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The Children of Men

3.66 of 5 stars 3.66 · rating details · 16,694 ratings · 1,390 reviews

Told with P. D. James’s trademark suspense, insightful characterization, and riveting storytelling, The Children of Men is a story of a world with no children and no future.

The human race has become infertile, and the last generation to be born is now adult. Civilization itself is crumbling as suicide and despair become commonplace. Oxford historian Theodore Faron, apath...more

Hardcover, 241 pages

Published February 16th 1993 by Knopf (first published 1992)

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Apr 09, 2013 Nancy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: post-apocalyptic-dystopia, library-books, i-saw-the-film

I went to the library to spice up my life and came across a display inviting me to go on a blind date with a book. Each one was covered in brown wrapping paper with a big red heart. Underneath the heart was a very brief description. The one I picked up said “Receptive and chilling”.

It was fun driving home with a book I knew absolutely nothing about. I couldn’t wait to get it home, pour myself a glass of wine, strip off its cover, and learn its secrets. To my disappointment, it was The Children ...more I went to the library to spice up my life and came across a display inviting me to go on a blind date with a book. Each one was covered in brown wrapping paper with a big red heart. Underneath the heart was a very brief description. The one I picked up said “Receptive and chilling”.

It was fun driving home with a book I knew absolutely nothing about. I couldn’t wait to get it home, pour myself a glass of wine, strip off its cover, and learn its secrets. To my disappointment, it was The Children of Men, a book I read shortly after it came out. I liked it well enough at the time, but found that years later nothing stood out for me but the Quietus and the feral Painted Faces. I saw the film around 2007 and can’t remember a single thing about it, only that there was more action and less reflection and introspection.

In 2021, the world is ending quietly. No babies have been born since 1995, the last one killed when he was just 25. People are getting older, trapped in routines, becoming resigned. Infrastructure is falling apart from lack of maintenance and small towns are losing their population.

Theodore Faron is a history professor who no longer has any children of his own and none to teach. He is keeping a journal to record the last half of his life and lives a solitary existence until he meets Julian and a small group of people who desire to revolt against the dictatorship of England, whose leader happens to be Theo’s cousin Xan.

When I first read this book, I found the characters largely bland and uninteresting and much preferred the second half when Theo and the five revolutionaries were on the run.

Now, I found I rather enjoyed reading about Theo’s childhood and relationship with Xan, his failed marriage, the people he encounters, his feelings about the events going on around him, and the gradual process of his falling in love.

“A failed marriage is the most humiliating confirmation of the transitory seduction of the flesh. Lovers can explore every line, every curve and hollow, of the beloved’s body, can together reach the height of inexpressible ecstasy; yet how little it matters when love or lust at last dies and we are left with disputed possessions, lawyers’ bills, the sad detritus of the lumber-room, when the house chosen, furnished, possessed with enthusiasm and hope has become a prison, when faces are set in lines of peevish resentment and bodies no longer desired are observed in all their imperfections with a dispassionate and disenchanted eye.”

I enjoyed this book much more with the second reading. Maybe it’s because I am now Theo’s age and can understand his feelings much better. Or maybe I have more patience and prefer rich characterization and lovely descriptions of countryside to lots of mindless action. Now that the book is fresh in my mind, I’ll think about watching the film again.
(less)

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Jul 30, 2007 Aerin rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: dystopia, science-fiction, apocalyptic, female-sf-authors-of-the-80s-90s

This is one of those very rare cases where the film is much better than the book. I absolutely adore the movie, with its dark themes, breakneck pace, and stunning cinematography. Its only drawback is that because of how quickly the plot moves, there isn't much in the way of character development. I hoped the book would provide that.

And it does. Too much. The book is so wrapped up in character that it slows the story down to a crawl; even when the protagonists are running for their lives, barely...more This is one of those very rare cases where the film is much better than the book. I absolutely adore the movie, with its dark themes, breakneck pace, and stunning cinematography. Its only drawback is that because of how quickly the plot moves, there isn't much in the way of character development. I hoped the book would provide that.

