KEEP PURE THE STOCK OF THE LORD; WATCH THOU FOR THE MUTANT.

What did novelists do for their plots and settings before the Cold War and the possibility of a post-apocalyptic primitive society? Although writers have always speculated about the end of the world, it was only really once the apocalypse became a practical, foreseeable possibility that science fiction kicked into gear and began imagining how the survivors might live.

In Wyndham’s post-apocalypse Canada, set many years after “the tribulation” which has destroyed most of humanity and caused serious problems with birth deformities, society is slowly recovering, in part by following a strict system of genetic purity. Their form of fundamentalist Christianity (they wear a cross on the front of all clothing) believes that to avoid another Tribulation they must enforce a rigid definition of normality. This inevitably forces them to practice eugenics in which any minor mutation or difference is considered blasphemous. Aberrant crops are destroyed, babies are euthanized if they display the slightest variation and failed to pass inspection. Other human mutations not apparent at birth are subsequently sterilized and banished.

We learn about this society through the narration of David Strorm, a young man from the rural community of Waknuk. David dreams of cities, planes and horseless carts, but he keeps these dreams secret to avoid suspicion – difference even of the imagination is feared. He befriends Sophie, a girl who hides the fact she has six toes on her feet. Sophie’s mutation is discovered and her family are forced to flee. This is how David and the reader learn how difference is treated in Waknuk. But David has another darker secret – he and other local children are telepaths, able to communicate in thought pictures across distance. They are the Chrysalids of the novel’s title, a new advanced form of humanity, a larval form of something more than homo-sapiens, and therefore taboo in their society.

The group keep their powers hidden with the help of David’s sympathetic uncle, Axel, who goes to the extreme of killing the husband of one of the group’s members who was planning to blackmail them. David’s younger sister Petra develops telepathic powers as she grows, and it becomes clear that these are of a different order from the others – when her horse is attacked by a predator she calls telepathically for help across the entire region, stunning those closest to her. This arouses suspicions. Two members of the group are tortured for information, causing David, his cousin Rosalind and Petra to run for their lives.

The future following a nuclear holocaust was never going to be much fun. Wyndham shows humanity slowly recovering, and exercising genetic purity as a difficult but necessary discipline. Any discussion of eugenics only a decade after the Second World War and the holocaust was always going to be difficult topic, but Wyndham doesn’t blink from the upsetting issues it presents. Good science fiction is about more than just technology, but uses the scenario as a springboard for a discussion of moral and philosophical issues. Here Wyndham uses the tribulation as an allegory for the tensions between change and conservatism in post-war 1950’s Britain and a meditation on difference, both visible and hidden.

Is this a novel for young adults? Definitely. It may not have been written as such, but most teens will enjoy the growing awareness of David’s special abilities, the knowledge that he is not alone, and the exciting pursuit of the young telepaths across a landscape peopled by mutants. The novel’s conclusion however is its weak point. Wyndham wraps things up with a brisk deployment of deus ex machina as a rescue party of scientifically advanced telepathic New Zealanders contacted by Petra arrive in the midst of a battle between the Waknuk settlers and their genetically challenged enemies. It’s not quite a happy-ever-after ending – the New Zealanders are in some ways as brutal eugenicists as the Waknuk fundamentalists. But any doubts about the wisdom of their approach are waved aside as David and friends are whisked away to New Zealand where their technological society is presented as a utopia. This is fundamentally an optimistic novel – nuclear war can be survived, and a better world will emerge despite the forces of reaction.