Chocky (1968)

Chocky (1968)

Author: John Wyndham | Page Count: 164

"An open mind is a difficult thing to keep."

My first experience of John Wyndham's fiction was the 1984 children's TV drama adaptation of his Chocky novel. Now, a great many years after that memorable encounter, I enjoyed it again in its original medium.

It's the story of an adopted eleven-year-old boy named Matthew Gore. Like many youths his age, Matthew has an active imagination. When his father overhears the boy holding what seems to him to be one side of a two-way conversation, he suspects it's that aspect in play. The truth, however, turns out to be much stranger.

The father, David, is the narrator of events. We learn about Matthew both through his personal observations and those of his wife, Mary, when the two compare their feelings and fears about the boy's changing behaviour.

It's named after Chocky, it has Matthew on the cover art, but it's told from the perspective of Matthew's parents. As such, it's difficult to say which of the three is the main character. Thus, unless you're writing some kind of academic paper, it's probably best to ignore such classifications and just enjoy the novel as a captivating whole.

The start of the book goes into some detail about the adults, telling of their meeting and eventual marriage, etc, before returning the narrative to the present day and their concerns over Chocky, including musings on whether or not he/she/it has malicious or benevolent intent.

It once again explores the kind of themes that Wyndham was primarily known for, such as unfamiliar forces or outside influences working upon and/or attempting to change an otherwise unremarkable norm, or the same affecting or questioning a known human constant.

It's a short work that moves at a leisurely pace much of the time, keeping the basic concept to the fore without having it overstay its welcome. It picks up the pace in the last quarter, in a manner that'll feel familiar to anyone who's read a Wyndham book before, but it's tonally very different to his earlier works, such as, for example, The Midwich Cuckoos (1957), which had a more apocalyptic slant. It nevertheless pushes the situation into wider areas and culminates in a way that leaves the reader with much to think on, like some of the best sci-fi books do.