And it does. Too much. The book is so wrapped up in character that it slows the story down to a crawl; even when the protagonists are running for their lives, barely escaping capture at every turn, I found myself bored by James's plodding, introspective prose.

Worse, this is not the same story I came to love in the film adaptation. The characters are juggled around, different roles given to different people - they have the same names as their celluloid counterparts, but that's about it. The setting and storyline are also so radically different as to be practically unrecognizable.

There's only a few things both versions share: In the not-so-distant future, humans have lost the ability to breed and are slowly dying out. In England, which is ruled by an unsavory regime, a bitter man named Theo Faron gets drawn unwillingly into a group of political dissidents and learns that one of their young women is pregnant. He becomes her protector as they run from the government.

The film, which is (like a lot of science fiction) a reflection of the times in which it was produced, draws in current themes like illegal immigration, state-supported torture, constant warfare. The world of the novel (which was written in the early 90's) is much calmer - yes, there is political unrest, but for the most part people are quiet, resigned, occasionally delusional but benignly so (for instance, many women adopt pets or dolls as their "babies"). In that way it reminded me of another apocalyptic novel I read recently, Nevil Shute's On The Beach. In that one it was nuclear warfare, not gradual extinction, that was destroying the human race, but in both books, the people live in a state of depression, resignation, and denial. There's very little mass panic. Very little chaos. No bangs, only whimpers.

And that, in the end, is what I did like about the book. It wasn't the edge-of-my-seat thriller I was expecting, but it was a thought-provoking (if dismal) look at an aging generation who knows that they will be the last human beings, ever.(less)

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May 18, 2012 William rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: uk, dystopia, fiction, 20-ce

I never was much of a genre reader but at some time in my middle years I was assailed by a love of dystopias. There's nothing like a vivid tale of the world ending to truly set me at my ease. It did not occur to me until I read Norman Cohn's The Pursuit of the Millennium why dystopic narratives were so satisfying on an almost physiological level. I realized it was a hardwired need, evolved by centuries of my whack-job millenarian forebears, for apocalyptic solace. These eschatological needs are...more I never was much of a genre reader but at some time in my middle years I was assailed by a love of dystopias. There's nothing like a vivid tale of the world ending to truly set me at my ease. It did not occur to me until I read Norman Cohn's The Pursuit of the Millennium why dystopic narratives were so satisfying on an almost physiological level. I realized it was a hardwired need, evolved by centuries of my whack-job millenarian forebears, for apocalyptic solace. These eschatological needs are still within me and going strong. They include a desire for angels as messengers of the apocalypse, an irrational longing for the rewards of paradise, and an overwhelming desire to witness those less pure of heart than myself receive their fiery comeuppance.

Fortunately, unlike my forebears, I have not had to run riot over the Bavarian countryside acting out my delusions by stringing up debauched clerics and those belonging to the so-called hostile faiths, but have been able to sublimate the evolutionary inanities through art. I am happy to report that The Children of Men does at times rise to that exalted level.

Here is a world in which men have gone sterile. You just can't find fertile semen anymore. Some women, denied their customary reproductive roles, have gone bonkers. They end up baptizing cats and dolls and such. (Other women, one imagines, are dancing a jig so tickled are they to never again have to risk another perineum tear.) One thing I liked was the image of the world preparing to go on without mankind. For in the vacuum left by the end of human fertility all the other flora and fauna seem to redouble their efforts.

Our hero is Theodore Faron. A sardonic at times bitter retired professor of history at Oxford--there are no more children to teach--who ran his daughter over in a tragic accident many years ago. His wife never forgave him, then she started banging this rugby player half her age. Theo happens to be cousin to the Warden of England, Xan Lyppiatt, a childhood friend, who is running a thuggish police state. During the first half of the story the state is in the process of redistributing its thinning population to central locations for purposes of making delivery of services easier. At least that's the excuse. The first half is all clandestine meetings of the dissidents and background into Theo's boyhood relationship to Xan.

