The Day of the Triffids was published in 1951 and, like  much post-WWII, post-atomic bomb literature, it is post-apocalyptic.  Set in London, Bill Masen wakes up in a hospital bed following eye-surgery; all is quiet and no nurses are attending to him even though today is the day he is due to have the bandages removed and it will be determined whether he can see.  It soon transpires that nobody is coming to Bill’s assistance and he removes his own dressings, is delighted he has vision and goes to investigate what has happened to everyone else.  Whilst Bill has retained his sight through the protection of post-surgical recovery, ironically most of the population has been rendered blind from having witnessed a meteor shower the previous evening.  Dystopian literature at its earliest, the novel focuses on the immediate aftermath of the apocalyptic blindness and immediate devolution of society.

When a day that you happen to know is Wednesday starts off by sounding like Sunday, there is something seriously wrong somewhere.

From its foreboding (yet lightly amusing) first line, The Day of the Triffids moves from what is at first the catastrophic fall-out from a freakish cosmic event to something  far more sinister.  The nightmarish scenario becomes all the scarier when Bill discovers that the Triffids, walking carnivorous plants that kill with a stinger to the eyes, are now preying on a humanity that are unable to protect themselves.  Along with other luckily sighted people, Bill escapes the eerily desolate streets of London where survivors are scavenging and looting and the triffids converging, to the country; it is soon apparent, however, that the Triffids are multiplying and intentionally stalking survivors.  Although the threat of the Triffids is built up to gradually the portent exists from the outside and the suspense grips, except for the rather dry chapter “The Coming of the Triffids”, which explains their origin and at its close sets forth the plants’ intelligence, their means of communication amongst their species and the danger they would pose to the human race given the opportunity.

In what is frighteningly prescient, Wyndham has in essence employed the dangers of genetic engineering at the core of his novel; Wyndham implies that the Triffids were bio-engineered in the Soviet Union and upon accidental air-borne release their superior vegetable oil was discovered and the world began to cultivate them for this resource.  At the beginning of the novel it is assumed that the Americans are going to come in and save everyone but it is soon clear that this has been a worldwide event and the survival instinct kicks in.  Many of the blind commit suicide and many of the sighted realise early on that to save themselves, the blind must perish; a commune of sighted and blind is quickly established to repopulate the world whilst other vigilante organisations materialise.

The Day of the Triffids is an accessible and addictive novel that I was on the edge of my seat reading; although written in the early 1950s it is not dated, excluding the socially-conscious commune.  I highly recommend Wyndham for light (if heavy subject matter) and absorbing reads and especially to lovers of Dystopian fiction.  Whatever you do though, do NOT watch the recent BBC adaptation; or, if you do watch it, do not -as I did- watch it promptly on the back of reading the book.  Starring Dougray Scott; Joely Richardson; Brian Cox; Eddie Izzard (yes, even Eddie couldn’t save it) the modern updates came over as immensely cheesy and hyperbolic.  I was very irritated by the changes made to the novel especially the ludicrous Vanessa Redgrave corrupt nun sub-plot and the exaggerated emphasis on plant-rights activists and the corruption of the government.  Moreover, the onscreen representation of the Triffids was far removed from the one in my imagination.

Back to the text and here are some favourite quotes:

A nasty, empty feeling began to crawl up inside me.  It was the same sensation I used to to have sometimes as a child when I got to fancying that horrors were lurking in the shadowy corners of the bedroom; when I daren’t put a foot out for fear that something should reach from under the bed and grab my ankle; daren’t even reach for the switch lest the movement should cause something to leap at me.  I had to fight down the feeling, just as I had to when I was a kid in the dark.

There is an inability to sustain the tragic mood, a phoenix quality of the mind.  It may be helpful or harmful, it is just a part of the will to survive – yet, also, it has made it possible for us to engage in one weakening war after another.  But it is a necessary part of our mechanism that we should be able to cry only for a time over even an ocean of spilt milk – the spectacular must soon become the commonplace if life is to be supportable.

In essence, Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde is a Dystopian novel that contains, well, shades of classic Dystopian literature such as the futuristic Nineteen Eighty-Four, the nightmarish The Wizard of Oz and shares its carnivorous plants with John Wyndham’s The Day of the Triffids; however, where Fforde’s other series of books are rich in literary allusion, he relies for the most part on his own inventiveness. Fforde has boundless creativity and imagination and his chromatic dystopia is highly original and intelligent. To begin with the detailed intricacies of this futuristic world and its dictionary of terms and Rules are a little hard to follow but it is such a vividly rendered world and engaging plot that one begins to see things the bursts of synthetic color and realise that things are not simply black and white, that there is a sinister undercurrent to the Colourtocracy, especially when you do not conform and exhibit any curiosity. Despite the departure from Fforde’s usual alternative realities, that are a little more fantastical, and its more serious tone, Shades of Grey is hilarious; I love Fforde’s satirical humour and often think that I am missing some of his intelligent jokes.

