Chocky [Hardcover]

John Wyndham (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 31, 1968

Matthew, they thought, was just going through a phase of talking to himself. And, like many parents, they waited for him to get over it, but it started to get worse. Mathew's conversations with himself grew more and more intense - it was like listening to one end of a telephone conversation while someone argued, cajoled and reasoned with another person you couldn't hear. Then Matthew started doing things he couldn't do before, like counting in binary-code mathematics. So he told them about Chocky - the person who lived in his head.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Benyon Harris was born in 1903, the son of a barrister. He tried a number of careers including farming, law, commercial art and advertising, and started writing short stories, intended for sale, in 1925. From 1930 to 1939 he wrote stories of various kinds under different names, almost exclusively for American publications, while also writing detective novels. During the war he was in the Civil Service and then the Army. In 1946 he went back to writing stories for publication in the USA and decided to try a modified form of science fiction, a form he called 'logical fantasy'. As John Wyndham he wrote The Day of the Triffids and The Kraken Wakes (both widely translated), The Chrysalids, The Midwich Cuckoos (filmed as Village of the Damned), The Seeds of Time, Trouble with Lichen, The Outward Urge (with Lucas Parkes) and Chocky. He died in March 1969. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 184 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd (December 31, 1968)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0718105346
• ISBN-13: 978-0718105341
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #902,990 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars interesting story, but not best-of-breed Wyndham novel.., August 28, 2002

By 

lazza (Fort Lauderdale, Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Chocky (Athena books) (Paperback)

John Wyndham's Chocky is a rather humanistic story about how a family deals with one son's mysterious unseen friend, Chocky. At first they thought their son was suffering from an over-exercised imagination. Then it becomes plainly that Chocky is real, and is literally from out of this world. Trite? In a way, yes. But I found the characterizations, especially of the parents, to be very well judged. So from a science fiction perspective Chocky doesn't enthrall, but otherwise it stands fairly well on its own.

However I expected much more. John Wyndham has written some very intriguing books which really makes one think of social/environmental issues. The Chrysalids, for me, is his best. Wyndham simply didn't try to achieve such heights with Chocky, which is unfortunate.

Bottom line: a curious and very readable novel. But Wyndham has done much better.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars All in the mind?, December 13, 1999

By 

Greg Hughes - See all my reviews

This review is from: Chocky (Athena books) (Paperback)

John Wyndham was a great writer. But you knew that already. "Chocky" was one of his last (and one of his best) books.

The narrator is David. He and his wife Mary are worried parents. Their adopted young son Matthew has developed a habit of talking to himself. Matthew asks strange questions, the kind that children wouldn't normally ask. He becomes good at things in which he previously had no great ability.

And then Matthew mentions Chocky. For David and Mary it looks as if Matthew's "imaginary friend" is growing more and more influential, driving Matthew further away from reality. Matthew is frustrated because Chocky really exists. Chocky is an invisible entity from another planet. She uses Matthew as an interpreter while she studies our planet.

This book was made into a children's programme, and inspired two more spin-offs. "Chocky" is a book about growing up, friendship, and the pain of saying goodbye. The end of the book is particularly touching. This is a book people should read at school.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Wyndham is brilliant, every time he goes out., March 25, 2002

By 

Elsie Wilson (Aberystwyth, Cymru) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Chocky (Athena books) (Paperback)

Another triumph by the greatest British science-fiction writer (sorry Aldis, you don't compete; & Clarke is a purely international phenomenon) This is later in his body of work, dating to 1968 (he died in '69), but carries the same authority, the same questions, the same hope for the future as his other works of the second flowering of his talent, that dating from the fifties and sixties, when he wrote as John Wyndham and not Benyon Harris or some other variation from his name. Chocky is, apparently, a being from another planet, star system, galaxy even, who is able to communicate by mind with a young boy ~ the protagonist's son. Naturally, the alien culture, science, technology, civilisation are all well in advance of ours; Chocky's task is to be a teacher, to guide us into a more mature use of the Earth and, especially, x-x-x-x-x ~ a power system based on the interstellar radiation ~ which will enable us to develop properly. Unfortunately, for her task, Chocky becomes emotionally involved where she ought to be detached, and her mission is, this time, a failure. Wyndham's interest is not so much the story, though that is fascinating, but the ideas behind the story, and, more particularly, the questions raised by the suppositions of the plot. What would happen if a child heard a voice from outside itself? Why can mind not be cast across space since, as Chocky points out, it is massless and maybe not subject to the terminal velocity of light? And, though this is a secondary question, can there be points of contact between alien species? Wyndham's answer appears to be that at least one such point might be art, a curious suggestion. © Elsie Wilson, 2002.