Then it turns into a road story not without parallels, though fleeting, to Cormac McCarthy's The Road. Though, it should be emphasized, this is not a post-apocalyptic world going-out-with-a-bang novel, like The Road, but rather a civilization fizzling-out-with-a-whimper story. Nevertheless there is sufficient violence and craziness and survivalist mentalities employed to keep everyone happy. There is an intimation of the second coming, personal betrayal of the basest sort, and headlong hysterical flight. There is an elegant density of diction that is consistent throughout, and I found that the descriptive sections, especially in the action-packed second half of the book, touch on the beautiful. Highly recommended for thriller lovers. Mandatory for lovers of dystopic fictions.(less)

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Feb 22, 2011 Chris rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I saw the film adaptation of P. D. James' dystopian tale on television last night - with Caine and Owen reliably excellent - for the third or fourth time; and it reminded me, yet again, how much I'd enjoyed the novel upon which it was (loosely) based. James is one of those middle-aged female British writers - Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine is another - who put their seemingly endless supply of interesting, somewhat dark stories to the page with a considerable amount of subtlety and elegance stuffed i...more I saw the film adaptation of P. D. James' dystopian tale on television last night - with Caine and Owen reliably excellent - for the third or fourth time; and it reminded me, yet again, how much I'd enjoyed the novel upon which it was (loosely) based. James is one of those middle-aged female British writers - Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine is another - who put their seemingly endless supply of interesting, somewhat dark stories to the page with a considerable amount of subtlety and elegance stuffed into what otherwise appears to be simple and clean prose. If the general tone of a United Kingdom under the sort of eschatologically despotic government depicted initially strikes one as being a bit too placid and routine, perhaps, with the end date of the human race so signally visible and neither the atheistic nor religious segment of the populace able to claim aught but defeat from the definitive sign of a God's grace which either never existed in the first place, or has clearly been removed with extreme prejudice, James actually managed to find the pulse of the weary, apathetic torpor that would be engendered, replete with zero tolerance for any (overt) acts of criminality and a keenly felt desire to ensure that the imminent extinction of humanity was accompanied by a great deal of cheap, mindless fun.

James' Oxford don Theo exemplifies this voluntary abandonment from the affairs of the world with a nicely portrayed controlled despair, having had ample encouragement to join the autocratic Wardenship of his opportunistic cousin and finding himself no longer welcome when such an influential position would do his band of Fishies the most good. Wild tribes of young people having returned to the untamed lure of the forest; machinations surrounding control of the lone and miraculous pregnancy discovered amidst an island of infertility; the cousin-vs-cousin showdown with a crying baby - the noisome sound of the future awakening from a terrifying final sleep - providing the musical score; James handles it all with a professional and assured aplomb. An excellent way to while away an otherwise useless winter day.(less)

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Jun 05, 2008 Patrick rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I'm a sucker for apocalypse novels, so maybe I'm not the most objective reviewer, but this one rocked me. It's a beautifully written, very cleverly constructed novel of ideas that also features a well-developed main character. James is writing about alienation and estrangement (personal, political, social), but she also offers a really thoughtful, really interesting exploration of political responsibility in the face of tyranny. One star gets deducted from what would otherwise be a five-star rev...more

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Mar 12, 2008 Judy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Loved the movie and can't wait to read the book.

Well, the book and the movie are definitely two separate entities. They even have different endings. P.D. James' book lacks the action and excitement of the film version and P.D. James does go on about things like the decor of Theo's house and the political makeup of her futuristic England. And I would have liked the main character Theo to behave a bit more honorably. But I enjoyed the rendering of a world in which the last baby was born 25 years a...more

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Jan 27, 2009 Logan rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: those who have not seen the film.

Shelves: dystopian-fiction

I wanted to love this book, I really did. I have a very large soft spot for the P.D. James mysteries that I'd read and Alfonso Cuaron's adaptation of this book was beautiful, dark and easily the most wrenching apocalyptic film that I can think of. If only the source material lived up to the grandeur of the film.

