Second paragraph of third chapter:
‘Miss Brackley,’ he said, ‘I am told that it is a kindly concern of yours to see that Felicia is sustained during her nocturnal activities. If it really is necessary – which I doubt, since she doesn’t seem to have touched your gift, but if it is – would you mind placing your saucer in a less traffic-prone situation in future. This is the third time I have almost fallen over my own feet in avoiding it.’
A really fascinating (and short!) book by Wyndham, published in 1960; a drug to slow the aging process is developed separately by two English scientists, one of whom uses it only for himself and his immediate family, while the other makes it the core of her beauty business, building up a sympathetic constituency of rich women to support her when the shit hits the fan, as it duly does.
Wyndham is being frankly feminist here, imagining a drastic change in society engineered by a woman for the benefit of women, and brutally portraying the forces of the patriarchy who come out against it. He also finds time for satirical swipes against the media (which one feels are founded in personal experience) and the beauty industry (where perhaps he is less sure-footed).
It’s a novel of ideas rather than action, which ends perhaps a bit abruptly, but that’s because it has worked through its central idea as far as can usefully done in the context of England in 1960. It also perhaps reflects the anxieties of that time, with the Swinging Sixties tangibly around the corner.
The Irish government is brought into the story at one remove, as various English people discover to their astonishment that it is an independent country – there is a rumour that the longevity drug originates from a particular type of Galway seaweed.
‘I mean, it would have been nice to hang on a while, and see whether one couldn’t do something about acquiring seaweed rights in Galway Bay. But, obviously it couldn’t wait for that, so I wired a friend in Dublin to get a head start by making inquiries about legal rights over seaweed, in Irish law.’
The editor shook his head.
‘You’d probably have to petition the Pope, or something,’ he said. ‘It’s likely to be a pretty serious matter with the Irish. They eat the stuff.’
‘They what?’
‘Eat it. They call it dulse.’
Gerald shook his head in his turn, though whether in doubt, or out of sympathy for the Irish, was not clear.
I was also interested in the references to China – the troublesome lichen come from Hokiang, now known as Hejiang, the easternmost part of China which is part of the historic region of Manchuria; it is exported through Dairen, now Dalian, previously Port Arthur. It’s actually a very good call to place a mysterious Chinese agricultural product there. I don’t find any record that Wyndham knew much about China, other than the brief references in this book; maybe he asked a friend.
Anyway, this was a very welcome re-read, with depths that had escaped me when I first read it. You can get Trouble with Lichen here.
This was my top unread sf book (though of course I had read it long ago). Next on that pile is The Best of All Possible Worlds, by Karen Lord.
