colour is
scientifically proven to be the least appealing colour to humans that
is known to man. So Penguin have, for once, produced a book that is
just about the least appealing object to hold that it is possible for
a book to be.

If you can get past the cover and the back cover; the book itself is
fantastic; very adult sci-fi and suitably horrific. I knew the basics
of the story (humanity blinded by fantastic green meteor shower,
survivors cruelly mopped up by walking, stinging triffids) but I
didn't know until reading the book through to the end how humanity got
out of this predicament.

I had a few guesses. Maybe the blindness was only temporary; or could
itself be cured by a resin secreted by the triffids themselves. Maybe
the triffids could be wiped out by some herbicide or whatever the
equivalent of triffid myxomatosis turned out to be. Perhaps, as many
of the surviving Englishmen hope, enough sighted Americans survive
that they'll deliver the British Isles from her predicament in her
greatest hour of need.

None of this happens. The book ends about ten years after the
catastrophe with a group of humans on the triffid-free
Isle of Wight still working towards the day they can return to the
mainland and wipe out the triffids from the land they have usurped.

The title of the book is intentionally misleading; this isn't the Day
of the Triffids, this is the Decade of the Triffids.

My favourite reading of the science fiction classic "Dune" is one
where the spice Melange, on which all transport depends and which is
controlled by desert people after a popular uprising, is an allegory
for Oil. I'm wondering if John Wyndham didn't have Marijuana in his
mind for the triffids. The plant looks odd and alien, it yields
valuable oil far superior to existing products, and overuse can make
you blind.

                                          22nd May 2023.

My book reviews are at https://github.com/stucooper/booksiveread