Michael's Reviews > The Midwich Cuckoos

This short book on a surreptitious alien invasion continues to resonate in my imagination weeks after reading it. The pleasure of the read for me was in the quiet unfolding of events pieced together by a neutral, largely uninvolved narrator. As with Hitchcock movies, the truly disturbing events are either off-camera or seen in a reflection of someone’s experience. I think its anti-cinematic tone of a radio play may be why the book was considered enough of an innovation in the form of the novel to warrant inclusion on the Boxhall list of “1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die.”

The book blurb gives away the overall plot. All residents of an already sleepy suburb in England are put to sleep within a mysterious circle of influence and later wake up unharmed, but soon they learn that all women are pregnant. The slow dawning on ordinary people that something fiendish is going on was nicely done. As in “E.T.” the military try to get involved, but it’s up to regular middle class folk to deal with the obscure threat within their midst. Because of the distant male perspective of the narrator and the main character, the scientist Gordon Zellaby, we don’t get much of a window on the personal reactions of the women. Just anecdotes to suggest that some consider this a miraculous immaculate conception and others a horrifyingly personal invasion. The rest of the book deals with how the village comes to terms with raising the resultant children, who appear normal except for their golden hair and strange eyes and stand out with precocious development. As with the story of the frog in the pot being heated, the community is slow to realize they are in danger from special powers the children possess. Like cuckoo chicks ready to take over the nest.

I long avoided the book because the movie version, “Village of the Damned”, seemed just another horror thriller with a stupid premise. But the author’s “Day of the Triffids” showed me how different his reflective narrative can be from an action oriented movie. Others have pointed out the analogies between the plot and the prevailing Cold War paranoia of the 50’s over Communist corruption from within. The primal resilience of the British middle class is the hero in that light. Another angle is on the biological imperative to survive in the face of evolutionary competition. It’s all well and good to recognize the “naturalness” of the scenario, but the liberal outlook of “live and let live” runs smack up against compelling moral arguments for genocide. In the history of science fiction, this tale has an important place in the transition between the jingoistic space operas of the “Age of Wonder” and emergence of darker visions of horror and inter-species war that render a more pessimistic view of the power of science and human superiority. If you care for a few hours of thoughtful and disturbing entertainment, there are free e-book versions of this book on the internet.