Don't get me wrong, it's still a remarkably bleak book. It's set in the year 2021 and the last child born to humankind, twenty-five years previously, has just been killed. Somehow every p...more

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Dec 24, 2007 Alex rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I was disappointed by the film, finding myself unable to muster sympathy for the characters, but I was intrigued by the basic plot and so ventured out to explore the novel. PD James' original creation follows a plot significantly different compared to that of the movie, but I found it to be no less disappointing. The main character, Theo, was perhaps even less likable, due mostly to his lack of conviction about anything during the first half of the book. I was never able to develop an intense fe...more

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Jun 04, 2007 Trin rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi, english-lit

I loved the recent film version of this (which should have gotten WAY more Oscar nominations, dammit!), so of course I had to read the book, which I’d been told was very different. Is it ever! While the basic premise remains the same, many of the events—and pretty much the entire meaning of the novel—were altered for the film. While the movie is LOUD and VIOLENT, the book is quiet and desolate and lonely. The book explores themes of guilt and how men (er, mostly I mean humans here rather than ma...more

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Feb 28, 2007 Sansanee rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: book-group, fiction

This novel puts me in mind of The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. The near future is dystopic and humanity is facing extinction, having suddenly become infertile in 1995, the year that became known as the Omega. Britain, one of the few countries where civilization still seems to survive, although it is certainly crumbling into chaos, is now run by a dictator known as the Warden of England. People have resorted to watching old movies and television shows about the young, keeping dolls in pram...more

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Aug 03, 2009 Shanon rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: dfc-1, 2009, dystopia-apocalyptic

I found this story dull. I almost stopped at several times but pressed on based on the high ratings of friends. It wasn't until the final chapter that I really cared what happened. However, I have a feeling the story & the message behind it will stick with me a VERY LONG time. So often we refer to a birth as the "miracle of birth" but how often do we really see it as a miracle. Modern medicine and technology has removed so much of the risk for so many people. But the fact that we are still a...more

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Nov 26, 2011 Janice rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: the-movie-was-better

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Aug 11, 2008 Loren rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

From ISawLightningFall.blogspot.com

TWO-AND-A-HALF STARS

P.D. James’ The Children of Men is built around a single question: What would happen if women couldn’t conceive? That’s exactly what’s on the minds of everyone on earth in the year 2021, not least of Theodore Faron, historian and only surviving relative to the despotic Warden of England, Xan Lyppiatt. Sterility has held sway over the human race for 25 years, and outlying towns are falling into disrepair as the population shrinks. Bizarre cul...more From ISawLightningFall.blogspot.com

TWO-AND-A-HALF STARS

P.D. James’ The Children of Men is built around a single question: What would happen if women couldn’t conceive? That’s exactly what’s on the minds of everyone on earth in the year 2021, not least of Theodore Faron, historian and only surviving relative to the despotic Warden of England, Xan Lyppiatt. Sterility has held sway over the human race for 25 years, and outlying towns are falling into disrepair as the population shrinks. Bizarre cults and mass suicides are the order of the day. The youngest generation, dubbed Omegas, roams the countryside, delighting itself with vandalism and murder. Even the sleepy academic circles in which Theo moves are being shaken. One day he is approached by a woman named Julian who wants him to use his influence with the Warden to secure much-needed humanitarian reforms. But Theo learns there’s more to Julian than political ambitions -- she’s pregnant.

The setup is wonderful, a great idea. Unfortunately, "built around" is an accurate way of describing the story that accompanies it. Children was James’ first and only detour into SF, and the inexperience shows. She alternates between exposition and action by erratically switching first- and third-person perspectives. And "action" isn’t really an appropriate descriptor, since nothing much happens in the first half of the novel. Readers must content themselves with long passages about crumbling infrastructure, political maneuvering and new social trends (dolls and kittens become inadequate substitutes for babies). Liberal trimming would have helped the pace, but the characters are another matter. To wit, they’re a selfish and vapid bunch, quick with a sharp retort and slow to finish up mopey musings on religion and relationships, suicide and sex. (Indeed, I found it surprising that such subjects could be boring.) It’s not that they’re merely unlikable. They’re uninteresting, so that you’ve stopped caring by the time the novel finally snaps into genre mode near the end.

