Review of The Day of the Triffids

Author: John Wyndham
First Published in 1951
Thickness: 272 pages (Penguin edition)

If I were to deal in half stars, this novel would claim a 3,5 stars but as I had to choose between more or less, I chose a little less. Why? Because it is longwinded in the beginning and at some point I had the internal discussion of putting it aside and spending my time on something else instead. I'm happy I didn't, because the novel did pull through, but you do have to put on an attitude of half a century ago when everything was less violent and people mainly made the right choices and when they didn't, they would find a suitable punishment.

The story begins with a man, Bill, who wakes up in a deserted hospital with a bandage around his face and eyes. He had been attacked by a scientifically altered species of plant and in order to restore his sight he had to wear a bandage for more than a week. When he wakes up on this particular wednesday morning, the day the bandages were supposed to come off, no one answers his urgent rings and after some pondering he takes them of himself.
When he investigates the state of the hospital he finds it not devoid of people, but devoid of people who can see. It seems that in a night, the population of London has become blind, perhaps the whole world has gone blind, since all broadcasting signals have ceased to exist.
The night before there was a so-called meteor shower which had most of the inhabitants of the world looking at the sky and finding themselves blinded the day after. Only those who hadn't watched remain sighted.

Bill makes his way through a London much too quiet, trying to make sense of what has happened. Due to the circumstances he finds another sighted woman, Josella, being held hostage by a blinded one. He rescues her and they continue together.
Thanks to a light signal they find another group of sighted persons who already have plans of starting a new community, which are abdruptly stopped by a raid.
Bill gets separated from Josella and as soon as he can goes on a quest to find her again. This takes him to the countryside and he meets with other survivors.

The last 70 pages of the novel span almost a decade, in which you see how Bill needs to adapt to a new lifestyle and a new enemies.

The title of this novel might confuse you. My initial thought was that it centered around an invasion from outer space but nothing of a kind. People become blind and a genetically altered plant, a carnivorous plant, takes advantage from this.
One man's dead, is another one's bread, sort of speak.

As I said before, the novel started quite longwinded but halfway through it gets more interesting. Being written 60 years ago, it does feel like a civilised novel about the deterioration of a civilization
I've read another novel about a community stricken with blindness (Blindness by Jose Saramago) which is a novel that deals with the implication of suddenly becoming blind. A very raw and humane novel.
The Day of the Triffids deals with the blindness as a mere symptom, not a lifestyle radically altered. As the main character still can see, he can't feel the effects of suddenly losing his sight. He sees people around him commiting suicide or brutally taking hostage of someone who can see so they have a guide in life.
Chaos invoked in the span of a few hours.

Review of Fingersmith - A novel about crime and passion

Author: Sarah Waters

First published in 2002

Thickness: 556 pages (Dutch edition)
Dutch title: Vingervlug

Personal rating: 4 stars

Fingersmith sets about in Englands 19th century underground crime scene. We follow the story of a girl, Susan Trinder, coming of age on her first real experience with crime after having been sheltered and merely a bystander of various petty crimes going on around her.

A man of questionable background, "Gentleman",  comes in and sweeps her away on a breathtaking scheme. He needs her to be the maid of a wealthy young girl and be her confidante while he moves in and tries to marry the rich girl and when they are married, ship her off to an asylum in order to get the money.
Susan agrees and travels to the remote estate. She becomes friends with the young heiress, Maud, even more than friends which complicates the scheme beyond imagination.
Torn apart by her own feelings and under the influence of Gentleman, she makes her choices ill-informed and lands in a whirlpool of emotions and becomes more a victim than a perpetrator.

The story takes us from a London dirty and foggy to a countryside gloom and grey, where blossoms still grow and where love finds a way, although not conventionally. The story delivers a few amazing plot turns that will stop your heart.

I liked reading this novel, even when it took me quite a while to finish it. Mainly because it's quite a thick novel, with over 500 pages I had to get through. In some places the pace lingers and I wondered if it would ever pick up again, only to be amazed that I hadn't seen it coming when it did.
I do recommend this novel. Sarah Waters has a reputation of writing gay fiction, but in being straight myself I found that label to be generic. It's the same in calling Stephen King chiefly a horror writer. There are more layers to her than you first would think. She can create a 19th century London that lives and breathes.
With only one Sarah Waters novels left for me to read, I do include her in my list of favourite authors.

Duma Key: Reviewing one of my favourites

By Stephen King
Published in 2008
Read the dutch version

In short

Duma Key is a novel about a man, Edgar Freemantle, who survived a terrifying accident, involving a huge crane, a car and a broken signal for going backwards. 
He suffered several injuries, whereunder the loss of his right arm, broken ribs and a fracture to his skull, called a contracoup. 
During his revalidation his marriage fails, due to his severe rage. Filled with suicide thoughts, his psychiatrists recommends a change of geography and he moves to Florida for a year. To one of the Florida Keys to be precise. 