As well as immensely absorbing storyline and many laughs, Shades of Grey also contains moments of intense pathos; the last few chapters of the novel left me feeling unsettled yet also excited for the sequels and the last page had my heart in my mouth. For those who enjoy their Dystopias with a heart (think The Hunger Games) then read Shades of Grey; I also recommend it unreservedly to those who may not have been impressed by The Eyre Affair (I wasn’t blown away by the debut but adored the remainder of the series), new to Fforde readers who enjoy witty original fiction and those readers who think they don’t enjoy sci-fi.

But all doubts came to nought on the morning of your Ishihara. No one could cheat the Colourman and the colour test. What you got was what you were, forever. Your life, career and social standing decided right there and then, and all worrisome life uncertainties eradicated forever. You knew who you were, what you would do, where you would go and what was expected of you. In return, you simply accepted your position within the Colourtocracy, and assiduously followed the Rulebook. Your life was mapped. And all in the time it takes to bake a tray of scones.

The concept behind this temporary exhibit was a dystopian post-apocalyptic haven. From the brief (which appeared on the wall before you entered):

It rains incessantly in London – not a day, not an hour without rain, a deluge that has now lasted for years and changed the way people travel, their clothes, leisure activities, imagination and desires. They dream about infinitely dry deserts.

This continual watering has had a strange effect on urban sculptures. As well as erosion and rust, they have started to grow like giant, thirsty tropical plants, to become even more monumental. In order to hold this organic growth in check, it has been decided to store them in the Turbine Hall, surrounded by hundreds of bunks that shelter – day and night – refugees from the rain.

It sounds somewhat like a John Wyndham book, doesn’t it? The rain, of which there was audio, also reminded me of post-nuclear black rain. Dystopian literature lay on the bunkbeds so that voyeurs could participate; the artist’s vision was for people to lie down and read the books (not steal them, as happened). The photograph above is one I took but there were many books (apparently to begin with one on every bunk) including The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells; We by Yevgeny Zamyatin; The Drowned World JG Ballard; Hiroshima mon amour Marguerite Duras; The Man in the High Castle Philip K Dick. A number of these books -or the subsequent movie adaptations- I studied in the Writing the Disaster topic module I completed for my Master’s course, but Fahrenheit 451 was one I hadn’t yet read.

“FAHRENHEIT 451: the temperature at which book paper catches fire and burns”.

The above quote appears before the opening line, as a preface and introduction. The opening line reads “It was a pleasure to burn”. Both lines ignite the imagination and desire to read more. Further down the page … “He strode in a swarm of fireflies”. Such poetry in a dystopian future where poetry is forbidden and books burned, incinerated by people themselves in the incinerators that each house contains, or by the subverted firemen who ignite fires rather than put them out. We are given insight into his totalitarian pyromania by the “He” in “a swarm of fireflies”, the fireman with the symbolic 451 on his helmet, Guy Montag, who does not consciously question the burning of books, knowledge, and power, until he meets his neighbour, Clarisse McClellan, whose influence turns his world upside down within a week.

Conceptualised in the years following the A-bombs and written during the early years of the Cold War this Science Fiction classic is an actualised study of nuclear paranoia. Written on a pay type writer in the basement of a UCLA library, Ray Bradbury wrote a novel about his love of books. Completed during the era of McCarthyism, no publisher wanted to take the risk of publishing a book that they thought was about censorship until a visionary editor bought the manuscript for $450 (all that he could afford) to serialise it in his new magazine; the young editor was Hugh Hefner, the magazine was Playboy, and as Bradbury says in his preface to the novel, “The rest is history.”

Fahrenheit 451 is a quick read -172 pages- and I read it overnight, in three sittings, and it is fairly accessible; some of the post-apocalyptic visions confused me and the fourth wall dimension of television -where the “family” appear in your “parlour”- blew my mind but overall it is an enjoyable futuristic study of dystopia that ranks up there with 1984 and Brave New World as a dystopian classic. The crux of the novel is that television has destroyed any interest in reading literature, a concept that is as pertinent -and even prophetic- now as it was almost sixty years ago. This was an enjoyable and rewarding read.

I would also like to leave you with a question: if you were fleeing a burning house but had the chance to save one book, what would it be? Would it be a rare, priceless and irreplacable one; a signed copy; a favourite; a sentimental choice? For me I would hate to lose my collection but material possessions can be replaced and however much I adore my books, sentiment and memory take precendence. I would grab my copy of Toni Morrison’s Love from the shelf, a hardback copy that my boyfriend gave me for our first Christmas the year it was published, and which he beautifully inscribed.