The Children of Men

Interesting - this belongs to that tiny category of books whose movie version I liked more. Which didn't mean the book didn't hold me. The premise is great, and unique, and PD James can write. It was as if Graham Greene had decided to write a work of speculative fiction. But James' ladling on the Christianity put me off - Greene, one of the great religious writers of fiction, would never have been so maudlin, nor so nostalgic about fading middle class mores. Meanwhile the film has several things going for it: it wisely shifts the focus to phenomena much more reflective of British reality in 2006 (and today) - like terrorism, state repression, and immigration. Clive Owen is much more engaging than James' dislikeable hero, there is no show more silly love story, and the victory, if there is one, is not his - or England's, for that matter. It's a complete rethinking of the premise, bringing a large and quite different looking world into focus. Three cheers for the movie, two and a half for the book. show less

A disquieting and original vision of the future that raises some intriguing philosophical issues. James imagines a world in which the human race has gone sterile and has resigned itself into slowly aging into extinction. "Children of Men" is, as might be expected, a relentlessly sad and mournful book. Much of it takes place in a particularly chilly, rain-swept England, and the appearance of a pregnant female character who promises a possible rebirth for the human race a hundred or so pages into the narrative barely alleviates the gloom. There's a certain toughness here too, though: imagined both as an ongoing diary of a historian and as a third-person narrative, "The Children of Men" is free of either sentimentality or self-pity. It's a show more stark account of people determined to make the best of grim circumstances. and James's prose, which is often uncompromisingly direct and rather chilly, is well-suited to her narrative. Indeed, the often makes the slow decline she describes seem both poignant and perversely beautiful. The novel's depictions of the world slowly going back to nature as an increasingly geriatric population struggles to maintain a crumbling infrastructure and abandons the mouldering relics of its past stayed with me for a long, long time.

James is also very thoughtful about the various emotional reactions that might be expected of the people inhabiting her childless future. Rather than descend into an orgy of short-sighted self-gratification, the world has instead become overcome by lassitude and hopelessness. Human endeavor more or less grinds to a halt and suicide becomes commonplace. I've spent a lot of time with existentialist writers whose characters motivated themselves to live full, meaningful lives by contemplating their mortality. Still, even if they didn't spend any time speculating about an afterlife or what future generations might think of them, they shared an unspoken assumption that some human society would follow them. Robbed of this certainty, James's characters slide into torpor, and their grief perverts the social institutions that once safeguarded society's good order. It's far from a "novel of ideas," but in its way, "Children of Men" questions – and sometimes flatly contradicts – optimistic existentialist notions of the relationship between mortality and human initiative. There is, James seems to argue, a vast difference psychological difference between a single human's death and the death of an entire society. The novel also seems to shed light on the rather fragile foundations of even our most enlightened democracies. Faced with the possibility of extinction, most of the inhabitants of James's future quickly and guilelessly opt to support an autocratic regime that offers to do its best to make humanity's final days as comfortable and stable as possible. Xan Lippyat, the self-proclaimed Warden of England, is perhaps a bit too straightforward when he expounds his pragmatic, pessimistic view of human society, but sometimes, when one considers the widespread decay that characterizes this novel's setting, he's difficult to argue with. Again, James seems to posit that the imminent decline of the human race would change our assumptions about ourselves in drastic and perhaps humiliating ways. I can't remember the last time I felt so relieved to remind myself that the book I was reading was only, after all, fiction.

This isn't to say that "Children of Men" is flawless. I don't usually look for plot holes in books, assuming readers have to work with what the author gives them. Still, much of the plot of "Children of Men" revolves around the assumption that the surprise pregnancy that is the book's major plot development must be carried to term outside the purview of the dictatorial Warden of England. I wasn't convinced that this would have made much difference to the inhabitants of James's world, particularly since James doesn't seem to be advocating a back-to-nature or anti-statist agenda. Also, I found the novel's final scene, which resembles nothing so much as an overdramatic Hollywood showdown, a little too pulpy and out of tune with the quiet desperation that fills most of the novel's preceding chapters. Still, I'm glad I read this one. I have the feeling "The Children of Men" illuminates something true, if rather depressing, about the way relate to our future, and to ourselves. show less

There's a quiet sort of desperation to this book, and it moves from being slow and rather innocuous into something which is not just suspenseful, but tight and damning, piling moral question upon moral question in a sort of natural domino effect that a reader can't help but watch. When I began the book, I was reading perhaps ten pages at a time, and then putting it down easily. In my final two sittings, I read sixty pages until my eyes gave out over its small print, and then the final fifty.

Out of a future that is infertile and hopeless, tightly controlled and mannered, James has asked the simplest question regarding what happens when a small beginning can be glimpsed in what appears to be a landscape of endings, and the result is show more impressive and smart.

Recommended. show less

This novel seriously freaked me out when I read it. I actually sat in stunned and depressed contemplation at my own lack of children and the decisions I believed I held dear at the time.

I didn't care to bring children into this world, and at the time, I hated the world pretty much entirely, so I got struck against the back of my head after reading this and I haven't really been the same, since.

The novel took me on a very disturbing ride with the ultimate death of humanity by way of sterility. The most powerful aspect of the novel was the people's reactions, how their worldviews veered off in strange ways.

Suicides were all very well and obvious, but I think I enjoyed the other paths the mind took in reaction.

I still can't believe that show more the novel had the effect of changing my mind about my life. I like to consider myself pretty well-read and aware, but sometimes a huge kick in the head can come out of nowhere. I changed my mind. I wanted to live. I wanted children. I hadn't wanted children before.

Very big life choice, no? Maybe it says more about me than the novel. I don't really know. It did surprise the hell out of me. show less

In a world deplete of children and threatened by its slow descent into depopulation, the unthinkable happens. I found this novel interesting, but maybe a wee bit sexist? Perhaps?

Re-read, September 2017: this is a biting commentary on male anxiety surrounding female bodily agency. I was too wrapped up in the differences from the movie last time, but having fresh eyes and a new project in mind has renewed my appreciation for this book.

The Children of Men was even better than I expected, and I had expected a lot because I loved the 2006 film. The book tells a related, but different story from the film with several important characters having been changed for the film adaptation. It is unabashedly a story rooted in Christianity, but in a way that is neither bitter towards the religion nor cloying and preachy. P.D. James has great empathy for her characters and a wonderful sense of pacing throughout the book. The twists and turns the story takes keep the reader deeply engaged. The final scene of the book will make you question everything you just read. Absolutely brilliant.

This was better than expected.

There should be a word for Sci-fi plots that have been undone by contemporary science. I think 1992 is about as late as this could have been published without feeling a little silly. Artificial insemination was a think at publication, even if it wasn't terribly widespread (Wikipedia says we've been doing it since the 1700s). I think frozen sperm and eggs in significant quantities is the thing that blows this plot apart. If a disease cause widespread infertility today, we'd probably be able to weather it using frozen stocks and then isolating the resulting children to prevent infection until their reproductive cells were available to harvest.

The aging society James envisions is the really interesting part. show more Is there a Japanese Sci-fi author picking this up? Or, is it not science fiction there? It's the world's oldest country, it doesn't make it easy to immigrate but does have guest workers, and is an island. I generally like the elderly, but I think a country where they dominate is going to be amess. show less