Customer Reviews

Chrysalids

5 star:		(90)
4 star:		(35)
3 star:		(16)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(17)

 

 

I read this book for the first time in highschool years ago and re-read it again since.

What most impressed me was the author's ability to set up atmosphere in the novel. I still to this day, after years between readings remember images I formed while reading the novel. Grass between the toes, the nuclear wastes, the way the children formed telepathic images etc...

One thing that I remember clearly is how the novel was like a breath of fresh air, clean and smooth. There are no frilly edges and there is no attempt by the author to make the book flashy. This makes the book pure and adds to the impact of the story.

As an overview, there are a group of children who are living in Eastern Canada after some type of holocaust (this is never much of a point in the book... no one has memories of it). Their society is strongly anti-mutant with a very strict set of rules as to what is "normal" and what isn't. All of this children are normal looking but are telepathic and form a click of just a small number.

The book is their story of growing up and existing in this paranoid and highly dogmatic society without being discovered and banished or killed.

A definite classic in Science Fiction circles.

At a time in some unspecified distant future after a nuclear war has left much of the world a barren, poisonous wasteland, David Strorm, Sophie Wender and Rosalind Morton live in Waknuk, a small agriculturally focused community in central Labrador. With modern technology yet to be re-invented, the strict religious fundamental beliefs of this still primitive community label the apocalypse as "Tribulation", a punishment visited by God upon the "old people" for their sins.

Genetic variations and mutations, now commonplace (no doubt as a result of higher worldwide radiation levels), are seen as evil. "Deviant" crops and animals are burnt. Humans with even the most minor mutations from their highest religious ideal, a physical norm which the community calls God's "True Image", are labeled as blasphemies and are killed outright or banished to eke out their future existence in a wildly savage outlying area called "The Fringes".

When the community discovers that David and Rosalind together with a small group of other young people have developed the ability to communicate telepathically, they are forced to flee for their lives. They are re-united with their friend Sophie, earlier banished to the Fringes for the disgusting aberration of having six toes instead of the normal five. David's younger sister, Petra, able to communicate her thoughts with a power and at a distance far beyond any of the other children discovers the presence of others like them in a distant community who mount a campaign to rescue the children from their persecutors.

In "The Chrysalids", John Wyndham has mounted a vicious attack on religious fundamentalism, bigotry, intolerance and narrow-mindedness. Analytical readers will be mindful of the irony in the closing chapters as it is clear that the more advanced community is as repressive and intolerant as the community from which the children fled. Wyndham leaves us with the unresolved open question as to whether Man's evolution into a new species will perforce require the extinction of the remaining members of the previous species.

Wyndham's characters, his easy-going unforced and completely natural dialogue, his heartwarming portrayal of children at play, a mother's grief-stricken tragedy as she tries to protect her children from religious attack, and the faltering growth of love between young men and women will all remind classic science fiction fans of the pastoral easy reading style of Clifford D Simak, another giant of the genre.

If you've yet to savour "The Chrysalids", a perennial front runner in the field of soft science fiction, I can't think of a better time than right now. Highly recommended indeed.

Paul Weiss

"Don't judge a book by its cover" is absolutely right, I have rarely seen a more repellent (and irrelevant to the story) picture than the one currently "gracing" the cover of this wonderful book. Thank goodness, I had read it years ago, under a different cover and a different title, because as it is presented now I would never have bought it and would have missed a great story, one that I enjoy re-reading again and again.

I was surprised to see that it's marketed to the 9-12 age group. It's a very precocious pre-teen who would be able to get all the sociological, moral, philosophical and political implications of the plot.

The story is narrated by David Strorm, who's about 10 when it begins and around 18 or 20 at the end. David lives in Labrador, centuries after "God sent Tribulation" unto mankind. The 21st century reader soon realizes Tribulation was a nuclear conflict that lay waste to every Western country south of Canada and north of New Zealand. Pockets of humanity do survive in Africa and elsewhere, but all those survivor communities are totally isolated from each other because the radio-activity in what was the USA, Western Europe and the Soviet block precludes land or sea travel (though there is some limited navigation and trading) and communication.

