Penguin Books, 2008 - Cover illustration by Brian Cronin
BOOKS READ 22: TROUBLE WITH LICHEN BY JOHN WYNDHAM
I was so excited for this book. I have a very large pile of unread books and in an effort to get through a lot of them and save money, I vowed to finish my stack and my reward (oh god I am lame) would be to get this edition of this book and “The Kraken Wakes” (also by John Wyndham). I wanted this edition specifically because I love the illustrations done by Brian Cronin for the Wyndham books. They are so beautiful, so simple! Looking at the illustration, it’s just lines and color, no real shading or anything, nothing fancy, but it says so much (at least to me), it is so complete and conveys the essence of the story quite well. It was comforting to me and also a revelation of how illustrations can be approached in a simple way but still be effective on an emotional, conceptual, and aesthetic level. I guess the key is just what you depict.
Recently, I was at Chapters, and saw this book and “The Kraken Wakes” and I had gotten a quarter through my unread pile and had held back long enough, and I was like fuuuck it, going to buy these.
The book wasn’t nearly as great as I thought it be. It’s about these two scientists, one male, the other female, who discover a lichen that can retard the ageing process, and the female doctor wanted to use this lichen as a means for a feminist revolution, but the male was a bit hesitant and foresaw chaos. Sounds so cool yah? I feel like there could have been some crazy playouts of each of these views in the book, and there were some starts, but it never went far, which is what made me excited for this book and led to my disappointment. There were drawbacks pointed out about living a longer life that I never thought about and made me rethink the whole I-want-to-live-forever-thing (cause I was ha, totally considering it). It made me realize that the better moments of my life were when there had been time limits on what I was doing. When time was not an object, I find that you are left with “extra” amounts of time that don’t really amount to much and almost kind of negate the whole experience or make it seem not as important. Not always, but sometimes, most times. Anyways…the book was okay.
I am still nuts about the cover though.
