#Spooktober-‘The Body Snatchers’ by Jack Finney

About the book…

Originally published in 1955 Jack Finney’s sinister SF tale has outgrown the initial debate about whether it satirized Communism or the conformity of US society at the time, to become a classic of paranoia; an examination of our fear of ‘the other’.

Most people know the story from seeing ‘Invasion Of The Body Snatchers’, the classic 1978 remake (one of the few Hollwood remakes said to better than the original, made in 1956) starring Donald Sutherland.

Here’s your chance to read the original source; a story that has resonated with readers and viewers for more than 50 years.

This version, by Gollancz ‘SF Masterworks’ series, is closer to the original than the revised edition which may or may not have reflected the film script, released, as it was, in the same year, 1978.

The problem with reading a classic, especially one which occupies such a space in the public consciousness, is that you think you know the book. And this is where I will state my love for re-reads of books, there is always something new, some new perspective to take away.
The first time I read it was pretty much in the 80’s-90’s at around the fall of the Berlin Wall so this represented to me, the Cold War and the threat of political sabitage by people who looked, and behaved-on the surface at least-like us. That was the analysis at the time, whereas in its early versions, it was more the threat of other world, or alien influences that we could not comprehend that leaves a chill up the spine.

Who can forget, if they have seen the original ,1956 movie, the pleas of Kevin McCarthy’s Dr Miles Bennell to find and destroy the pod people?

The central concept of the book is that as the first person narrator,  Miles is telling the story of how an insidious alien race has taken on the appearance of humans-looking exactly like the person they have taken over.

Beginning with an exhortation to only read if you do not mind stories with messy endings and no finite conclusion, he launches straight into a semi-consultation with his childhood sweetheart, Becky. She has sought his advice because he not only knows her cousin Wilma, the cause of her concern, but also her Uncle Ira who Wilma is convinced is not her father any longer.

It is parsed as a delusion but there is an underlying sinister tone that is not disguised by a hysterical female seeking the confidential assistance of a medically trained school chum(remember, this was a time when people, especially women, were confined to asylums under the slightest pretext).

The suspense is present right from the get-go, the sheer insistance that Ira is exactly the same yet somehow not makes your flesh creep.

The invasion of body and mind is a staple of the horror genre,and this can be read and re-read and seen as allegorical to the McCarthy trials, Cold War spies or Alien Invasion tales where extraterrestrials by stealth of war want to take over our planet and kill us/use us as slaves.

They all look exactly like us but are sneakily planning our downfall for political reasons and for that reason, it is compelling and terrifying. Each generation could read this novel and find their own boogieman living there, right there, in front of your very eyes. Looking exactly like a human being yet somehow, apart and other.

There is something intensely scary about the creeping sense of paranoia as the book continues, is it a collective, contagious madness or are aliens really growing pods, from which, identical copies emerge?

Are we as genuinely unique in the universe as we would like to think we are-what is the hive mind and how far do we go to fight for, and express our individuality?

It’s an incredible story that you think you know but come prepared to find like a new read, all over again. For a novel which is 63 years old, it remains remarkably timeless, tense and bone chilling.

100% recommended!

Have you seen any of the films, or read this book?

Drop me a line and let me know what you thought.

About the author…

His first novel, Five Against the House (1954), told the story of five college students who plot to rob a casino in Reno. A year later he published The Body Snatchers (later reissued as Invasion of the Body Snatchers), a chilling tale of aliens who emerge from pods in the guise of humans whom they have taken over. Many critics interpreted the insidious infiltration by aliens as a cold-war allegory that dramatized America’s fear of a takeover by Communists. Mr. Finney maintained that the novel was nothing more than popular entertainment. The 1956 film Invasion of the Body Snatchers was remade twice.

Links-https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/empire-essay-invasion-bodysnatchers-review/