Ms. Hen reviews The Children of Men

The Children of Men

PD James

Vintage Books 

1992

Ms. Hen read this novel because she is interested in dystopian fiction, and she had thought she had seen the movie years ago, but she had not. She dived into the story of a world with no children, and no future. This is a book that makes people think about the world and the way it is, where we are heading, and how things should be.

This novel is about an Oxford professor, Theo, who lives alone, and whose career has gone by the wayside because children have not been born in the world in 25 years. He is divorced, and his only child died when she was young. He is bored with his life, and feels it has no direction, when he is contacted by a member of a clandestine group that wants to subvert the government. They contact him because his cousin is the Warden of England, a type of dictator, and Theo used to be his advisor.

The world where this takes place is a quiet one, but underneath there is a sense of impending doom. Since no children have been born, people feel like there is no future. Mass suicides take place called the Quietus, and women adopt cats like they are children, and have them christened. Theo attends a Quietus ceremony, and is shocked at how the elderly people are treated, and passes out. Theo is a sensitive man, but at the same time he does not seem to have confidence in his choices or his actions in life. He seems broken.

This novel reminded Ms. Hen of 1984, because it's about a society that has no hope. However, in THE CHILDREN OF MEN, things seem acceptable on the surface, and nobody is truly suffering, it's the idea that there is no future that is at the back of everyone's mind, like a needle stuck in a person's back that bothers, poking and prodding and annoying the person, so they know it's always there.

After she finished the novel, Ms. Hen decided to watch the movie. It is nothing like the book. The story is completely different, and in the movie, it's women who have become infertile, in the book, it's the men who can't have children. Ms. Hen thinks this is Hollywood's version of the story, because they can't handle men being the infertile ones. Also, the movie is an action movie, which the book is not. The book is a subtle story with some movement, but not in the Hollywood style.

One interesting aspect of this novel is that it takes place in the year 2021, which is right now. Ms. Hen thinks that the problems of the world in this novel are worse than the ones we have currently. Also, Ms. Hen thinks it's remarkable that virtually no technology exists in this novel, no cell phones or Internet, or anything like that.

Ms. Hen admires this book because it is a quiet tale of what could happen in the future if no more children were born. In the novel, problems in the world exist before infertility occurs, and Ms. Hen agrees that the world is not perfect right now, but things could be worse. That's an idea we should hold on to. The problems of the world are not as bad as they could be.