And yet, there are moments that make you want to forgive Children’s sins. There are meditative passages on the decline of science following the quiet disaster and the inverse relationship between pornography and lovemaking, poignant bits about laying down wine that will never be drunk and a cancer-stricken father whose tin-can-sliced index finger becomes symbolic of his terminal disease. You can see the great idea inside all the wordiness and meandering motivations and ceaseless talk of swilling claret before blowing one’s brains out. It’s a shame that Children didn’t have the strength to bring it forth.(less)

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Mar 26, 2008 Laura rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, sci-fi

I don't know what I think about this book. It's undeniably VERY well-done, but aside form that I'm unsure. I felt like at times she was patching a bit purple, but it was all right. The character of Theo is well-done, but there's little explanation for why he's become the way he is: he waxes all morose about himself for being unable to feel the emotion of love, but I seriously doubt that anyone would just so casually become that way. Albert Camus' Mersault didn't feel love, but we find that more...more I don't know what I think about this book. It's undeniably VERY well-done, but aside form that I'm unsure. I felt like at times she was patching a bit purple, but it was all right. The character of Theo is well-done, but there's little explanation for why he's become the way he is: he waxes all morose about himself for being unable to feel the emotion of love, but I seriously doubt that anyone would just so casually become that way. Albert Camus' Mersault didn't feel love, but we find that more believable because he didn't feel much else, either. Theo just moons around moping about how he's never loved, and I got a little sick of that. She tried to explain it by showing how no one ever showed him love, and that's generally enough of an explanation for me, but I still thought it was pretty irritating after a while.
She really thought through this whole idea of what a gradually-dying society would be like. I generally found it extremely convincing. I have a few small quibbles-- if Xan keeps the society so safe, why do the Painted Faces exist, and why do they roam at large? Shouldn't he be able to quash them? Also, I fail to see why the Church of England should have fallen apart and abandoned traditional masses. It doesn't make sense. Other religions clearly survived the Omega, but for some reason she's got England operating as a society that, while remaining wholly religious, seems to contain no religions. It doesn't make sense. The religious leaders who run the fads, in the beginning of the book, seem reasonable, but the idea that the CoE should have abandoned the traditional mass and fallen into total disrepair strikes me as a contrivance. It probably means something to Brits that I can't identify-- perhaps it's supposed to symbolize the collapse of the British political system as it was originally known?
I have no quarrel with the fact that she chose not to reveal the reason for the Omega, and I don't mind that she stopped the story at the birth and did not go on to explain the rejuvenation of society. The book is about the people and about the ideas, not about the situation.
LAST complaint, I swear: WHY the f is Xan named that? There's absolutely no reason for it. None whatsoever. It is a jarring factor. The rest of the book is so typical: she's trying to show what would happen to REGULAR people if this happened to them. But throw in someone named 'Xan' and all the verisimilitude goes out the window. Stupid-ass decision, in my opinion. Better to have given him a real, though unusual, first name. She did well enough painting him as the totally-pragmatic, emotionless dictator; why did she feel the need to screw with him like this? Oh well.
I reccommend it. It's not spectacular, but it's fascinating and it holds attention. I suppose it should be read.(less)

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Mar 21, 2008 Frederick Meekins rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Often the appeal of science fiction lies in the genre's ability to extrapolate from the trends of the present and project them into the future. One novel exemplifying this tendency is "The Children Of Men" by P.D. James.

In "The Children Of Men", the reader finds a world where the population has become inexplicably infertile and must deal with the stresses of a dwindling population and the psychological angst that results when many realize what's the point of life if it will come to a screeching...more Often the appeal of science fiction lies in the genre's ability to extrapolate from the trends of the present and project them into the future. One novel exemplifying this tendency is "The Children Of Men" by P.D. James.

