Of Cuckoos and Chrysalids

[steepholm]

The Chrysalids and The Midwich Cuckoos. These were the only two John Wyndhams I really loved as a child, although I read and quite enjoyed some others. It occurs to me now that they share the theme of a small group of telepathic children, mistrusted, feared and reviled by wider society. Cuckoos is the negative version, framed by a adult point of view in which the children are deserving of death. Chrysalids is the positive vision, in which the children are the basis of a possible new beginning for humanity, outgrowing and then escaping the dogmatic strictures of their elders. It was of course that book that resonated most with me, especially with its emphasis on keeping one's condition a secret. (The Cuckoos, by contrast, were happy enough for people to understand and tremble at their power.)

Well, I dare say that the fantasy of having secret powers is common enough among all children; but I wonder whether anyone has done a reading of The Chrysalids as an LGBTQ text?

Comments

[cmcmck]

I've often wondered about 'Consider her Ways'

[steepholm]

I'd totally forgotten about that one!

[sovay]

Well, I dare say that the fantasy of having secret powers is common enough among all children; but I wonder whether anyone has done a reading of The Chrysalids as an LGBTQ text?

If they have not, will you?

[steepholm]

It's certainly tempting! I'd need to go back and reread it, but that's no hardship.

[sovay]

It's certainly tempting! I'd need to go back and reread it, but that's no hardship.

Yay!

I look forward.

[calimac]

I was not as a child a fan of stories about Juveni Superior, or whatever the Latin is. I was so alienated I doubted the existence of anyone else like me, so there was no secret tribe for me to belong to; and I didn't want to dominate the others so much as to have them leave me alone.

[steepholm]

That seems a very reasonable response. I liked the idea of secret companions (though I never had a classic "imaginary friend"), but if they'd turned up in the confines of my head, I think the attraction might have swiftly palled.

[ethelmay]

When I saw "palled" so soon after "companions," I read it as in "palled around with" and was momentarily confused. :)

[ethelmay]

Somewhat different issue: I believe James Nicoll has pointed out more than once that the 1940s and 1950s seemed to be a very fertile field for stories about creepy and/or evil children. (Though can I find a citation now that I wish to? I cannot, which probably means I am mangling whatever it was he really did say on the subject.)

[steepholm]

Does he have any theories about why this might be so?

[cmcmck]

Golding would have said nuclear war and the fear of nuclear war I suspect- 'Lord of the Flies'?

[ethelmay]

Did find one citation: https://www.tor.com/2018/06/11/why-are-there-so-few-sff-books-about-the-very-real-issue-of-population-decline/comment-page-1/#comment-743482 "When I was listening to all the old sf radio shows I could find, I was a bit surprised how many of them were about evil (or sometimes, super) children. Later, it became clear this seemed to track the Baby Boom: evil kids of the 1950s became evil teens a decade later and evil university students by the time books like Kampus [1977 novel by James E. Gunn] came out. Now I wonder, was this childless SF authors reacting to their friends’ kids or parents reacting to their own?"

[steepholm]

Well, it's speculative of course, but an interesting idea!