Childhood is a time of life full of inexplicable but important conventions.
Were you taught the rules as a child: “be like everyone else”, “keep in step”, “follow the majority”? The happy ones will remember “what if everyone jumps, and you go there too?”, And twist a finger at the temple. And what will those who were taught from a young age to inexplicable conventions, dogmas that did not find a response in the heart, cruel rules, when disobedience was punished by cruel punishments, say? People have always been divided into those who, with fanatical devotion, follow norms they do not understand, and those who live by their own mind, using reason as a measure of justice.
John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris was the son of a barrister. After trying a number of careers, including farming, law, commercial art and advertising, he started writing short stories in 1925. After serving in the civil Service and the Army during the war, he went back to writing. Adopting the name John Wyndham, he started writing a form of science fiction that he called 'logical fantasy'. As well as The Day of the Triffids, he wrote The Kraken Wakes, The Chrysalids, The Midwich Cuckoos (filmed as Village of the Damned) and The Seeds of Time.
One had to have great restraint to remain silent at the sight of the simplest mistakes made by others, or patiently listen to stupid reasoning based on misconceptions, or do something in the usual way, knowing the best
Chrysalis / Chrysalis / Deviance is the same John Wyndham book that shook me to my core. She did not reveal America to me, but she spoke so boldly and sternly on topics that have always been considered dangerous both at the level of the state and society, and at the level of small communities and groups of people. And the fact that Wyndham translated this idea into discussion, into action, into text as early as 1955 is natural. Exactly ten years have passed since the end of the largest and most brutal war in the history of mankind. A war that began because of similar ideas that struck society in the post-apocalyptic dystopia "Dolly".
Even if a lot of people say something, it doesn't prove that they are right.
We are the crown of creation, created in the image and likeness of the Lord, and whoever else is the enemy, the fiend of hell and the error of nature, and therefore must be destroyed. This explosive and poisonous thought periodically occurs to one or the other “wise guy”, and, most surprisingly, finds a response and supporters among a wide variety of people. As soon as the population of the planet begins to divide according to certain signs, standing up for the "purity of the race", the "norm" in the structure of the body, mental abilities, feelings, deeds and thoughts, we take one more step towards war, genocide, apocalypse and suicide as a species . Wyndham saw this, his unfortunate heroes understood this, we must know and remember this.
The world of "Dolly" once experienced the consequences of human vanity, pride, cruelty and chauvinism. The result was an environmental and technological disaster. Society has slipped into the Middle Ages, with its limitations, injustices, hardships and witch-hunts. Witches are people who are at least somewhat different from God's commandment. A community of religious fanatics, led by unbalanced psychos, tolerates no deviation, no dissent, and no change.
The better a person's brain works, the more valuable he is as a person.
The world is frozen in its immobility. Although no, the evolution of people has stalled, but not the rest of the flora and fauna. We all know that life is movement. Tireless, continuous, not always noticeable, but necessary. Stop is death. Not instant physical, but inevitable. After all, Darwin's laws work, no matter how outraged religious extremists and preachers are. But it's one thing to die yourself - decorously and meekly, it's another thing to take with you those who want to live. And most of them are the same devils, mutants, “mistakes” that do not fit into the canon. But how to let them live, because their destiny is to perish in the fire. Their birth is a crime, every moment while their heart beats and their chest rises in the wake of the working lungs and diaphragm is blasphemy, sin and vice.
I don't think this is going to be such a BIG SPOILER. But just in case, I warn you that you CAN SKIP the next paragraph if you don’t want to KNOW BEFORE READING THE BOOK what is the peculiarity of the main characters.
Boy David is not like everyone else, he has an inquisitive mind, a kind heart, good intuition and imagination. All these qualities already distinguish him from most of his fellow tribesmen, who know neither pity, nor a thirst for discoveries, nor an interest in the unknown, nor the ability to think and reason coherently. And although this is already enough to become an outcast or a sacrificial goat, our pet has been given something more... the ability to perceive and transmit mental images, to communicate telepathically. Of course, the discovery does not come immediately, but when the boy is fully aware of it, he can no longer live as carelessly and easily as before. Now his life will be divided in two, and everywhere David will hide the treasure that nature has endowed him with, so as not to die himself and not to let others die. END SPOILER
So we are together again. In his book, Wyndham posed the question point-blank: either we or them. Yes, the heroes are trying first of all to save themselves, they do not even think of harming anyone. But somewhere on the horizon, the ghost of a new war still flickers, no matter who starts it, it will not end with anything good. At the same time, both the reader and the characters have reason to expect a different outcome, but the reader will find out what their hope will turn out to be only at the end, and even then, he will think of something himself by virtue of his own convictions.
The commandments that are hammered into the child in childhood are firmly held in his memory.
"Pupae" is not just a fantasy novel, it's not just a dystopia, it's a piercing psychological and social drama that you want to read, which is worth experiencing, worth feeling in order to remember - mediocrity and stupidity often rule the world, limited people come to power and try put the rest in cages. This is how an elite appears, which asserts itself at the expense of others and feels significant. But their power is unsteady and is based only on the obedience and fatalism of the crowd. It is only necessary for a reasonable person to raise his head, and the soap bubble will burst, the walls will fall. The most difficult thing is to overcome those barriers that were erected in the head from birth, but they are not eternal. Mantras are like lichen in the brain.
I liked Wyndham's idea of "talking with your mind, you can't lie." It is close to the idea about poetry recently voiced in another review. Wyndham seems to be telling us not to stop thinking, not to try to deceive ourselves, and then, if the head and tongue work in symbiosis, people will learn to understand each other for real. And when people understand each other as well as themselves, then dangerous conflicts disappear, tension does not appear, and there can be no desire to bring pain and harm to anyone.
The day will come when we too will come off the face of the earth to give way to new species.
This book is able to turn the world upside down not by opening your eyes, but by prompting you to think about a lot that is already in sight, before your eyes, just reach out and touch the ideas floating in the air. We ourselves are responsible for the present, and with our actions and thoughts we forge the road to the future. Someday other people will appear, and we will disappear - we can live with this. A firm and confident five is just a modest tribute to the reader for the magnificent book "Dolls". And I want to end with a quote “No one, you hear, no one really knows what it is - the true NORM”
This article was sponsored by Michael Lam
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