Audiobook Review: 'The Midwich Cuckoos' by John Wyndham, narr. by Stephen Fry

What happens if "something" lands in your village one day and everyone in a large radius quite simply falls asleep for a day? Only to wake up completely unharmed, it seems. This is what happens to Midwich, a quiet village in England which really would rather not have to deal with this. But now they are at the centre of something potentially world-changing and how they deal with it may define the future. This is only my second John Wyndham read/listen, but it surely will not be my last.

Original Pub. Date: 1957
Audible Publisher: Audible Studios
Audible Pub. Date: 11/25/2021

In the sleepy English village of Midwich, a mysterious silver object appears and all the inhabitants fall unconscious. A day later the object is gone and everyone awakens unharmed - except that all the women in the village are discovered to be pregnant.

The resultant children of Midwich do not belong to their parents: all are blonde, all are golden eyed. They grow up too fast, and their minds exhibit frightening abilities that give them control over others and brings them into conflict with the villagers just as a chilling realisation dawns on the world outside.... 

The Midwich Cuckoos is the classic tale of aliens in our midst, exploring how we respond when confronted by those who are innately superior to us in every conceivable way.

John Wyndham truly doesn't get the recognition he deserves. Or, to qualify that statement, I never quite gave him the credit he deserves. His science fiction is at once groundbreaking and yet also oddly gentle in how English it is. My first experience with Wyndham way The Day of the Triffids, a tale of love in a hopeless place and alien plants that kill and walk. While it was not a major hit when it was published in '51, it is now a recognised classic. The same is true for The Midwich Cuckoos, which I first encountered as the 1960 film adaptation Village of the Damned. It is a tale of a chance and misfortune, alien invasions and philosophical ponderings. There is something very poignant about having read The Midwich Cuckoos now, in 2022, after Roe v. Wade was overturned. While the book is not explicit in its descriptions of pregnancy and birth, Wyndham ponders deeply on the feelings of the women who discovered that they are pregnant against their will, or at least, not by their own volition. Add to that the wat in which the Children can control the will of others, and it became a haunting read that chilled me in its starkness. When I said I didn't appreciate Wyndham properly until now, I meant that I had not expected a novel from the 1950s to echo my modern concerns so perfectly.

Our narrator and his wife happen to be lucky enough to be out of Midwich on the 26th of September, the day on which "the Day Out" takes place which sees the entire village fall into a deep sleep. While disconcerting, Midwich reawakens seemingly no worse for the experience and goes about its life in the way only a British village could. But then one woman after another realises she is pregnant, sometimes impossibly so. After 9 months, all women of child-bearing age in Midwich give birth to eerily similar Children, (yes, the capital C stays) all with golden eyes and blond hair. This is only the beginning for Midwich and our narrator, who finds himself dragged into the village's business repeatedly. Wyndham strikes a successful balance between telling a fun tale and driving his points home. The characters briefly discuss in which way their own alien invasion differs from the one's seen in American television or in H.G. Wells novels, for example, or dig into cucumber sandwiches between major incidents. But they also question their right to exist, their right to defend themselves, and the nature of life itself. While the latter could overwhelm the novel, Wyndham never lets the background overwhelm the narrative itself. 

The pages of The Midwich Cuckoos fly by and I continue to be astounded how little we talk about how amazing Wyndham is. I wonder what reading The Midwich Cuckoos in the Fifties would have been like. Wyndham's ideas and plot no longer feel new and shocking at this moment, perhaps, as they have been so well and truly incorporated into Dystopia and SciFi narratives. But still The Midwich Cuckoos is riveting. The way Wyndham takes you there, with all its oddities and asides and ease, remains astounding. While the Cold War influence shows itself slightly in the novel, Wyndham nonetheless avoids the pitfalls of  painting anyone as a villain, allowing both the Children and everyone around them to have their moment. If that will be the case in my next Wyndham read, The Kraken Wakes, remains to be seen. 

When you ask Stephen Fry to narrate an audiobook, you get Stephen Fry as your narrator. He is a brilliant narrator, with a clear enjoyment of language. He is eminently suited to novels like THe Midwich Cuckoos which take place in the cubolic Britsh countryside. However, it is also exactly this "Britishness", or perhaps jocular tone, that means that the elements of The Midwich Cuckoos which lean towards horror, or at least thriller, don't entirely work. 

I give this audiobook...

4 Universes!

The Midwich Cuckoos is a brilliant book that straddles the lines between Science Fiction, Horror, Dystopia, and sometimes even humour. Wyndham should be more clearly put in the tradition of H.G. Wells and should be recognised for his skill more consistently.