Thanks to my fellow reviewer over at Novelicious, CescaReviews, I have been thinking recently about what makes the perfect book. She recently gave Room by Emma Donoghue a 9.5 out of 10 and I asked her why not a 10? She couldn't say. She speculated that it's the teacher in her which must give an A- never an A.
There is normally that tendency to vear away from giving top marks, whether it's to encourage constant improvement or just because there is a niggling voice that says that a little tweak here or there would have made it perfect. But actually being able to quantify what changes these are is a difficult matter.
So it got me thinking - what are the perfect books? That rare breed of literature that I have read and found impossible to find a single flaw. Well there are the Harry Potter books of course (I make no secret of my love for them!) and then more recently the mindblowing debut of Sister by Rosamund Lupton which had me gripped from start to finish and MORE than passed my tube test. I gave serious consideration to being late for work and staying on the tube just to keep reading.
But for me personally I would have to say that a 10/10 book does something other books don't dare to do. It challenges the beginning-middle-end with a neat and tidy ending and thinks outside the box. Books like My Sister's Keeper (Jodi Picoult) dare to discuss taboo topics with care and conviction and other books like The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time (Mark Haddon) choose a perspective not normally explored and explore it with sensitivity and affection.
Then there are those books which are considered great because they have stood the test of time - basically anything by Jane Austen or Charles Dickens. Even Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham had a timeless quality and apolocalyptic books will never stop being relevant!
So what is your perfect book? What warrants a 10/10?
Over to you... LE xx
Showing posts with label day of the triffids. Show all posts
Showing posts with label day of the triffids. Show all posts
Wednesday, 11 May 2011
Sunday, 20 March 2011
Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham (Book)
When a day that you happen to know is Wednesday starts off by sounding like a Sunday, there is something seriously wrong somewhere.
Waking up one morning without being able to see would be a terrifying prospect for anyone - but for one man, it is expected. He has been in hospital after an attack from a Triffid, the bizarre plants he works with on a daily basis. Then, he realises that he cannot hear anything. Not a thing. This might be normal if he lived in a quiet neighbourhood or it was 3am. But when the clock outside is chiming 9am and you are in a hospital you know stands next to a main road in central London, silence is wrong. Then he removes his bandages to discover he can see, but the rest of the world cannot. It is on this premise that the Day of the Triffids begins, with the personal account of Bill Masen.
From my little knowledge of the numerous film/TV adaptations of this book, it appeared to be very much like any other alien/disaster movie. Big scary plants killing people all across the country and the human battles to survive. In reality, as is often the case, the adaptations have destroyed what is actually a superbly clever and chilling tale of humans on the brink of extinction trying to fight back - their battles to keep some level of decency (it takes Bill a couple of days before he feels OK looting), and their struggles not just against the murdering Triffids, but each other.
Bill must deal with fear, loneliness, disease, hunger and panic while trying to keep alive and away from the now free-to-roam Triffids. Bill meets many people along the way, some much more pleasant than others. And the absolute genius to Wyndham's writing is that he doesn't allow it to read like a good vs. evil, black and white plot. There are no good guys and bad guys (not even the plants!). Instead, it is a battle for survival against each other where people prefer different methods to achieve their goals. When devastation hits as quickly as it does in this book, people must alter their perceptions of what is good and what is bad, of what is normal and what is strange. Most importantly what is right and what is wrong. Some turn to religion, others to weaponry, others to defeat and others to morals. New families/tribes are created by choice and by force.
I won't ruin it by telling you the ending but I will say it holds up much better than I'm sure the film/TV adaptations did and the quality of the book is not just in the end but in each and every chapter. Each part is woven so beautifully that it doesn't read like the conventional beginning-middle-end set-up. The beginning is the end of life as Bill knows it so in fact the beginning is the end and the end is the beginning of whatever the new world is to become.
Out of sheer curiosity, I now want to see the adaptations, just to see the Triffids in action. They are an incredible feat of imagination on Wyndham's part and the descriptions are so matter-of-fact that it makes them even more chilling. I have never had a book make me jump before - until now.
Also, it passed my tube test with flying colours :) I left the tube in a huff because I had to stop reading. One thing I will say is that it is perhaps not ideally suited to bedtime reading - I have had some terrifying and very vivid dreams this week after reading it... don't say I didn't warn you!
Enjoy!
4/5 FOBLES
LE xx
Waking up one morning without being able to see would be a terrifying prospect for anyone - but for one man, it is expected. He has been in hospital after an attack from a Triffid, the bizarre plants he works with on a daily basis. Then, he realises that he cannot hear anything. Not a thing. This might be normal if he lived in a quiet neighbourhood or it was 3am. But when the clock outside is chiming 9am and you are in a hospital you know stands next to a main road in central London, silence is wrong. Then he removes his bandages to discover he can see, but the rest of the world cannot. It is on this premise that the Day of the Triffids begins, with the personal account of Bill Masen.
From my little knowledge of the numerous film/TV adaptations of this book, it appeared to be very much like any other alien/disaster movie. Big scary plants killing people all across the country and the human battles to survive. In reality, as is often the case, the adaptations have destroyed what is actually a superbly clever and chilling tale of humans on the brink of extinction trying to fight back - their battles to keep some level of decency (it takes Bill a couple of days before he feels OK looting), and their struggles not just against the murdering Triffids, but each other.
Bill must deal with fear, loneliness, disease, hunger and panic while trying to keep alive and away from the now free-to-roam Triffids. Bill meets many people along the way, some much more pleasant than others. And the absolute genius to Wyndham's writing is that he doesn't allow it to read like a good vs. evil, black and white plot. There are no good guys and bad guys (not even the plants!). Instead, it is a battle for survival against each other where people prefer different methods to achieve their goals. When devastation hits as quickly as it does in this book, people must alter their perceptions of what is good and what is bad, of what is normal and what is strange. Most importantly what is right and what is wrong. Some turn to religion, others to weaponry, others to defeat and others to morals. New families/tribes are created by choice and by force.
I won't ruin it by telling you the ending but I will say it holds up much better than I'm sure the film/TV adaptations did and the quality of the book is not just in the end but in each and every chapter. Each part is woven so beautifully that it doesn't read like the conventional beginning-middle-end set-up. The beginning is the end of life as Bill knows it so in fact the beginning is the end and the end is the beginning of whatever the new world is to become.
Out of sheer curiosity, I now want to see the adaptations, just to see the Triffids in action. They are an incredible feat of imagination on Wyndham's part and the descriptions are so matter-of-fact that it makes them even more chilling. I have never had a book make me jump before - until now.
Also, it passed my tube test with flying colours :) I left the tube in a huff because I had to stop reading. One thing I will say is that it is perhaps not ideally suited to bedtime reading - I have had some terrifying and very vivid dreams this week after reading it... don't say I didn't warn you!
Enjoy!
4/5 FOBLES
LE xx
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