Now, almost 40 years later, the postwartime feel is even more present in this short novel, despite the book itself being published in 1957.
I can't remember when I first read The Midwich Cuckoos, but it was certainly within 30 years of the end of World War II. In such a nuclear and technological age, Wyndam's story is rich in irony in that it is set in the picturesque, bucolic English Village and the "enemy", the threat, are seeming cherubim.
The London Evening Standard called The Midwich Cuckoos "humane and urbane with a lightly sophisticated wit putting the ideas into shape." Wyndham skillfully heightens the terror by making his narrative so rational and matter-of-fact. It is these children who develop into an unstoppable force, capable of anything and far out-reaching other humans in cunning. These children are innately possessed with unimaginable mental powers and a formidable intelligence. After the night of September 26, every woman of childbearing age is pregnant, all to give birth at the same time, to children who are all alike-their eyes mesmerizing, void of emotion. The quiet, eerie changes that befall Midwich manifest in strange ways on the surface, everything seems normal, but scratch a little deeper and there is a clear sense of dread. In Wyndam's classically elegant, calm style, this novel explores the arrival of a collective intelligence on earth that threatens to eliminate mankind. The nightmare that descends on Midwich has dire implications for the rest of the world whatever dwells there is sowing the seeds for a master race of ruthless and inhumane creatures who are bent on nothing less than absolute and total domination. Then, in ways that are difficult to pin down, the village seems changed-not quite the same place that it was before. The story begins with Richard and Janet Gayford who have spent the night of September 26 in London, returning to their home in Midwich the following day.
John Wyndham's 1957 book The Midwich Cuckoos is better known by the more sensational title of its two film adaptations, Village of the Damned.
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