Saturday Reading Group

Saturday Reading Group | 15/10/2022 | 3:00 pm-4:30 pm

Saturday Reading Group

The Saturday Reading Group is for anyone who loves to read, socialize in English, and meet new people. For this meeting, the group will read The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham.

The protagonist is Bill Masen, a biologist who has made his living working with triffids—tall, venomous, carnivorous plants capable of locomotion. Due to his background, Masen suspects they were bioengineered in the U.S.S.R. and accidentally released into the wild. Because of the excellent industrial quality of an oil produced by and obtained from the triffids, there is heavy triffid cultivation around the world.

The narrative begins with Bill Masen in hospital, his eyes bandaged after having been splashed with triffid poison from a stinger. During his recovery he is told of an unexpected green meteor shower. The next morning, he learns that the light from the unusual display has rendered any who watched it blind (later in the book, Masen speculates that the “meteor shower” may have been orbiting satellite weapons, triggered accidentally).

After unbandaging his eyes he finds the hospital in chaos, with staff and patients without sight. He wanders through a chaotic London full of blind inhabitants and slowly becomes enamoured of wealthy novelist Josella Playton, whom he rescues after discovering her being forcibly used as a guide by a blind man. Intrigued by a single light on top of the Senate House in an otherwise darkened London, Bill and Josella discover a group of sighted survivors led by a man named Beadley, who plans to establish a colony in the countryside. They decide to join the group…

Meetings are once a month on Saturday afternoons starting at 3 pm. Open to all library members. To sign up please contact the group coordinator at bookgroup@ellia.org.


Location: English-language Library in Angers