rachelmanija (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rachelmanija) wrote2021-05-07 10:26 am
rachelmanija) wrote2021-05-07 10:26 am
The Plants, by Kenneth McKenney
The beginning of what, we are portentously told via omniscient narration, is later known as the Events in Brandling is that England has a change in weather to very hot in the day and rainy at night, causing plants to grow lushly. In Brandling, a tiny village in Somerset, a guy named Charlie grows a huge squash.
The hump of the squash loomed in the darkness.
The squash continues to grow after he picks it, alarming some of the villagers.
They were men too close to the soil to remain unaffected by the squash and its size and the reactions it was beginning to cause.
They were beginning to feel its presence like fear.
Particularly Charlie:
"What'd you pick on me for?" he suddenly said aloud.
The squash was silent in the dark.
Other villagers scoff. They argue.
"That squash's real," Ted said.
A plant expert has been consulted, and his opinion is that plants don't like us cross pollinating them and messing with their genes, and they're going to rebel. He asks, perhaps rhetorically, "What would you say if I told you I believe the plant kingdom morally disapproves of what man is doing to the world?"
The dude he's talking to does not have a reply to that, but asks, "Is it possible they could control the weather?"
The plant expert is experimenting on trays of bean sprouts to see if plants have memory. He notices that the plants are responding faster, which means...
"They would not only be able to remember, but see into the future as well."
What.
In the gentle hum emerging from the air conditioning he failed to hear the tiny rustling sound from the rows of bean sprouts, nor did he detect the small, whispery note of menace it contained.
He dies mysteriously off-page surrounded by his bean sprouts, the author presumably having failed to come up with a plausible way the bean sprouts could have killed him and so deciding to leave it to our imagination. Usually this is a good technique in horror, but in this case my imagination fails.
What are used bookshops for if not for discovering utterly batshit, extremely earnest first novels by geologists turned advertising executives who want to convey their Very Important message about respecting the environment and particularly plants, via the medium of... this:
This message would probably be more effective if the author knew anything about... anything, really, but basic geography would help. A tragic backstory involving a prophetic villager finding an oil-slicked penguin falls utterly flat given that he says he found it while on a trip to the coast.
THERE ARE NO WILD PENGUINS IN ENGLAND.
Back to the squash, Charlie freaks out and chops it up, then buries it like a murder victim. This prompts the plants to rustle scarily to make him run, then stick out a root so he trips and hits his head against a rock.
The prophetic dude muses, "I wonder what you did to that squash, Charlie. I wonder how you offended it."
In more menacing behavior - this is described in the most ominous terms - a rose bush pricks a woman's finger. Twice.
Just kidding. They telepathically warn people to stop air pollution. Also they kill a random cop: "He was mauled by a hedge."
In the most terrifying moment yet, a sunflower punches a guy in the face.
Meanwhile, a small angelic girl speaks to the flowers, accompanied by her pet guinea pig. She explains that the plants demand a sacrifice of a person who can understand them, and so it has to be her. She says she's fine with this. Her parents are upset but not that upset.
Luckily for the small angelic girl, the old woman whose finger got pricked twice (the roses didn't want her pruning them) steps up instead. She vaporizes or something. The small angelic girl gives her guinea pig to the prophet. None of this causes anyone to stop air pollution or a mass-anti-pruning movement or anything, but inexplicably the plants are content with this, the weird weather stops, and everything goes back to normal.
I paid $3.00 for this and it was well worth it.
The hump of the squash loomed in the darkness.
The squash continues to grow after he picks it, alarming some of the villagers.
They were men too close to the soil to remain unaffected by the squash and its size and the reactions it was beginning to cause.
They were beginning to feel its presence like fear.
Particularly Charlie:
"What'd you pick on me for?" he suddenly said aloud.
The squash was silent in the dark.
Other villagers scoff. They argue.
"That squash's real," Ted said.
A plant expert has been consulted, and his opinion is that plants don't like us cross pollinating them and messing with their genes, and they're going to rebel. He asks, perhaps rhetorically, "What would you say if I told you I believe the plant kingdom morally disapproves of what man is doing to the world?"
The dude he's talking to does not have a reply to that, but asks, "Is it possible they could control the weather?"
The plant expert is experimenting on trays of bean sprouts to see if plants have memory. He notices that the plants are responding faster, which means...
"They would not only be able to remember, but see into the future as well."
What.
In the gentle hum emerging from the air conditioning he failed to hear the tiny rustling sound from the rows of bean sprouts, nor did he detect the small, whispery note of menace it contained.
He dies mysteriously off-page surrounded by his bean sprouts, the author presumably having failed to come up with a plausible way the bean sprouts could have killed him and so deciding to leave it to our imagination. Usually this is a good technique in horror, but in this case my imagination fails.
What are used bookshops for if not for discovering utterly batshit, extremely earnest first novels by geologists turned advertising executives who want to convey their Very Important message about respecting the environment and particularly plants, via the medium of... this:
This message would probably be more effective if the author knew anything about... anything, really, but basic geography would help. A tragic backstory involving a prophetic villager finding an oil-slicked penguin falls utterly flat given that he says he found it while on a trip to the coast.
THERE ARE NO WILD PENGUINS IN ENGLAND.
Back to the squash, Charlie freaks out and chops it up, then buries it like a murder victim. This prompts the plants to rustle scarily to make him run, then stick out a root so he trips and hits his head against a rock.
The prophetic dude muses, "I wonder what you did to that squash, Charlie. I wonder how you offended it."
In more menacing behavior - this is described in the most ominous terms - a rose bush pricks a woman's finger. Twice.
Just kidding. They telepathically warn people to stop air pollution. Also they kill a random cop: "He was mauled by a hedge."
In the most terrifying moment yet, a sunflower punches a guy in the face.
Meanwhile, a small angelic girl speaks to the flowers, accompanied by her pet guinea pig. She explains that the plants demand a sacrifice of a person who can understand them, and so it has to be her. She says she's fine with this. Her parents are upset but not that upset.
Luckily for the small angelic girl, the old woman whose finger got pricked twice (the roses didn't want her pruning them) steps up instead. She vaporizes or something. The small angelic girl gives her guinea pig to the prophet. None of this causes anyone to stop air pollution or a mass-anti-pruning movement or anything, but inexplicably the plants are content with this, the weird weather stops, and everything goes back to normal.
I paid $3.00 for this and it was well worth it.
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Two publishers were willing to print this and send it out into the wild?
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Two publishers, and one of them was so impressed THEY PAID TO HAVE IT COPY-EDITED AND REGIONALIZED JUST FOR THEIR MARKET!
I am becroggled.
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I think I was a teenager before I figured out he was actually raising large squashes.
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What gets sold as squash in UK supermarkets and greengrocers tends to be butternut/acorn/etc squash.
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