In "The Children Of Men", the reader finds a world where the population has become inexplicably infertile and must deal with the stresses of a dwindling population and the psychological angst that results when many realize what's the point of life if it will come to a screeching halt in a scant generation. Such a milieu is explored through the eyes of Oxford Historian Theodore Faron who becomes a reluctant intermediary between a group of bumbling, idealistic revolutionaries and the dictatorial Warden of England who happens to be Theodore's cousin.

The group starts out with the goal of enacting needed reforms such as better treatment of migrant workers known as Sojourners and restoring order to an out-of-control penal colony on the Isle of Man where the inmates --- some not as criminal as the general population is led to believe --- are left to fend for themselves. However, as the story unfolds a matter of greater urgency comes to the forefront of the plot, namely that a couple within the cell has been able to conceive a child.

"The Children Of Men" is not the most riveting example of the dystopian police state novel. It often gets bogged in the details of the personal experiences, emotions, and perceptions of its protagonist Theodore Faron. Yet at times the book provides glimpses into a morally eerie world where the outrages of our own day are allowed to fester to ghastly proportions.

For example, the elderly are encouraged to commit ritualized suicide in a ceremony called the "Quietus", which Theo discovers is not quite so voluntary for those trying to back out at the last minute. Since people no longer have children, they instead lavish their nurturing affections on pets, even having their kittens christened at formalized baptisms. Those born into the last generation are given free reign and little moral instruction --- as such they are self-absorbed to the point of arrogance and even murder.

Of particular interest is the frequent mention of religion made throughout the novel. Two of the revolutionaries are motivated by Christian beliefs. However, others hide behind the cloak of aberrant faith as a scam to enrich themselves personally.

"Roaring Roger" is a fire-and-brimstone televangelist preaching that the global infertility is God's judgment while playing on guilt and fear to finance his own lavish lifestyle. Rosie McClure is more broadminded in her religious views, but so much so her brain roles right out as she preaches a gospel of nonjudgmental hedonism. The Church of England is characterized as "no longer with a common doctrine or common liturgy, [and] so fragmented that there was no knowing what some sects might have come to believe." One just wishes Ms. James had spent as much time in such socio-clerical exposition as she did in embroidering the extraneously tedious background details of Professor Faron's psyche.

The political situation described in "The Children Of Men" serves as a cautionary tale where our own institutions are headed if we are not careful. In most speculative narratives dealing with one form of totalitarianism or the other, the regimes under consideration often lord over the masses with brutality.

In "The Children Of Men", however, the Warden's regime is rather genteel as far as dictatorships go if you happen to be a good little citizen and not to stir up offense. But then again, most of the citizens don't cause much trouble anyway since most have lost interest in political participation and the Warden is careful to maintain illusions of democracy. Of this society very much like our own, one is reminded of Francis Schaeffer's warnings in "A Christian Manifesto" about comfort and affluence becoming the organizing principles in a political system where higher truths such as freedom and self-reliance are increasingly seen as impediments to rather than a necessity of just government and good order.

by Frederick Meekins(less)

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Sep 28, 2007 Adam rated it 3 of 5 stars

I ordered this book from Half.com in the wee hours of the morning, fresh from watching its 2007 movie adaption with my pal, Charlie. He'd already seen the thing, but kindly allowed me to experience and be moved by its intensity and moments of profound holiness without any running commentary or interruptions. Charlie's good for that. He gets excited about things you experience for the first time with him, even if he's experienced them several times before. I thought I'd return the favor of his wa...more

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Jul 15, 2009 Renee rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Dystopia fans

Shelves: bookclub, fiction

The Children of Men, by P.D. James, the book on which the recent film was based, is a dire what-if tale of a world without a future, caused by sudden, inexplicable universal sterility. The story unfolds twenty-five years after the last baby was born, around a middle-aged university professor in London, who had become detached from life and humanity far before this crisis. Through his journal entries the reader learns how society is dying: the emergent pathologies, the devolutions, the apathy. On...more

