The Kraken Wakes by John Wyndham

The things that scared us as children tend to stick with us all our lives; just ask the good people at Kindertrauma. Many adults retain a fascination for things such as the Daleks and Pennywise the clown, to name two common examples.

But there are other, more subtle terrors. I read The Kraken Wakes when I was about 12 (in a lovely 1950’s penguin edition, too), and didn’t think it was too scary. Aliens, end of the world- I’d heard it all many times before. In this case, the unseen creatures cause mankind trouble on a scale that is simply geographic- they melt the ice-caps and flood the world.

But shortly after reading it I fell into a strong flu, during which I experienced intense, Kraken Wakes- influenced fever dreams. To anyone who’s never had a fever dream, it’s something like having dreams when you’re awake, and also something like an unpredictable bad-trip. My dreams revolved around floods and earthquakes, and they were horribly real. So, even though I thought the book was none too scary, it obviously resonated with me subconsciously on some level. Ever since, I’ve associated that terrible time with Wyndham’s book, perhaps affording it a gravitas far above its actual content.

Returning to the book many years later, how does it hold up?

Let’s have a little background on Wyndham first. He’s kind of like a very 1950’s version of H. G. Wells: an Englishman, he wrote some great high-concept science-fiction, and he wasn’t shy about the kind of destruction he wreaked on the world in his stories. Like Wells, Wyndham’s novels feel like big-budget summer blockbusters. His most famous novel, Day of the Triffids, is a classic that’s right up there with anything Wells wrote.

Even though Wells was writing fifty years earlier, during the prudish Victorian era, today it’s Wyndham who comes across as more of a stereotypical stiff-upper-lipped Englishman. Wells was originally working class, and had lots of politically radical ideas (he was a thumping great socialist, and was in favour of a world government). Wynhdam, on the other hand, never lets us forget his middle-class origins in his books, and is frequently criticized for this.

The most common dismissal of Wyndham is that his plots are ‘cozy catastrophes’. As far as I can see, this accusation results largely from two (broadly similar) books- Day of the Triffids and The Kraken Wakes. In both books, terrible circumstances cause London (read: society) to break down, and though death, destruction and horror are all around (and Wyndham is not stingy with these themes), a decidedly middle-class hero will survive the catastrophe without much physical or emotional trauma. He will pick up a pretty girl somewhere along the way, and they will eventually make a new life for themselves in some quiet part of the country- a sort of simple-life pastoral paradise.

While this is broadly accurate for both books, and while they may be read as a kind of simplistic middle-class wish-fulfillment fantasy, this view really ignores many of the novels’ unsavoury elements.

In Triffids, suicide and depression surround the hero. He genuinely needs to find the strength within himself to survive this nightmare world. He learns constantly that in this new world, the morals and scruples of the old one are the first casualty. Is it right to smash a shop window to steal food? He does it. Is it right to help a blind person to commit suicide? He does it. Is it right to live in a society where everyone gets to impregnate your girlfriend for the continuation of the human race? Now wait just a minute…

Triffids was published in 1951, and was a huge hit. Wyndham decided that he was onto a good thing, so as early as 1953 he released the broadly similar Kraken Wakes.

Kraken begins as the narrator and his wife are among the first humans to notice the falling of unexplained ‘fireballs’ into the sea. It’s treated as a kind of anomalous phenomenon, similar to the then-current flying saucer craze. Later, characters theorize that it’s in fact the beginning of an invasion by some intelligence from a high-pressure world (Neptune and Jupiter are posited, but we never find out for sure). Over the course of several months and years, it becomes clear that something has taken up residence in the deeps of the world’s oceans. First deep-sea scientific expeditions, and then commercial ships become targeted by these intelligences. Worldwide sea travel ceases (in a move eerily similar to the Europe-wide lack of air travel that’s happening now as a result of that Iceland volcano business). And after that, things really get strange…

When Kraken works, it’s really creepy. I think that part of the reason I’ve always been fascinated by it is that we never find out a damn thing about those underwater critters. They might not even be aliens, they might just be Earth intelligences that have lain dormant until the 1950s. All we do know about them is that they like to screw with us. Some of the violence of the sea-disasters in the first half of the book is quite astonishing- hundreds and hundreds of people perish horribly (and off-screen, too). The horror is rarely in the protagonists’ faces the way it is in Triffids- it’s more of a paranoia thing: the thought that mankind has lost his method of long-term travel is oddly creepy.

And when the creatures do begin to show up on our beaches, they do so in a manner that answers no questions about their nature.

There are problems with the book, mostly linked to the ‘humour’. There’s loads of running jokes about how the narrator’s wife wears the trousers in the marriage, and they feel even more out of place than the bizarre joke about Josella’s book in Triffids. There’s also a joke about people confusing the narrator’s company, the fictional EBC, with the real-life BBC. In case you’re wondering, EBC stands for ‘English Broadcasting Company’.

There are tonnes of 1950s artifacts in the book- aside from the obligatory Red Scare scenes, both Britain and the US seem to lob nuclear bombs about quite cheerfully in an attempt to wipe out the undersea menace. And of course, it wouldn’t be Wyndham without his trademark 1950s British-ness; it’s almost impossible to read his prose without hearing someone with the received pronunciation speak it- and you know that’s worth something.

Pro.

