Customer Reviews

Jizzle

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These collected stories are a little on the quirky side. Best described as short and sharp, they make an obvious attempt to be humorous. True to the Wyndham style, the humour is often dry. In a way the tales are almost like "Twilight Zone" episodes (the ones shown in the late 1950s). Not all of them fit comfortably into a particular genre. You have to bear in mind they were written in a different culture to the one that exists now.

The first story ("Jizzle") is about a circus monkey who can accurately draw what she sees. "A Present From Brunswick" is like a warped version of the Pied Piper. Other stories involve heaven, hell, living one's life over again, meeting one's future self, and nurturing pet dragons.

One story that stands out for me is called "The Wheel". It's about a post-apocalyptic, god-fearing community who believe that the wheel is evil. According to their history, the devil tempted man with the wheel until eventually the human race was almost wiped out because of it. Does that sound a little bit like "The Chrysalids"? There's even a young boy in the story called David, who unwittingly upsets everyone when he brings home a crate with wooden wheels on it.

All these stories were compiled in 1954, its interesting to see how the writer started out. According to the book "Trillion Year Spree" J.G. Ballard had some pretty harsh words to say about John Wyndham. It's hard to say what Ballard would have made of these stories. Then again, people have said some harsh words about Ballard.

"Jizzle" was later revised for American readers as "Tales of Gooseflesh and Laughter".