wahistorian's Reviews (506)

‘The Midwich Cuckoos’ is a very talky book, in which Midwich villagers are confronted with an extraordinary circumstance, with national, or even human species, implications which are exhaustively discussed. Most of the book’s action takes place offstage, aside from what becomes known as the “Dayout,” in which villagers all simultaneously pass out and stay unconscious for 24 hours. When they awaken, all the women of childbearing age have been impregnated, a source of embarrassment for many and later downright resentment and anger. As the Children grow they develop golden eyes, lit from within, blonde hair, and shimmering skin, and are almost impossible to tell apart. Where did these children come from and what is their intention? The characters in Wyndham’s book draw out the many implications of a quiet alien invasion, which are very interesting, but the many discussions do require some patience and attention. The villagers know they’re outclassed, because the Children tell them so: “As a securely dominant species you could afford to lose touch with reality, and amuse yourselves with abstractions,” one tells them (193). Wyndham’s speculative fiction still has intriguing questions for us today, which is undoubtedly why these books have been reissued by Modern Library.

‘The Kraken Wakes’ is very science-y science fiction, in which long passages are devoted to the biology and physics of this bizarre phenomena from the sky, which come down as red-centered clouds observed by British radio journalists Mike and Phyllis Watson. These reddish-pink blobs splash down into the ocean and quickly take up residence in “the Deeps,” the deepest trenches in the ocean floor, where they reconnoiter and plan their attack on humans. Chief “boffin” or scientist A. Bocker sums up the dilemma: “Two intelligent forms of life are finding one another’s existence intolerable,” he observes. “The same urge drives them as drives us—the necessity to exterminate or be exterminated” (178-79). Wyndham spins out the many permutations of this battle for survival—one thing Wyndham is good at is laying out solutions and then crushing them, as governments fail to take the problem seriously, relying on propaganda to reassure the populace as Big Science tries defenses that are unsuccessful. When she’s not being intrepid, Phyllis is the voice of despair in the book, articulating just how desperate the situation is, as the “Bathies” find ways to melt the polar ice caps when they’re not decimating coastal populations by rolling them into balls of humans held together by tentacle baling wire. In short, this book is sort of a unintentional climate change parable that is sure to give you nightmares.

A good first novel, excellently plotted with believable characters. Willingham mines the fall-out of a serial killer in ways that weren’t entirely unpredictable for me, and she fell into a few distracting errors: the book’s sense of place wasn’t entirely convincing (which was a shame, because the Baton Rouge setting was what attracted me) and her main character, a psychologist with a substance abuse problem, never seemed to do any work. Still, a good start.

This book wasn’t quite what I’d expected, but I enjoyed everything about it: the author’s candor about her own transgressions and those of other’s, her attempts to get inside the masculine subculture of North Sea oil workers by interviewing them on their breaks in bars and restaurants, her feeling for isolation and loneliness and the lengths it drives you to. Her writing is very brave and beautiful.

Patrick Hamilton’s intense and detailed skill at observation makes this book a page-turner about a microcosm of wartime England. Forced by nightly bombings to decamp from London to the suburb of Thames Lockdon, thirty-nine-year-old publisher’s assistant Miss Roach has settled in Mrs. Payne’s Rosamund Tea Room, no longer a tea room, but now a boardinghouse. Her life ticks along, no more or less unhappily than any other Briton displaced by war; she is bothered by the house bully, Mr. Thwaites, and his pretentious tendency to hold forth during meals, but it’s all tolerable. But Miss Roach’s claustrophobic and straitened life is soon transformed by the arrival of two new characters in her life—“her” American lieutenant, with whom she drinks more than she likes, and Vicki Kugelman, a German good-time girl who settled in the boardinghouse. Together these three create an explosive combination that drives Miss Roach to distraction. Hamilton is genius at describing the inner workings of these relationships, how Miss Roach thinks about them, and how they color her thinking about the war. These obnoxious personalities drive the plot—and Miss Roach—to a crisis, but she is left standing, with a kind of resiliency she will need to get through the rest of the war. Such a different book than ‘Hangover Square,’ but Hamilton’s use of language is still a delight.

This book would not be for everyone, because it’s as much about a marriage under tension as it is the suspenseful tale of a serial killer in pre-WWI London. Robert and Ellen Bunting are a couple of a certain age who have spent their lives “in service” to a series of high-born families. They managed to put aside enough money to live in their own little London townhouse, but positions have dried up and they’ve hit hard times. They are down to their last few shillings when Mr. Sleuth knocks on their door, responding to a card listing “Rooms to Let.” “The Lodger” gradually takes over their domestic life, first happily as Ellen finds a new purpose in caring for their eccentric tenant, and then miserably as it dawns on both of them what Mr. Sleuth may be up to on his 2 am walks. This story is all psychological suspense, as the two weigh their tendency toward loyalty and service against their duty to society. It’s a fascinating social tension, once you stop waiting for some dramatic climax. I would definitely try another of Lowndes’ books for her social and psychological observation.

Books need to be expressive of people you want to spend time with.

A real page-turner, with supernatural aspects but somehow believable. The drawings really enhance the story and add to the growing sense of dread, as nanny (and recovering addict) Mallory Quinn gradually comes to discover some terrifying truths about the family she works for. The characters have just enough of the predictable to lull you into a false sense of security, Mallory’s relationship with Teddy, the child she cares for, is warm and engaging.

When Leslie Stearle appears in Salcott St. Mary out of nowhere (AKA the U.S.), he upends many of the well-settled relationships in this small artists’ enclave. Walt Whitmore is worried about the interest his fiancée, Liz Garrowby, is showing toward the newcomer, and so is her stepmother, Emma Garrowby. When Leslie disappears, Inspector Grant is called in to investigate. Most enjoyable are Tey’s little philosophical digressions as the investigation progresses: “At least they were quick of wit, these modern children. The cinema, he supposed. It was always the one-and-tuppenys—the regulars—who got the point while the front balcony were still groping” (136). The solution to the crime borrows from Tey’s favorite device as exemplified by ‘Brat Farrar’: the impostor. But the fun is in getting to know the quirky artist characters.

I found this little tale so compelling, I burned through the book in a day. Twelve-year-old Matthew Gore, an ordinary British schoolboy, comes up with what seems to be an imaginary friend; a little late in childhood, his parents think, but his sister Polly had had Piff some years before, so they thought they knew how to handle it. But Matthew’s friend Chocky becomes increasingly disruptive and begins to seem less like a friend than a dybbuk. Is Matthew possessed? Does he have a guardian angel? What is the nature of their relationship, and what does Chocky want? Wyndham had a deft way of recreating childhood *and* parenthood, in ways that made me think about the purpose of education and exploration, even what makes us human. A simple story that opens a lot of questions.