Chocky

An astoundingly well-written novel with strong characters and a deeply thoughtful plot. I typically don’t care for children as conduits but the simultaneous tenderness and frustration of connection between the young main character and his foreign visitor is an absolute delight. This will be one I read many times again.

John and Mary Gore are a solidly respectable couple leading happy though somewhat hum-drum lives in 1960s England. Then they begin to notice something odd about their 11 year old adopted son, Matthew. He's carrying on conversations with an invisible unhearable someone he calls Chocky, and it's leading him to ask unusual questions and display knowledge of matters well beyond the ken of normal children his age. Chocky's presence in the Gore household becomes awkward and eventually rather alarming, and eventually John is forced to confront him/her/it and learn the truth about his son's companion.This is a pleasant little tale in which the truth about Chocky is revealed only gradually, allowing the reader plenty of time to speculate for himself. John Wyndham was a well-regarded British science fiction writer in the 1950s and 1960s, with his most well known works being The Day of the Triffids, The Midwich Cuckoos, and The Chrysalids. Chocky was his final book, published in 1968 a year before his death.

Read all about it, but didn't know what I was in for. So glad I got this book as part of my new discovery of John Wyndham. It's so intelligent and clever and intricately explored. The humour is sharp too especially when Mr Gore puts a sneering sister-in-law in her place by coolly leading her into a logic trap, way before Ali G. How his daughter Polly's invisible Piff impacted on the family and her applied wisdom via the adventures of "Twinklehooves", her latest book. The dry and sly way people in a kindly family poke fun at each other. Wyndham's observations of what it is to be a child growing up touched me, as well as the father's grasp of what the family needed at times of great tension, insights into other people's agendas, the comparison between his and his wife's sense of self. People just getting along with each other was a peep into a private, regular family world. They're still around but eclipsed by today's mediated extravaganza of living. It's like: Everyday Family's Brush with Stardust, but as down-to-earth, clever and well realised as can be. I couldn't put it down.

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.

This is a different kind of science fiction novel. For the time it was published, it is extremely sophisticated and nuanced. The basic plot a simple: a young boy hears a voice inside his head. The tale is told by the boy’s adoptive father. The reader will figure out what the voice is before the father does but that doesn’t take away from the enjoyment.

I have re-read this book after 50 years, and it has definately withstood the test of time. The issues that permeate through the book are just as relevant today as they were when I first read it. I would recommend this book - and in fact many of John Wyndham's book to reader today. They are classics!H.T.

This book has become one of my favorites. It is very short, but very sweet, and it leaves you thinking, in an 11th-hour kind of way. Not for people looking for an action-packed thrill ride. I can easily see this being turned into a movie!

A simple story that keeps you interested with new twists and turns. The characters are a bit one dimensional but the concept maintains momentum and interest, a good read.

Such a treat to read again. I've always enjoyed the concept of first contact. This is an amazing story of one possible way we meet an alien race. And written in a way that is mysterious and entertaining. Chockys presence as a visitor is both amazing and terrifying, each in its own way. A well written story as usual from Mr. Wyndham.

John Wyndham always has the most interesting ideas. It's true - what if we could project thought? How fast would we be able to go? Who would we find?