20,000 Leagues Under The Sea

There's one very good reason why I have not yet tackled reviewing the Wells/Verne oeuvre of 19th century early science fiction, and it's name is Jess Nevins. Were I to post a link to his site, you would simply never return, for you may rest assured that he is simply the best and most complete chronicler of Victorian-age fantastic fiction ever to suck ether. After he has completed one of his famously thorough reviews, anything left yet to be said on the subject is but the feeble-minded gibberish of an opium-sodden Pathan. Nevertheless, I will venture to provide a few words on the subject of Mr. Verne's book, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

Though one of the two best-remembered pioneers of what we now know as science fiction, Verne has always been regarded as the poorer writer. While many of his characters and ideas, in particular Phillias Fogg, Captain Nemo, the Nautilus and the moon-shot, are still well known today, his books are simply not often read. It is War of the Worlds, not 20,000 Leagues which is today on school curriculums worldwide. Why is this the case? For one thing, Wells used his science fiction to explore social issues, making them ripe for boring English-class over-analysis. Yep, you though you were reading about time travel, alien invasions and future worlds? Sorry mate, but you were actually being secretly lectured about the British class system, colonialism and socialism (probably at length too, knowing Wells).

Verne of course, being a Frenchman, and writing several decades beforehand, had no time for such nonsense. He wrote science fiction with an emphasis on the science. Leagues, for example, is really nothing more than an excuse for Verne to plan exactly how his most recent Big Idea (in this case, the Nautilus) would actually work.

Proceedings get off to a jolly good start when the French Professor Arronax, his odious assistant Conseil and designated asshole Ned Land set off to discover (and destroy) a mysterious 'creature' which has been attacking ships all around the world. Arronax, being a naturalist, believes it to be some sort of gigantic narwhale. Of course, to the surprise of nobody except cultural philistines and those who haven't read the back of the book, the 'creature' turns out to be none other than the Nautilus, a submarine-like craft that is well ahead of its time. It is piloted by the enigmatic Captain Nemo. Nemo rescues the other characters from a watery grave, and so begins their travels throughout his watery domain. Though they will see many marvels and wonders unseen by terrestrial man, Nemo makes it clear that they have sacrificed their freedom- he will never let them leave the Nautilus.

It has to be stated that Verne is a stiffer read than other writers of his type, and most readers will make their way through Leagues a good bit slower than they will through anything by Wells. The characters for the most part are so flat that they'd become invisible if they turned to the side, and really only exist to drop massive infodumps on the unsuspecting reader.

Oh God, the infodumps...

Verne has always been infamous for this kind of thing, and Leagues is no exception. It occasionally feels as if he's decided to write the book simply to show off all the research he's done. One character will say: "Why look at that curious island there on the horizon. I wasn't aware there was an archipelago in this area. What is it?" And another character will say: "Well, I'm glad you asked. You see, those are the Sandwich Islands, which were first scouted by the Portuguese in 1656, and later colonised by..." History, biology, geology- no subject is safe.

This can be pretty interesting when it's Captain Nemo talking about the Nautilus, for Verne has, as usual, worked out the exact dimensions and workings of his creation, and it is fun to see how such an incredible craft could have been constructed using only 1860's technology. Verne does cheat somewhat by having Nemo use an unknown 'type' of electricity, thus allowing him to perform feats that electricity was not known to be capable of at the time (and how come there's no mention of decompression?). But when Arronax and Conseil drone on and on about the kinds of sea life they encounter, the readers' eyes start to glaze over. These infodumps tend to consist of enormous lists of species names (often in latin) which will mean absolutely nothing to 90% of readers (now or then!). And if you're really unlucky, that little twerp Conseil will even start reeling off the taxonomy of each species. Why would Verne include this kind of thing? There's often no explanation at all for what he's talking about. Not everybody out there has a zoology degree, Verne (though ironically enough, Wells did, and he never felt the need to go on about it).























Lest we get carried too far out into the sea of negativity, I will mention that the Nautilus is an extremely cool idea, and one which has rightly continued to fascinate writers and filmakers. But it is Nemo himself who is probably the best thing about the book- a misanthrope who has cut off all ties with the land due to some undisclosed past horror (Indian Mutiny, anyone?). He's suitably moody and mysterious, and he plays a mean organ to express his inner anguish. He always knows how to get out of a jam, and this makes him quite smug. His genius may have made the world a better place but instead the world rejected him, and he has taken all he loves (great works of art and nature) on board the Nautilus and quit the land for good. This is definitely an attractive idea.

Verne works best as a kind of wish fulfillment, and when Leagues sobers up from its educational sermonizing and remembers that its supposed to be an adventure story, it does this quite well. Personally, I've always though that when it came to being stuck indefinitely in a sweaty tin can with several other men, Verne's other famous misanthrope Captain Robur (who flew an airship) had one over on Nemo. The freedom of the sky beats the freedom of the sea for me. I mean, even if you were obsessed with sea life like Arronax and C*****L are, wouldn't it get a bit boring on board the Nautilus? Verne tries hard to hide the fact (Arronax constantantly says that he's so 'busy' reading and looking at fish that he doesn't have time to be bored), but being unable to even go for a walk for months on end doesn't sound like wish fulfillment.

Leagues is worth a look, but had Verne spent more time on characterization and less on the infodumps he might still be read today instead of just fondly remembered.

Incidentally, do check out Jess Nevins' page here. And also this detailed, well-researched page on designs for the Nautilus.