Chocky by John Wyndham

 

Wyndham's full name, John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris,
gave him lots of fodder for pseudonyms

Historians of science fiction often speak of the years 1939–1942 as "the golden age." But it was more like a false dawn. The real golden age arrived a decade later, and—what is not always true of golden ages—we knew what it was while it was happening.

--Robert Silverberg

When I first ran across that statement by Silverberg a few years ago, I instantly concurred. While the roots of the science fiction I love were in the 1930s and 40s, the real flowering of the genre came in the 1950s. One of the best writers of that period was John Wyndham, whose works include The Day of the Triffids (1951), The Kraken Wakes (1953), The Chrysalids (1955), and The Midwich Cuckoos, aka The Village of the Damned (1957). Wyndham had written earlier novels in the 1930s and 40s, under different pseudonyms, but they haven't stood the test of time like his output of the 1950s and 60s.

Review

Chocky came out in 1968 and was the last of Wyndham's novels to be published during his lifetime. The story is told from the point of view of David Gore, who is married to Mary. They have two children, Matthew and Polly. At the outset, the younger of the children, Polly, has an imaginary friend she calls Piff. Polly's antics involving the invisible Piff are annoying to everyone else in the family, but, eventually, to everyone's relief, she forgets her imaginary friend and moves on. David and Mary are, therefore, very unhappy when their older child, Matthew, begins to exhibit signs of having an imaginary friend of his own. For one thing, at twelve he's too old for that sort of thing, and, for another, his imaginary friend Chocky causes Matthew a great deal of consternation. Chocky is always asking perplexing questions that no one can answer and expressing opinions that go against Matthew's own.

Eventually David seeks advice from an old college friend named Alan who is now a psychiatrist. But, after meeting Matthew and spending time with him, Alan isn't so sure Chocky is imaginary. Chocky says things that Alan doesn't think Matthew could have thought of himself. In going over his assessment with Matthew's parents, Alan makes the mistake of comparing it to the old-fashioned idea of being "possessed." He later retreats from that word because Chocky doesn't seem to be controlling Matthew in any way, but Mary is so disturbed by the notion that she wants nothing more to do with Alan.

As time goes on, however, Matthew learns to let his mind go blank and allow Chocky to take control of him. S/he teaches him how s/he sees the world and in the process teaches him how to draw and paint. His art teacher is so amazed by this efflorescence of a hitherto unseen talent that she asks Matthew for one his drawings. On another occasion, an accident occurs and Matthew and his little sister are swept into a fast-flowing river. Chocky takes control of Matthew, who can't swim, instantly teaching him to swim and having him hold his sister's head above water until they can be rescued.

By the way, I'm using the construction "s/he" because, in exchanges with Matthew, the entity makes it clear that gender is unknown where s/he comes from. For convenience, though, David and Matthew eventually settle on referring to Chocky as she/her because to Matthew she seems more feminine than masculine. (In 1968, non-binary pronouns weren't really a thing.)

David also begins to think Chocky might somehow be real, but Mary clings to the belief that s/he is merely a product of Matthew's mind. Alan comes back to David with the suggestion that they take Matthew to a renowned psychiatrist he knows, Sir William Thorpe, who has recently been appointed to a high government position because he is so highly regarded. With persuasion from Alan, Thorpe agrees to see Matthew. When Matthew later describes the experience to his parents, it's obvious to them that Thorpe hypnotized Matthew during the session, which they find disturbing. But they have to wait for his report. When it comes, David is disappointed because Thorpe dismisses all of Matthew's experiences as common manifestations of typical psychological issues that boys go through -- which is obviously ridiculous -- and assures them that Chocky will fade away soon enough.

And, indeed, shortly thereafter Chocky does leave Matthew, which saddens him. He had grown used to sharing thoughts and understanding with Chocky. Though they are concerned about his depressed state of mind, his parents hope this is the beginning of a return to normalcy. Nothing is going back to normal anytime soon, though, because Matthew is kidnapped after school one day. The only clue to the kidnapping is that a boy from school saw Matthew getting into a car with a man.

Weeks later, Matthew finds himself in another town and goes looking for a policeman to get help. The police question Matthew, examine him medically (finding that he has received many injections), and return him to his parents. He explains why he got into the car with the man (who said he was looking for the Gore house), and tells how the next thing he remembers is waking up in a hospital with a cast on his leg and that the doctors and nurses explained he'd been in a car accident and that it was broken. Everyone was nice to him and said they were using a new technique that would heal his leg quickly. In a couple of weeks, the cast was off and he was ready to go home. Then he woke up in an abandoned car in a strange town.

The implications become obvious: Thorpe understood he was dealing with an alien entity and agents of the government kidnapped Matthew to inject him with drugs and extract all the information they could. Seeing how badly things were going wrong, Chocky had left Matthew. But, late one night, s/he returned a final time to fully explain her mission. I believe the book would have been better without the last couple of chapters. Readers had enough to fill in the blanks, and going through it all methodically to make everything explicit robbed it of some of the narrative pathos and wonder it had built up.

That said, Wyndham had a delightful way of unspooling the story, making everything feel homey and familiar while slowly introducing elements of strangeness. The imaginary friend that turns out to be real is a staple of horror stories, but Wyndham never ventures in that direction with this story. He is more interested in provoking questions and contemplation. He suggests that progress is made by actually looking at the things you think you already know and questioning your assumptions. Toward the end, Chocky explains that s/he reaches across the void to other minds because "intelligent life is the only thing that gives meaning to the universe." I'll buy tha