There is the beginning of his great adventure, which in the end will have an unbelievable pricetag. 
The psychiatrists had asked him what he used to love to do, before he made a success of himself in construction. So he begins to paint once he sets foot in the hired house, Salmon Point, or Big Pink as he himself calls it. 
He becomes friends with Wireman, a man who takes care of the proprietor of the entire island, Elizabeth Eastlake, who suffers from Alzheimers. 
Together they stand tall against all the Gulf has for them, and at the same time, dive in without knowing when they can come up for air.


I love his novel, hence the five star rating on GoodReads. King's latest novels have often been called lesser than his 1980's novels, but Duma Key, together with Lisey's Story have such a strong hold on me, almost a stranglehold, that I loudly disagree.
Much of Duma Key's strength is the personal touch King could add, with having suffered from a terrible accident in the early years of the new millenium.
Other than that, it is of course a wild ride into the psychedelic, you can't take anything too seriously, just serious enough to suffer from a few dark moments awake at night, when you imagine the twins soaking footsteps coming up the stairs.

And with all King's most valuable work, the gentle references to his other works are a treat when you figured them out. When not just enter Duma Key in Wikipedia and you see what others have found for you.
King has been an author I've been reading since I was allowed to take it home with me from the library, I was almost 12 and has been one of my most read authors 'till this day. Of course he has numerous novels to his name, for each something they like.

The Quiet American

by Graham Greene
published in 1955

The Storyline (Watch out for spoilers!!)



Thomas Fowler is a British journalist in his fifties who has been covering the French war in Vietnam for over two years. He meets a young American idealist named Alden Pyle, who lives his life and forms his opinions based on the books written by York Harding, with no real experience in matters of south-east Asia at all. Harding's theory is that Communism or colonialism are not the answer in foreign lands like Vietnam, but rather a "Third Force," usually a combination of traditions, works best. Pyle is young and idealistic. When Pyle and Fowler first meet, Pyle says he would be delighted if Fowler could help him understand more about the country. Fowler is much older, more realistic and more cynical.
Fowler has a live-in lover, Phuong. Only twenty years old, Phuong was a dancer at the continental. Her sister's goal in life is to marry Phuong off to Fowler or Pyle. Phuong's sister does not like Fowler because he and Phuong have been together for quite some time and it looks increasingly less likely Fowler will marry her. Fowler cannot marry Phuong in any case because his wife in England refuses to sign the divorce papers.
Fowler and Pyle meet again at the Continental. A drunk American reporter called Bill Granger, back from the North, is there and wants to go to a brothel called "the House of Five Hundred Girls". When they leave Pyle goes in a trishaw with Granger and they end up in the brothel, Fowler, who was in a trishaw with Phuong, goes in to rescue Pyle while he is being pulled into a large group of women trying to sell themselves. Pyle then joins Fowler and Phuong for dinner at a restaurant next door. At the dinner Pyle meets Phuong's sister who immediately starts questioning Pyle about his viability for marriage with Phuong. Towards the end of the dinner Pyle dances with Phuong; he dances very badly.
Fowler goes to the city of Phat Diem to cover a battle there. Pyle travels there to tell him that he has been in love with Phuong since the first night he saw her, and that he wants to marry her. They make a toast to nothing and Pyle leaves the next day. Fowler gets a letter from Pyle thanking him for being so nice about Phuong. The letter is annoying because of Pyle's complete confidence that Phuong will choose to marry him. Meanwhile, Fowler's editor wants him to transfer back to England.
Pyle comes to Fowler's place and they ask Phuong to choose between them. She chooses Fowler, her lover of two years. She does not know that he is up for a transfer. Fowler writes to his wife to ask for a divorce in front of Phuong.
Fowler and Pyle meet again in a war zone. They end up captive in a tower, and spend an extraordinary night talking about everything from sex to God. As they escape, Pyle saves Fowler's life. Fowler goes back to Saigon where he lies to Phuong that his wife will divorce him. Pyle exposes the lie and Phuong moves in with Pyle. After receiving a letter from Fowler, his editor decides that he can stay in Indo-China for at least another year. Fowler investigates Pyle's activities more closely and finds out that Pyle is importing military supplies into Vietnam from the United States. Fowler goes into the war zone and does some serious reporting.
When Fowler returns to Saigon, he goes to Pyle's office to confront him but Pyle is out. Pyle comes over later for drinks and they talk about his upcoming marriage to Phuong. Later that week there is a terrible explosion and many innocents are killed. Fowler puts the pieces together and realizes that Pyle is behind the bombing. Fowler decides that Pyle must be eliminated. His naive theories and interference are causing innocent people to die. Fowler takes part in a murder plot against Pyle. Although the police believe that Fowler is involved, they cannot prove anything. Phuong goes back to Fowler as if nothing had ever happened. In the last chapter Fowler receives a telegram from his wife. She says that she has changed her mind and that she will start divorce proceedings.

How I saw it.. 