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Mar 25, 2007 Charlie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: if you really liked the movie, or if you like source material

I think I was ten or eleven when my inner-skeptic matured and I realized that the words "based on a true story" or "based on the novel" more closely meant "has a vague relationship to...". This is definitely the case with P.D. James' The Children of Men, the source material for Alfonso Cuaron's 2006 film of the same (though article-less) title. The movie was my all time fav-film of 2006, followed by the less well-received The Prestige (by the director of Memento) and Little Miss Sunshine. Childr...more

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Apr 04, 2008 Robin Damgaard rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

April 4:

On second thought, this is a great book. More than any sci-fi I've read, much of this one sticks with me, which I think is a testament to the clarity of the author's understanding of contemporary civilization (word used broadly).

January 29:

This is not a great novel, but it has some pretty good ideas about cultures of life versus cultures of death. It's also notable for its overtly, somewhat orthodox Christian elements. It was a bit silly in parts, with the way that everybody is so polite...more

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May 30, 2008 Jami rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The concept behind the book is fascinating . . . man has lost the ability to reproduce, end-of-the world scenario, and one woman discovered who is actually pregnant. P.D. James is certainly a gifted writer, but I found myself unable to put the book down during some parts and completely bored during others.

I think the problem is that the character development completely bogs down the plot. When it comes right down to it, the story line isn't very long at all because the descriptions of the main c...more

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Nov 24, 2010 Katia Lief rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is an interesting novel, beautifully written. I felt compelled by the story right up to the end, even if my "disbelief" was not always suspended. James takes at least one leap of faith that left me dangling. Also, by the end the story seemed to be a religious allegory which frankly came as a disappointment. Still, I would recommend this novel.

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May 08, 2012 Anne added it · review of another edition

Shelves: dnf

Started this last night, and put me right to sleep. I see there's a movie, think I'll get that instead.

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Jun 03, 2008 Rebecca rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Hm, I checked out this book because I saw-- and really liked-- the movie. This is one of those books-- like Chocolat-- where they author's brilliant premise and compelling world don't quite yield the plot and characters. Hollywood took this really fascinating universe where nothing really happens and made a fabulous and haunting story.
Even so, it was a good book-- the writing sucks you in. It's a vivid, psychologically dense world-- the middle-aged ladies with dolls in their prams, the deserted...more

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Jul 10, 2009 Daniele rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: dystopia, sci-fi

Un libro che va letto, dai significati profondi e non facili da interpretare ad una prima lettura. Ambientato nel futuro 2021 è un libro che fa molto riflettere sul presente e sul passato. Improvvisamente la razza umana ha perso la capacita' di riprodursi, la fertilita'; è facile immaginare che con un tale prospetto, le speranze e i sogni dell'uomo vadano scomparendo: le persone più anziane danno il via a suicidi di massa, i più giovani tornano alla violenza e alle barbarie dei rituali di sangue...more

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Mar 31, 2009 Melanie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

When a book inspects your views and finds them wanting, you know it is special. This one qualifies. It's a good yarn, and a poser.

Anyone who has seen the film or its trailers knows the premise: in the year 2021, 26 years after the last human was born, England has become the last holdout against the chaos that has engulfed much of the world. Its leader, Xan Lyppiatt, has been in control of England as the last Warden, and he has instituted changes to keep the aging population comfortable as resour...more When a book inspects your views and finds them wanting, you know it is special. This one qualifies. It's a good yarn, and a poser.

Anyone who has seen the film or its trailers knows the premise: in the year 2021, 26 years after the last human was born, England has become the last holdout against the chaos that has engulfed much of the world. Its leader, Xan Lyppiatt, has been in control of England as the last Warden, and he has instituted changes to keep the aging population comfortable as resources dwindle.

