Access Today Chocky, O Amigo Invisível Conceptualized By John Wyndham Made Available In Hardcover

been a pretty staunch fan of John Wyndham already, so I am not all that surprised to find that I enjoyed Chocky, It's not about mass blindness and maneating plants or about the great novel that was later turned into Stepford Wives, Indeed, this one keeps its focus tight upon a little boy whose imaginary friend isn't all that imaginary,

It's a fascinating concept, looked at psychologically, but it was the social consequences that made this really stand out, A nod at possession, the reason is quickly ignored for the more interesting conclusion,

Alien telepathy. I mean, hello! Since light is the speed limit, the only reasonably efficient method of exploration has got to be SOMETHING ELSE, Especially if you want to send real spaceships to other intelligent races, you need to make sure you're welcome, :

But of course, filtering higher concepts and technologies through a kid can be somewhat, . . frustrating. I can perfectly see how fraught this particular firstcontact scenario can be, And thankfully, it doesn't go the fullon Stephen King route, Almost everyone is rational and takes reasonable precautions and rationalizations, I mean, we are human, after all, We don't automatically throw our kids into mental asylums on a first brush with the uncanny or frankly impossible, . . Do we

No, no, This is still a rational world in this short novel, Of course, if King wrote it, I would expect something with a death toll, a very, very angry alien, and a kid hounded by pitchforks,

: "I don't see why seven is a sillier number than eight, "

Because seven ate nine No, that is why six is scared of seven or something

Anyway! Chocky is John Wyndhamsnovel about ayearold boy, Matthew Gore, who is in telepathic communication with an alien entity the eponymous Chocky from a galaxy far far away.
At the beginning of the narrative, Matthew and the alien have been in communication for some time and are already arguing like an old married couple, When Matthew starts asking bizarre questions and frequently talks to himself, even having shouting matches with himself, his parents are understandably concerned that he may be permanently tuned in to Radio Ga Ga.
So Dad consulted a psychiatrist friend who is very quick to suspect that Matthews “condition” is far more interesting than a phase of an imaginary friend, Matthews mother, however, is cursed with being a very badly written female character with zero imagination, so she cannot think of anything beyond the idea of the imaginary friend issue and goes on about it ad nauseam.
Like a German sausage, she is the wurst, Soon Matthew goes the extra mile to freak out his parents mum, especially, swimming like a pro, painting amazing pictures etc, Events begin to snowball until the narrative reaches a climax of sorts,

I really like sitelink John Wyndham upstanding fellow who gave us the t'riffic Triffids sitelink The Day of the Triffids , sitelink The Chrysalids, sitelink The Midwich Cuckoos etc.
Classic sf author sitelink Brian Aldiss famously labeled Wyndham's work as “Cozy Catastrophe” in that they tend to feature a middle class white protagonist who is not much inconvenienced by the cosmic catastrophe affecting the general populace.
He just holes up somewhere nice, smoking his cigars until it is all over, This seems very unfair as the protagonist of sitelink The Day of the Triffids, sitelink The Chrysalids and his other books dont really have an easy time of it, barely escaping scifi catastrophes with their lives.
However, Chocky is surely Wyndham at his coziest, Mildly intriguing things happen but nothing that astounds, while reading the book I sat firmly in my seat without moving anywhere near the edge of it,

Still, it is an easy, breezy read and passes the time nicely, it is not his best work, but then you cant Wyndham all,

I really like John Wyndham's books so was surprised I'd never read this, So when I finally made some time to tidy up my garage we've been renovating our house for the lastyears and in all that time my poor old garage has just been used as a dumping grounds I thought I'd like to listen to a book rather than another round of Christmas songs, much as I like them.

