Chocky door John Wyndham

Summary

Title: Chocky
Author: John Wyndham
Genre: Science Fiction

David and his wife Mary weren’t able to get a baby. So they adopted a boy called Matthew, who is the main character in the book. Later they got an own baby, Polly.
When Matthew reached the age of ten he started to ask a lot of weird questions, about physics and maths, to his mum and dad. They couldn’t understand what he was trying to ask.
After a while Matthew told his parents about a voice in his head which talked to him.
The voice was from a “thing” called Chocky.
Matthew asked his parents, then, what Chocky wanted to know.
Later on this Chocky could also take control over Matthew, only when he thought of nothing. By doing this Chocky could make Matthew drawing landscapes very well while he was not a good drawer before. Also Matthew could swim with the help of Chocky while he couldn’t swim by his own. Matthews parents worried a lot about Matthew. First they didn’t want to consult a psychiatrist or a doctor because they thought it would be no good to Matthew, so they decided to wait a while and to see whether it continued or not.
As it didn’t stop they did consult a psychiatrist who cured Matthew by hypnoses.
The day after the hypnoses Matthew told his parents Chocky had left. And as Matthew said Chocky wasn’t there anymore. But this only lasted for about two weeks then he/she returned. But now he/she wanted to talk to Matthew’s father.
Chocky could only speak via Matthew when he thought of nothing. So Matthew did so and Chocky told David that he/she came from another planet and that he/she was an explorer in order to find other planets which they could take in.
At the end of this conversation Chocky said that it would now leave earth to return to its own planet because its mission had failed.

My own opinion

I think it’s an interesting story because you read the different views on the problem.
David, the father, believes in “Chocky” because Matthew does and thinks they have to take it very serious.
Mary, the mother, doesn’t believe in “Chocky” and thinks that Matthew is getting mad so she wants to consult a psychiatrist.
Matthew himself doesn’t seem to have a problem he thinks Chocky doesn’t harm him. But after a while he notices that he could better not tell about his problem because people might think he got mad. This is the only thing that troubles him.
I think it’s a nice book because Chocky seems to be real when you read about it, I think this is because the author describes Chocky by bits and pieces so there is no complete description, you have to read the whole book before you know what Chocky really is.