Philosophical Musings of a Book Nerd

I remember that when I bought this book somebody said to me that it was brilliant. Having now read it (and it only took me the first ten pages to realise it) I must wholeheartedly agree with this person. This is indeed a brilliant book. As I was reading it I was reminded me a lot of 'The Day of the Triffids' and my hunch was correct that it indeed was written by the same author.

This book is set far into the future. The world has been destroyed by nuclear war (we assume, though it is never actually spelled out) and the setting is a small collection of villages on the island of Labrador. The village is inhabited by humans who believe that they are the true image of God. The reason for this is that we are told that only two books survive from the old time, the Bible and an interpretation of the Bible called Repentances. It is from Repentances that the belief of the villagers about the true form comes. They believes that unless one has the form of a human as we know it then they are cursed and are cast out of the village to live on the fringe. An animal that is deemed to be deviant (as well as crops) are automatically destroyed. However, it is only the obvious defects that are usually found out because the hero of the book (David) and a group of his friends have the power of telepathy, however they quickly learn that they must keep this ability a closely guarded secret.

The introduction to this book compared it with 1984 in that it is really a criticism of British society at the time of writing (1984 is an anagram of 1948, the year the book was written). It is sad that science fiction and fantasy have degenerated to the corporate rubbish that it is today, though there is still a lot of quality writing available. The Chrysalids is about change and a society's resistance to it. It is interesting that looking back at the 50's we do not see the problems that are raised in the book, and the only fear that I know of was the fear of communism. However it is difficult to link communism with the mutants in the Chrysalids. Further, it is difficult to picture a church as powerful in the 50's as it was in the book. However, it is possible that the idea is that the church in the book represents the government, and that the mutants represent thinking and belief that is in opposition to the government of the day. While people were not killed or exiled for differing beliefs, the red scare did lead to a lot of needless persecutions (which is similar to Arthur Miller's The Crucible, which, while set in Salem during the witch hunts, was reflective of the communist purges of his times). However, the Chrysalids is not about people being falsely accused for ulterior motives, but rather a fear of change and the unknown, and those who show difference are hated. Even more so, where the telephaths (or, as I believe, the Chrysalids) are concerned, feared intensely because the norms simply cannot know who they are.