Anyway, Chocky, a really enjoyable listen and a typical Wyndham book, so if you enjoy The Kraken Wakes, Day of the Triffids etc, then this will be right up your street.
It is, as usual well written and a great story, and what I love is the Englishness of it all, and the fact that a lot of Wyndham's books like Wells are set where I grew up, so the settings are so familiar to me, which makes me enjoy them more.
A família Grove já se tinha confrontado com a amiga imaginária da pequena Polly, a filha mais nova, Tinha sido um período atribulado mas, assim como viera, fora esquecido, Porém, quando já não seria de esperar, é Mathew que aos onze anos começa a ter estranhos diálogos com um personagem aparentemente imaginário, A princípio, os pais tentam não se preocupar, mas tornase evidente que, longe de ser imaginário, aquele amigo possui características claramente alienígenas, A situação acaba por se descontrolar e Mathew fica exposto à atenção dos meios de comunicação e, mesmo, dos sombrios lobbies governamentais, This short novel taught me an unexpected lesson on my own fixed mindset,

Imagine an alien lifeform that sneaks into the mind of a child, What would you think

Well, I can tell you what I expected: brutal conflicts, lifethreatening confrontations, mobilisation of violent resistance to keep humanity safe from the evil extraterrestrial power that wants to colonise us in order to dominate our lives and exploit our weaknesses.


That is not what I got, though, And I have to reflect on the fact that my expectations were so stereotypical, Why would I expect a highly intelligent, curious extraterrestrial explorer to be as evil and stupid as humans have proven to be, over and over again Why would I expect it to be even worse Why would I feel threatened by the unknown, even before I see any signs of danger

The answer to my question to myself is that human beings are conditioned to distrust anything that is different from themselves.
And it takes a lot of thinking and mental training to understand that our own way of life is not the universal default setting,

This novel tells the story of a young boy who gets the incredible chance to discuss our planet with someone who sees it with objective, indifferent eyes, someone who tries to understand why it is the way it is, and how it could improve.
Written in, it raises such relevant questions as energy sources, environmentalism, conformity and political exploitation of scientific progress, It shows the oxymoronic approach to parenting that still dominates any parentteachertalk: the idea that your child is an exceptional genius, and yet “perfectly normal and average” at the same time, a child that it sticks out but also blends in.
It holds up a mirror to humanity and points at the violent rejection we feel when we recognise something “out of order”, or just focused and talented in a special, “unnormal” way.


The beautiful ending conveys a message to those in a powerful, strong position: sometimes withdrawing from that power and letting children develop at their own pace is the most loving and caring thing you can do.
Sometimes successful careers, fame and celebrity are dangerous and not to be encouraged, Sometimes less ambitious, quiet selffulfilment in art or literature is to be preferred, Sometimes less is more.

That certainly rings true for this short novel: less drama, but more thoughtprovoking ideas than in most bestselling science fiction,

Recommended, wholeheartedly! For some reason I thought this was a horror but it wasn't anything like that all all, It was pretty good though, a quick read which had more to it than meets the eye, It's scifi but not scifi enough to turn anyone off who wouldn't normally be into that,

Also this was written in the sixties, and apart from one time where shillings were mentioned, this doesn't feel dated, Another hit from Wyndham, will have to read more of his books! Хареса ми, навремето на младото ми аз се бе сторила някак скучновата и така не я дочетох цялата,

Фина и ненатрапчива среща на разуми това е книга основно за проблемите и последиците, които могат да произтекат от такъв сложен контакт.

Макар и малко овехтяла, че и на моменти наивна, "Чоки" определено заслужава внимание.

Моята оценка,.

В България Уиндъм е добре познат, популярни негови книги са "Денят на трифидите" и "Какавидите".

P. S. И до ден днешен корицата ме плаши сериозно. : Deeply enjoyable short novel, as long as becoming immersed for a short time in's patriarchy is not offputting for you, I find it refreshing to dive back into the anthropology of past decades to a time when all female characters were, naturally, full of feeling and emotions, and all male characters were rational and intellectual and responsible for protecting the women and children in their lives.
Part of what I love about scifi is to recognize how timebound this genre

is even though authors are trying to be forward thinking, and trying to break through the constraints of their era.
On top of my voyeuristic interest into the gendered roles of the past, though, the book offered me a lovely tangential look at the fears and concerns that come with parenting a child you love when he is not quite all rightthe book explores whether a parent's role is to encourage difference or to make children conform it plays with the idea of whether unusual differences in a child should be considered an illness to be eradicated or a gift to be embraced.
And I enjoyed my time spent, as always, with John Wyndham and his imagination, Но често си мисля, че прекалената нормалност в повечето случаи е за сметка на индивидуалността. И така си е, да си нормален значи да си посредствен. “


