Chocky

Wyndham is one of my favourite authors and this little book is quite probably my favourite of his works. I also liked that this edition smelt of old books and, with its brown colour scheme and strange cover illustration, was very much of its time.
It's narrated by the father of 12 year old Matthew, quintessentially English in that Wyndham way, who discovers that the boy's imaginary friend may have something more to it. Not a huge amount happens but the characters are so well drawn, from pony obsessed Polly to the mysterious Chocky.
Humanity gets a telling off as well, which I'm all for!

Really enjoyed this one. Wyndham was a great author!

This was an interesting little book. There are a number of thought provoking ideas in it. I look forward to reading more Wyndham.

I read a lot of John Wyndham in my Sci Fi youth. I suppose typical of the times he was that perfect English disaster/dystopia writer that was popular in the 50's. A style that held its own for a long time after. I have hazy memories of being enthralled by The Day of the Triffids, The Midwich Cuckoos and The Chrysalids but Chocky passed me by. I wonder what I would have made of it back then.

Reading this in later life I can but say that it is Sci Fi for sure but hardly disaster/dystopian writing I recall. In fact I found the book rather hopeful in tone. To tell why would give the story away so for those interested in 50'/60's sci fi I say read it. It is a good read.

But be warned. It is written in a style that had me cringing periodically. So middle upper class with lots of mummies and daddies. Whiskies snorted by daddy and cigarettes lit by mummy to ease their tension. Lots of “old man”s even from father to son. I have no memory of this in the other three Wyndham books I read but then I read them an eternity ago.

I tend to think of classic SciFi being super hard scifi filled with impenetrable words and implausibly humanoid alien species. Chocky is, if anything, the opposite: in fact, it's at least equal part 1950's British domestic comedy. This short novella is fascinating if nothing else as a piece of history. Chocky herself – an alien that my goodreads notes say Margaret Atwood compared favorably to ET, is a very benign domestic spirit, interested in binary math, drawing, swimming and sustainable energy.

Perhaps one of the most interesting parts of Chocky is that Matthew, the child actually faced with the supernatural being, is definitely not the protagonist. Rather the story focuses on his father's reaction to and coping with Chocky's presence. I think it compares quite favorably to the Riverman, a more modern novel vaunted for the same technique.

Still, 150 mass market paperback pages don't give a lot of space to have much there. Now that scifi has been tread as a path many times in the intervening years, I don't think Chocky aged as well as it could have. It's fun, but not particularly novel or profound any more.

Chocky is another 1001 Children's Books You Must Read title, and I had the odd feeling that I've read this book before, back in my scifi/fantasy heydays during my 20's. Matthew is a regular boy until he suddenly starts talking about Chocky. Chocky is more than just another imaginary friend; Chocky asks questions about math and physics and brings Matthew to new levels in physical and artistic accomplishments. So who is Chocky? And what's he doing with Matthew? Chocky is just the kind of book that I steeped in during my youth, with lots of things to think about that take you outside this tiny world of planet Earth.

Polly heeft een ingebeeld vriendje. Een irritant ingebeeld vriendje, waarvoor op restaurant een plaats extra moet gezet worden, dat mee moet als de familie op uitstap gaat, een speelkameraadje dat eigenlijk vooral lijkt gebruikt te worden om haar ouders mee te irriteren.

En na een tijdje verdwijnt het ingebeeld vriendje weer, zoals dat de neiging heeft te gebeuren met ingebeelde vriendjes.

Een tijd later lijkt het alsof Matthew ook een ingebeeld vriendje heeft, maar dat is wel helemaal anders. Het stelt hem rare vragen (waar bevindt de Aarde zich ergens?), het heeft opmerkingen over de primitiviteit van de nieuwe auto van zijn vader, de inefficiëntie van raketten: yep, ‘t is een alien.

Een leuk kort verhaal van John Wyndham, de mens van de Triffids.