Book Review - The Day of the Triffids (John Wyndham)

Today, I look at The Day of the Triffids, a science-fiction thriller from 1951. The story has many parallels with one of the great classics of British science-fiction, The War of the Worlds, so much so that it often feels like a homage to that work. The narrative form, the setting of the English countryside, the isolation of the protagonist, and even the form of the triffids themselves all seem to lend themselves to Wells's work.

The most striking resemblance is the use of an everyman character to convey a global disaster to the reader. Our narrator, Bill Masen, does not have much of a personality, and exists so the reader can imprint themselves upon him. This frees Wyndham to discuss greater issues, though he purposefully hampers this by limiting what Bill knows, and thus, what the reader knows.

Despite the name, the triffids do not feature that heavily in the story. The first half of the book deals more with a meteor shower that turns everyone who sees it blind. Bill escapes as he was having his eyes operated on at the time – ironically, after being stung in the eyes by a triffid. The triffids' role in this is obscured throughout the story. We never find out if they directly caused this meteor shower, or if it could've been a result of human error. Bill suggests the latter towards the end of the book, but we only have his word for it. His theories are rooted in recognisable issues, but Wyndham never explicitly says if he's right. In this way, Wyndham provokes the reader to think about these broad issues, while leaving the floor open to other possibilities.

Wyndham creates fear and dread through holding back and letting the reader's mind fill the gaps. The ambiguity makes the story stick out more and keeps the focus more on the consequences of these disasters, rather than the causes. Like many works of this time, The Day of the Triffids challenges humankind's assumption of supremacy by not only striking them with a deadly threat, but keeping them in the dark about its true nature. It reminds the reader that our role in the world is limited, and underlines this by showing how nature reclaims the cities and monuments that symbolize humanity's dominance.

These general moral lessons feed into more contemporary social issues. The book opens with a lengthy diatribe against Cold War tensions by suggesting that the triffids were created as a foodsource by the Soviets. When a defector steals triffid seeds to sell to a Western conglomerate, he inadvertantly scatters them over the Pacific, allowing the menacing plants to take root all over the world. The implications here are that the race for supremacy between East and West contribute to the spread of the triffids.

Bill suggests that this tension also caused the meteor shower; perhaps the “meteors” were a satellite-weapon meant to blind smaller communities, which then malfunctioned and radiated the whole world.

Throughout the story, several characters voice the hope that the Americans will come and save them all, a belief which slowly gives way to despair. Wyndham's attack on blind faith in Western imperialism may be on-the-nose, but is no less relevant today.

The story does not concern itself solely with international relations. When Bill meets his love interest, Josella, he learns that she once wrote a lurid book (Sex is my Adventure) which caused something of a scandal. At first, this felt like a pointless interlude and made me feel like Wyndham was making a clumsy attempt at character development. But later on, we see this prudery of an earlier age contrasted with the attitudes of the post-triffid world. An elderly scientist – Dr Vorless – calls for a breeding programme to create a new generation to survive in the new world – an arrangement Bill finds shocking, but hard to disagree with. These changing attitudes towards sex show how old beliefs must be swept aside in the face of disaster, if a people are to survive, reflecting the change in attitudes to gender following WWII.

One scene from the book spells this out for the reader in rather striking way. Bill meets an activist named Coker, who loves to find causes to get worked-up about. The two stumble on a community which sees the blindness epidemic as punishment from God and have reverted to a puritanical way of life. Coker argues with one of these women about feminism, explaining how women should fight for gender equality in such a condescending tone that she finally storms off. I wasn't sure if we were meant to sympathise more with Coker for his progressive stance, or with the woman for having to put up with his moralising. Coker is another character who doesn't have much of a personality (indeed, his ability to blend in with different demographics is highlighted more than any attempt to be his own person) and who spouts rhetoric at other people until they get sick of him. Perhaps the message of this scene is that either side of an argument becomes problematic if taken too far.

This also comes up in the portrayal of compassion versus utilitarianism which recurs throughout the book. When we first meet Coker, he's part of a group that kidnaps people who can see and forces them into aiding groups of blind people. The intentions are good, but the strategy ultimately proves impractical as it only keeps the blind in a state of dependency while preventing those who can see from trying to build a society that can endure for future generations. Furthermore, Coker and his gang fervently believe in the myth of America coming to the rescue, which further damages them in Bill's eyes.

Bill is reluctantly forced to accept the utilitarian stance and abandon the blind to their fate. This is where the focus on a human protagonist instead of an omniscient narrator becomes important to the text. The issues raised are obviously controversial and readers will disagree over what would be the best option in such a disaster. By limiting the narration to a mere man, Wyndham leaves the reader free to disagree if they wish.

The other extreme is personified in a red-haired looter named Torrence, who Bill first sees  executing several blind people. This is when the plague has hit London, and Torrence takes measures to stop the spread. The two meet again later, when Torrence has become the commander-in-chief of a militarised state based in Brighton. Torrence also tries to force Bill into an arrangement where he will oversee a group of blind people, who will function as a workforce on a farm. Torrence doesn't listen to Bill's protestations that his patch of land can't support that many people, especially one under constant attack from triffids, but instead tries to cajole him with offers of power and authority over his tenants. He also shows a disregard for the fact that the blind will have to live off pulpified remains of triffids, the only consistent supply of food.

Wyndham uses Torrence to criticize the Darwinist view that can arise during a crisis, one that sees disaster as an opportunity to exploit the weak. While at the opposite end of the spectrum from Coker's deluded optimism, it's shown to be equally detrimental to society.

The book comes to a not altogether satisfying conclusion (though that was probably Wyndham's point) where Bill and his new family retreat to an island community who hope, one day, to reclaim the land from the triffids. In a true rebuttal to the Americanised belief in clean endings, the story ends ambiguously with the hope of the future placed on the next generation. Due to the nature of a one-person narrative, we never find out if this campaign is successful, or if humanity is finally hounded to extinction. There's certainly nothing to suggest that another blinding meteor shower won't incapacitate them again.

While The Day of the Triffids's final note is not completely hopeless, it's still far from a happy one. It seems that the lesson Wyndham wanted to leave with readers is, while disaster can be survived, it can take a long time, and ultimately it is better to be prepared for it in the first place.