Чудесна книжка с изключително силни послания! Чоки“ е невидим чуждопланетен разум, който общува с малкия Матю. Обаче приемните му родители особено майката решават, че детето е болно, а пък учителите изискват от ученика са мисли само по общоприетия начин т. е. да не им задава трудни въпроси Джон Уиндъм кратко и точно описва основните човешки недостатъци, заради които голяма част от нашият вид не само е недостойна за контакт с други форми на живот във Вселената, но и все още се самоунищожава и разсъждава на посредствено ниво “Reality is relative When people live their lives by their beliefs objective reality is almost irrelevant, ”

This is more psyfi, than the scifi that one associates with Wyndham,

He takes the central ideas of Midwich Cuckoos, publishedyears earlier and filmed twice as Village of the Damned and more recently with its original title see my review sitelink HERE, but makes it more realistic.
Here, theres just one unsettling cuckoo child, and hes unquestionably human but he is adopted, As in Midwich, when his inexplicable talents become known, theres a media frenzy, with insatiable journalists trying all sorts of unscrupulous tricks to get the inside story,

Questions

Where is Earth
Why are there two sexes
Whats the pressure of light
Why does gravity do it
Why do cows stop

David and Mary, an ordinary English couple, are concerned whenyear old Matthew starts acting oddly, apparently because of a voice hes hearing.
At Chockys prompting, Matthew asks questions that are too advanced or abstract for easy answers, muddied by his childs vocabulary and understanding, Its like trying to describe a tune to a deaf person, But in maths and art, where words are not required, he excels:
“Me doing the drawing, and her doing the seeing, ”


sitelinkImage source

David and Mary have questions of their own, though not always asked explicitly,

What is family and what is not What is human and what is not
How do you tell the difference between a psychiatric disorder, overactive imagination, God, a demon, or something.
other
Is a benign or neutral presence less plausible and thus more unsettling than a selfish coloniser
Does difference need to be fixed

David remembers Sherlock Holmes:
“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
”

Bang Up to Date

This was a surprisingly topical read and not just in ways that Wyndham might have anticipated,

Consent
Chocky is there as a “working arrangement”, a sort of possession by consent, But other things that happen, including by the paparazzi, approach and often breach boundaries of informed consent though not in a sexual, MeToo way,

Beyond the Binary
Theres binary maths, of course, but Chocky doesnt understand the idea of binary gender male or female, and nothing else, Chocky is both and neither, but Mary and David find Matthew's switching pronouns confusing, They want to pick one “on grounds of grammar”,
“It gives more personification if Chocky is one or the other, ”

The nonbinary people who are increasingly visible today can surely relate to being pigeonholed that way,

Environment
Renewable energy is the future, But thats a common message of scifi,

Disappointments

“I dont understand women, Nobody does. Least of all themselves. ”
As is common with authors writing in and of the period, the women are decorative and domestic, but largely sidelined in a friendly way, Younger sister Polly is plausibly annoying, but not given many redeeming qualities, However, in in the collection Consider Her Ways and Others see my review sitelinkHERE, a couple of the stories have a strong female/feminist slant,

The penultimate bit of the plot was incongruously farfetched and almost comic, Not massively so, but it spoiled the overall experience for me, though Im not sure what Id have written instead, Fortunately, the actual end was touching, without becoming overly sentimental,

Other Quotes

“Some babies confer a little more equality than other babies, ”

“People always find it easier to believe in evil spirits than good ones, ”

“Intelligent life is the only thing that gives meaning to the universe, ”

“Because mind has no mass it takes not time to travel, ”

“She kept on going on, but it didnt mean anything, It wasnt turning into proper words, ”.