The community David belongs to is a very strait-laced one, who insists on "purity" and conformity to the "True Image". Every deviation (i.e. mutation due to radiation) in either human, animal or plant is rooted out mercilessly. Plants and animals are burned, people get sent to the savage, untamed "Fringes". Physical deviation, that is. The powers-that-be don't realize that a group of children have developed telepathy. They look totally normal, but they're able to communicate with each other without words and over distances. They learn very early that "different is deadly" and protect themselves carefully but get betrayed by one of their own, who falls in love with a Normal and entrusts him with their secret, and also, unwittingly, by David's little sister Petra who's the most powerful telepath ever seen with powers that develop before she's old enough to learn control, the result being they have to flee into the Fringes.

Petra's power as a telepath comes in handy, she can send mental messages half-way around the world - more specifically to New Zealand (not "Sealand" as another reviewer misunderstood) to another group of survivors who have developed telepathy as a society and have been reinforcing the telepathic strain by careful breeding. I'll not give the ending away, but I will say that I always wanted to write a sequel to the book one day. I got so attached to some of the characters that I hate to let go of them.

This isn't just another "post-nuclear holocaust" story (there's been quite a number, including, among others, "Alas Babylon", "... For a Single Yesterday...", etc.). It's about more than mankind surviving a nuclear war and climbing back to civilization, it's about the kind of society that can be built in cases like this, about Did we learn anything from past mistakes?, about tolerance, about bigotry and narrow-mindedness and most of all about surviving in a society where to be different is a death sentence. The author, John Wyndham, dwells on the same theme from a different angle in his "The Midwich Cuckoos" which I have also reviewed, as has Zenna Henderson in her stories of "The People" (extra-terrestrials fleeing the destruction of their planet and trying to blend into Earth society despite their (to us) paranormal powers).

The plot is engaging, the suspense at the end kept me turning pages, the characters are endearing, the whole underlying questions are thought-provoking. It's a great book, for adults more than for children. It's regrettable that it has all but fallen into oblivion and also been relegated to kiddie lit shelves. It deserves a lot better. I give it full marks.

The Chrysalids by John Wyndham is a futuristic tale told by a boy named David. At the beginning of the book he is about 10 years old living in a small community of people years after a devastating nuclear war has laid waste to much of the planet. God's Tribulation has destroyed the unworthy. In David's community life is spent without any technology and anything that isn't deemed normal, is looked at as an abomination in the eyes of God. People that have abnormalities, called "deviations", are considered Mutants. Mutants are sterilized, so that they can not reproduce, and sent to the "Fringes", the wild land outside of the community to fend for themselves. Any crop or animal that has a deviation is destroyed. Every child that is born must be inspected and given certification. Any type of difference is not tolerated. When David's friend Sophie is found to be a Mutant because she has 6 toes, he realizes how dangerous it is to be different. And David IS different. He, along with several other children in the area, are able to communicate with each other by "thought-shapes" or telepathy. After Sophie is taken, the children understand that they must hide their abilities. Although difficult at times, this works for awhile. Until David's younger sister Petra is born. Petra has the ability to communicate with the others as well. But Petra's powers are far superior to the others, but she is so young she can't control them.

David are Rosalind try to teach Petra to hide her abilities. But Petra communicates to someone outside their area. In a place that none of the other children have heard of. A place where there are many people with the ability to communicate through thought-shapes. A place where the children would not be considered different or a Mutant. But by this time, David, Rosalind, Petra and the others are under suspicion. What happens next is an escape attempt through the Badlands and the Fringes.

This book is so far ahead of it's time. It denounces bigotry and religious fundamentalism. It shows what a world that supports intolerance would look like. And it isn't pretty. This book was great and has my highest recommendations!!

How do you survive in a repressive world if you are different -- especially if your difference is telepathy, and the society around you totally lacks imagination. That is the problem that David and similarly gifted children of his generation must face in the post-apocalyptic, rural, restrictively religious society they inhabit, in which deviance is apt to be punished with death. Wyndham effectively conveys what it's like to carry a secret, the solace of finding others like yourself, and, in this case, the suspensefully described dangers of exposure. The telepathic interchanges are evocative and believable, and the claustrophobia of circumstances from which it's impossible to see a way out becomes tighter and tighter until the final rescue. A wonderful allegory of freedom and individuality packaged in good writing. Ranks among Wyndham's best novels along with The Day of the Triffids, The Midwich Cuckoos, and The Kraken Wakes.

