Just Finished Reading The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham

Toward the end of our stay in Austin last week, my sister Anita gave me several books she thought I'd be interested in reading.  One of these, John Wyndham's 1951 science fiction novel The Day of the Triffids, I recognized from long ago at our childhood home in Hollywood, Florida.  Well, I didn't waste any time in reading it: I finished it yesterday...

There are many angles one can take regarding The Day of the Triffids.  It is an apocalyptic story concerning humankind's self-destructive folly when it comes to warfare, strongly criticizing the weaponization of space and biological research...very prescient for a story published six years before the first space satellite was even launched.  It also examines the very fragile, delicate structure holding our relatively comfortable modern society together and how one single strong blow to it, delivered over just the span of a few hours, can bring it all toppling down.  But what I found the most fascinating was how the main character Bill Masen, along with those he meets on his odyssey through London and southern England, adapts to his new world and the new social rules forced upon it...

I know I haven't offered much in terms of what actually happens in The Day of the Triffids.  Let me just give a little hint: when handing me this book Anita, who knows how much I like to star-gaze, said I might just have second thoughts about looking up at the night sky after reading it.  It happens that one night there is a spectacular celestial display of lights...green lights...when the Earth apparently passes through some comet debris.  But our hero Bill, completely bandaged over his eyes in a hospital while recovering from an injury, completely misses the show that almost everyone else revels in.  The next morning...oh that next morning...

Read the book, it's a good one.  They later adapted it to film and television, but I'm confident you're not going to get the full impact of John Wyndham's story unless you read it first...there's a lot of food for thought here...