The other day, while I was looking through the used books at the new Uncle Hugo's for a particular sequel to a book I had just finished, I happened to see this:
The author's name is what caught my attention, combined with a title I didn't know, but when I pulled it off the shelf, the artwork and title lettering made me blink. John Christopher, a 1960s science fiction writer, is best known in the U.S. for his young-adult Tripods series, but I loved him for the Sword of the Spirits series.
His adult novels were less successful in the U.S., and I would say rightfully so, based on the few I have read, which includes No Blade of Grass, which I reread not too long ago. While it starts from an interesting premise, its sexism and misanthropy become tiresome.
Given that experience, I wasn't surprised to read the jacket copy for Pendulum:
The place is England today, its traditions crumbling under the assault of The New Hedonism — pop singers, student rebellions, teenage motorcycle gangs, permissive morality...
When a devastating financial crisis overwhelms the country, the thin veneer of civilization is stripped off — power passes into the hands of the young, and England becomes a country ruled by feudal gangs of teenagers imposing their own lynch law and terrorizing the adult population.
Against this background of national collapse, the characters of Pendulum seek to rebuild their shattered lives, to go on living. Their predicament is terrifying but entirely believable, and its resolution — as the inevitable revolt of age and order against youth and anarchy takes shape — is a masterpiece of convincing horror.
England today, in this case, was 1968. And I couldn't help think of the lyrics to "Ya Got Trouble" from The Music Man. Pop singers! Teenagers! Because Trouble, with a capital "T"... And that rhymes with "P" and that stands for pool!
But from there it goes right to civilizational collapse and imposing lynch laws. And it's all sooooooo believable!
I don't know what it was like to be an adult in the 1960s, but it seems as though Christopher was a reactionary who took cultural change very hard. He appears to have used his novels as a way to express his deep dissatisfaction with reality, hearkening back to the way things should be in the good old days, which I guess in his case, would have been between the World Wars.
I didn't buy the book. I'm not going to waste my time, even to read it as a joke.
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I just learned that John Christopher was a pen name for a writer named Sam Youd.
1 comment:
OK I'm really late, playing catchup with my blogs, but this is hilarious. Last year I found this exact book, and I like Christopher's old children's SF novels so I took it home. This summer I tried to read it and lasted maybe 10 pages. It was terrible. So it's gone now.
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