I LOVED THIS BOOK! It has always been one of my favorites. As a confused teenager trying to fit in, I identified completely with David and the group. They were different. They didn't fit in, but they didn't understand why everyone else thought it was wrong to be different.

I appreciated the way the group found each other, stuck together and made sacrifices for the greater good of the group, which allowed them to find a place in their world where they were permitted to be themselves. I even named by business after this book.

It is such a parallel to the unfounded prejudices we find now in our own world, and it opened my eyes to my prejudices I didn't even know I had. This book changed my way of looking at people.

I've always wondered if it really was post-nuclear-war earth, or if it might have been PRE-pre-historic, or even a different planet...HMMM...

I think it should be required reading in every adolescent age school program.

I read this book many years ago and I've never been able to forget it.My search has ended because I've found people who've read this book and i didn't just imagine it. It's a great book to read. Even though it depicts a scene in the future, it shows the attitudes that people have towards those who look different and the extent to which people are willing to go in order to keep themselves 'pure'. The book certainly gives one a new perspective on the differences between us. It's a definite read!

This was the second John Wyndham book I read. It is a serious, thought-provoking story about a God-fearing community many centuries in the future, and its struggle to bring back all the wonder and glory of a world long gone. Not only is this book well written, it also addresses themes of evolution, mankind's arrogance and opposition to change, and fear and hatred of anything that doesn't conform to the set pattern. The gradual revelation that the story is set after a nuclear war is very satisfying because the text doesn't say this outright, but rather lets the reader reach the conclusion on his own. I first tried to read this book when I was 11, when I didn't know about things like radioactive fallout. I really thought the community's plight was a punishment from God. On my second attempt as a teenager I read the book with relish (and other futuristic books besides). Ignore the negative comments by readers with chips on their shoulders or grudges against their teachers and READ THIS BOOK.

It appears people still do not understand what the author is trying to say in this novel. It is not a "mutant vs human" struggle but a questioning of the meaning of the word 'human'. Is it the physical form or how one thinks that defines what a human is? That said, this is excellently written and a very satisfying story.

The Chryssalids is a work of art from a great author John Wyndham about a world where everyone tries to achieve the "true identity" to become closer to the image of God. What the people of Waknuk do not realize is the true image lies from within and that truth was voided from REPENTANCES and that somehow the words of God in the bible was changed. While David and his friends try to keep their secrets, a new revelation of his sister Petra was discovered, she is like them but NOT like them because nobody else can COMMAND them like that except her.
In Chapter 6, Uncle Axel told David about other sailor's adventures and their encounters with the mutants from other lands. "there was even some islands where men and women could be passed on as true images if it weren't for some strange deviation has turned them completely black", also "Sometimes when the people are friendly you can't understand a thing they say and they can't understand a thing you say but if you listen closely a lot of their words are the same just pronounced differently". This reminds me of the colony days when the rich countries in europe set sail to find the "new world", only this time around, instead of cherishing the riches there, was accused of deviation as a result of ignorance. Uncle Axel also mentioned that every tribe believed that they were at the true image, I relate this to organized religion today where everyone tries to prove which god (or religion) is the true when we all beleive in the same concept of the truth about love and peace.
Also, the concept of the book about fear of what is unkown reveals. People of Waknuk are afraid of plants and animals that grow out of their district because they do not look normal, what they do not realize is those animals are as normal as they are because that is their nature, but they are afraid of these "deviations" so they do not allow them in to the district. plants that had thorns are cactus, fish that bite and kill are sharks, wild cats and dogs, big horses...these things they could not accept why they are like that when nature itself did it and not mutation.
This book is now my favourite book, it's the best one I have ever read and made me read more books of the author (later I realize was the same author of a movie based on a book "Village of the Damned" [Midwich cuckoos]). Even though his most acclaimed novel is The Day of the Triffids, I must say I love this better.