cover is flimsy

I have a theory, and it's that John Wyndham's books probably always seemed a little bit old-fashioned - even when they were originally published: this is the hurdle and resistance that anyone who comes to these books, today, must certainly overcome. It's the awkward and slightly anachronistic dialogue that, for me, is mostly to blame for creating this impression - what I refer to as the 'talky middle-class English parlour' brand of dialogue, which I'm confident has little claim on reality beyond the closed fictional worlds of Mr Wyndham's novels and the like. For example - given that this later work, 'Chocky', was published in 1968 (the era of the American Civil Rights movement - culminating with the assassination of Martin Luther King, the era in which television was truly getting into its stride and broadening its popular appeal, when NASA's Apollo space programme was forging ahead and capturing the modern (and vernacular) imagination, and when the general population was trying to come to terms with the Beatles' challenging 'White Album'), I find it very hard to accept that a contemporary parent of that era could ever have referred to his 12-year-old son as 'old man' (as is the case here) without eliciting some suitable protest from the child: that just grates and seems so out of keeping with the times - a decade or more out of touch, I'd say! So much for the preamble; now to the bones of the book...The story centres around a few challenging months in the life of young Matthew Gore - the boy adopted by David and Mary Gore at a time when they were fearful of ever having children of their own, and who (as these things have a habit of turning out) was soon to be joined by an obstreperous little sister called Polly: the natural child of his adoptive parents. One day, quite out of the blue, his father notices Matthew in a squabbling conversation with...himself, or at least - with an imaginary friend he names as Chocky. Perhaps the boy is a bit on the old side for that sort of thing, but there it is. As imaginary friends go, Chocky appears to be something quite extraordinary; for he (or she) appears to far exceed - in terms of ability and proficiency - the young and immature mind of his/her 'creator', which really should not be. So how, exactly, might Chocky be explained? A fictional creation, the worrying symptom of some onset mental affliction, or an example of old-fashioned bewitchment or spiritual possession? This brief synopsis essentially forms the crux of the plot, such as it is, with the reader being led through a series of episodic events as Matthew's parents attempt to ascertain the true nature of the Chocky phenomenon - whether he/she represents a malevolent threat to their son, or whether a benign and beneficial influence. Of course, you wouldn't expect me to spoil it by revealing the outcome...Part of the problem I have with this book stems, I believe, from the fact that the story is always too firmly centred on the Gore nuclear family and never strays too far beyond those claustrophobic bounds, which unfortunately doesn't exactly make for a thrilling narrative dynamic. It doesn't help much, either, that the story is related exclusively in the First Person: I do understand how much easier it must have been to write 'Chocky' from David Gore's patriarchal viewpoint, but I can't help feeling that this is one of those books that would have benefited considerably from a Third Person narrative - with the opportunity this would have provided for resorting to an 'omniscient authorial voice'. Not only would this have allowed the depiction of familiar events, as the other family members experienced them, it would also have permitted an exploration of Matthew's own sensations and feelings whenever Chocky made an appearance (something his adoptive father could NOT have directly perceived or described, for obvious reasons!) - and that would surely have made for a much more interesting and enjoyable read. I must also just add that some elements of the storyline do tend to tax the reader's credulity - for example, a kidnapping that extends over a number of days but which unaccountably finds the police force quite unconcerned about investigating the circumstances or finding the perpetrators, and with neither family nor friends appearing at all concerned that the culprits should ever be captured and properly punished: that sort of thing, I'm afraid, just doesn't ring true!In summary:'Chocky' is something of a sparse book, in a variety of ways: it's physically short, the plot is a bit on the meagre side, and it was written towards the end of John Wyndham's career as a novelist - when his creative powers were very obviously on the wane. Returning to a theme I addressed at the beginning, reading this book served to reinforce a suspicion (and curious contradiction) I had long entertained about one particular aspect of Mr Wyndham's writing: he seems to be perfectly adept when it comes to putting words into the mouths of his younger characters (one of the reasons why 'The Chrysalids' - which is narrated predominantly from the perspective of the children therein - is such a triumph, I believe), but the dialogue he attempts to weigh upon the tongues of his adult characters always seems so terribly stilted and unnatural (and so perhaps is why 'The Midwich Cuckoos' - which features adults endlessly and obsessively talking about their troublesome brood - is not as fine a book as it should have been.) I was prepared, quite early on, to award this novel three stars (and three stars only) until I finally arrived at Chapter Eleven and thought that Mr Wyndham had redeemed himself, to some extent, and just about scraped home with that coveted fourth star - although the matter-of-fact way in which David Gore gains an understanding of who and what Chocky is perhaps redefines the term 'stiff upper lip' and might well have concluded, at the end of the chapter, with a perfunctory 'righto' from that aforementioned individual!So, finally, to conclude: 'Chocky' the book is good in parts, but it's by no means great. There's nothing to particularly distinguish it - to set it apart from the crowd - and it should merely be read for what it is: a diverting but undemanding novel.(P.S: In terms of terrible typos, this Kindle edition is perhaps the worst e-book I have read to date. Where are the proofreaders?)

There is something really compelling about John Wyndham's writing. By no stretch of the imagination can it be called great writing; I think it is more to do with the way he captures the Cold War angst of the 1950s and 1960s around invasion, war and the uncertainty of continued human existence in the face of a nebulous, ill-defined but ever-present threat. It hangs in the air throughout his writing like an unspoken thought, and is perhaps his defining theme. In Chocky, the author deploys this theme in much the same way as he does with many of his novels; using a familiar suburban setting to tap into our most deep-seated anxities. Chocky is an alien presence who chooses eleven-year-old Matthew to communicate with about the possible re-colonization of the Earth by his species. Wyndham's greatest trick is perhaps to convince his reader that they are not reading science fiction at all, but a perfectly plausible account of a future, alternate reality. It is perhaps this skill, shared by George Orwell in 1984 or Orson Wells' chilling original radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds, that sets Wyndham apart as a writer who deserves our sustained attention.