 I wasn't thrilled by this book. Normally I'm in to novels about wars, because it interests me to see how people behave when the worst came to happen, but this novel just seemed so shallow. There's a war, and all it seemed to revolve around is a girl who isn't even that involved, and who gets to marry her.
An innocent, naive young man and a worldwise, pessimistic old man become friends, but the young man falls irreparably in love with the young girl the old man's living with. His love doesn't do well in a country engulfed by a raging guerilla war and he focusses too much on the courting side of the whole deal.

Despite his terrible efforts, the girl does choose him, mainly because he can marry her and the old man can't. She doesn't love him, nor the old man, but she chooses the best option.
Like the old man, named Fowler, says, they remain children when it comes to love, never truly depending on someone merely for the sake of loving them, but always choosing rationally.

I'm going to be honest, and tell that I didn't finish this novel, even though it isn't even 200 pages long, but it couldn't grasp my attention when I did read it, and I found myself neglecting it while reading other novels.
For some reason I didn't like the way it was build up. You already knew that Phuong, the young girl, was going to leave Fowler, for the young man, so all you got to see was how terrified Fowler was for being alone and how he tried to manipulate the two youngsters.

It's not a bad novel, but it just wasn't something for me.

Review of Naked Empire

Title: Naked Empire
Author: Terry Goodkind
Date first published: 2003
Read the dutch translation

IN SHORT

This book opens with Richard and Kahlan still in the Old World traveling back to the New World. A new character Owen pleads for Richard and Kahlan’s help in freeing his people from the hands of the Imperial Order. They are set upon by a seemingly mysterious dust storm that holds the silhouette of a man. They are sent a warning letter by Nicci, but before they are able to finish reading the letter they are set upon by Imperial Order Mercenaries. After learning that Richard has been poisoned by Owen they must travel back deeper into the Old World to the Bandakar. They find an ancient boundary protecting the Bandakar Empire from outside invaders came down two years past and now the Imperial Order has occupied this nation of frail-minded people. Soon Richard and Kahlan learn of a new monster that was created by Jagang’s Sisters of the Dark.

REVIEWING

Naked Empire is the 8th installment of the 'Sword of Truth' series written by Terry Goodkind. A fantasy legacy as I much prefer it.
Of course I do realise that without having had reviewed the previous seven books, (which I've listed at the bottom of the review, for those interested), I'm jumping the gun, but as I've read those novels before this blog came into existence, there's nothing to be done. You can read those reviews under my goodreads account, which the link is ready to use in the rightside column.

But now, back to the story at hand.
Naked Empire is, as are all the other novels, a quest for the rules of wizardry. In each novel you, together with the lead characters Richard and Kahlan, are searching for a rule.
I'm not giving this away, since it makes up a whole lot of the book and I'm trying to keep spoiler free.
Fantasy isn't everybody's cup of tea since everything is made up, even the world itself, so it can be intimidating to read it. For me, it's my favourite genre and the 'Sword of Truth' has been amongst the best I've read so far.

The story picks up where it left off in the previous novel, on a hike through a scorching desert in search of a wizard to help Richard find balance in his power.
He needs to do this, since he hasn't quite learned to use it in its proper way and when the power gets too much, he suffers from headaches that, when not treated, become lethal.
Richard isn't alone on his journey. With him are his wife Kahlan, his sister Jenssen, his bodyguard Cara and two friends, Tom and Friedrich. On their journey through the Old World, they meet Owen, who instantly arouses doubt and suspicion even with him being so clumsily polite.
Later on they found out Owen had poisoned Richard, to coerce him into freeing his empire from the snatches of the Imperial Order.
Owen finds his cause justified, because he and the rest of the nation see themselves as being incapable of doing violence and demands Richard to do this for him. Richard and his friends follow Owen into this 'naked' empire, where they meet up with a small group of men who've been hiding in the woods.

Richard, desperately in need of the antidote, which is hidden in several locations, tries to convince these people that they have to fight for themselves, that cowering under violence done to them, is granting it more power. It is a belief in dead, rather than in life.

Richard does get his opinion out there and he preaches for people to take their life into their own hands, to fight for freedom, to embrace life. Even if you have to kill for that freedom, don't shy away from it. Those doing evil, have lost the right to their life and mustn't be mourned. When killing is justified, don't regret it, but cherish the result.

In all the extremity of his views, I do find a spark of truth in it. To bring up something rather disputed, don't we face the same question when it comes to the death penalty. In most places I know of, death penalty has been forbidden because we can't be the judge to let someone live or die, no matter what they've done.
But on the other hand, doesn't the life of the perpetratot get more value when he gets to live? In order to be able to live with a clean conscience we put more value in the life of the murderer than the lost life of the victim.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to start a discussion here. I'm simply showing both sides of the medaillon. It's not easy to be for or against it. I'm not even sure which side I'm on.

These are the kind of questions reading 'The Sword of Truth' has given me more than once. On the outside it might appear a strange story, but the deeper you delve into the novel, the more you read into it.


Previous novels in the Sword of Truth series:

Wizard's First Rule
Stone of Tears
Blood of the Fold
Temple of the Winds
Soul of the Fire
Faith of the Fallen
Pillars of Creation