Immigration, for example, has been curtailed except for a select number of Sojourners, whose presence is necessary to perform basic, laborious services. They are deported back to their home countries against their will, knowing that death will come early there. The elderly are encouraged to take part in a new ritual, Quietus, in which they float out to sea in a voluntary suicide. All citizens are forced to endure fertility tests, and the government supplies its populace with pornography to try to combat sexual apathy.

Xan's cousin, Theodore Faron, is an Oxford don whose classes have become diversions for older students in the absence of the young. He is approached by Julian, a woman who had caught his attention in his class on Portrait of a Lady by denouncing Isabel Archer's passivity, who asks him to bring to the concerns of a small radical group to the attention of his cousin. Reluctantly, he agrees to do so after he verifies their concern about the Quietus by observing its brutality.

Xan listens to his cousin's concerns, but answers them, point-for-point, in a classic clash between an advocate for the needs of the many vs. an advocate for the needs of the few. (One senses Mr. Spock nodding as Xan speaks.) He agrees that the Quietus that Theo observed was mishandled, and promises to monitor the ritual in the future. However, the other concerns that the radicals brought up are countered, point for point. The Sojourners can not stay, he says, because they would increase the strain on the already-disintegrating resources and means of distribution, hastening the deaths of many. Fertility testing is a last-ditch attempt to find a miracle, one fertile male and one woman who could bear a child. Any government would do the same in this circumstance - in fact, it would be irresponsible not to.

The issue that caused me the greatest soul-searching dealt with the island prison to which violent criminals were exiled. Conditions on the island were brutal. The government provided materials for basic sustenance, but did not prevent the strongest and most psychotic of the criminals to torment, torture, and kill the weaker. The dissidents wanted the government to step in, to send peacekeepers, as it were, to protect the rights of the exiled.

Xan's response made me wonder whether extreme circumstances could ever justify abandoning our civil rights advances and allowing such a hell to exist. Circumstances certainly had eliminated the pretense of rehabilitation: there simply was not enough time. The citizenry did not deserve to fear being victimized by criminals at this late date. And besides, Xan asked, who would give up the last years of his life to police the island? Would you?

P.D. James sets up this situation, an unsolvable puzzle in the context of the novel. Might the actions of current leaders be caused by their belief in the extremity of the present? It certainly sets up a dynamic, a Pushme-Pullyou philosophical problem - how does one judge the extremity of circumstances, and how far should individual rights be stretched to protect the many?

Without revealing plot details, I will say that what happens in the last few paragraphs of the book dwarfed all of the previous horror. One earlier tableau haunts me. It had become the fashion for women to stroll the London streets pushing exquisite dolls in perambulators. That alone would be creepy, yes? One such woman stops to allow another woman to coo over her doll, her baby. Suddenly, the other woman lifts the doll from its pram, smashes it to the ground, and walks away. Bereft of her baby, the first woman opens her mouth and howls in pure animal anguish. That howl continues to distress me, and to cause me to wonder what I would do, how far I would go to spare her that agony - to spare us all.

"Teach us to number our days," says King David in Psalm 90, "that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom." Children of Men, enjoined to "return to dust" by the psalmist, is dystopian fiction at its most frightening.
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Mar 15, 2009 Christopher rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Though it's been sitting on my bookshelf for years (my wife's copy), and though I quite enjoyed the movie, I didn't get around to reading "The Children of Men" by P.D. James until recently. I found it to be an easy read, but enjoyable written. James has a nice command of the language and manages to put together fairly dense paragraphs that nonetheless don't bog the reader down. I read the book essentially in two sittings -- the first 100 pages on a plane, and the rest of it in an afternoon in a...more Though it's been sitting on my bookshelf for years (my wife's copy), and though I quite enjoyed the movie, I didn't get around to reading "The Children of Men" by P.D. James until recently. I found it to be an easy read, but enjoyable written. James has a nice command of the language and manages to put together fairly dense paragraphs that nonetheless don't bog the reader down. I read the book essentially in two sittings -- the first 100 pages on a plane, and the rest of it in an afternoon in a hotel room.

I went into the book knowing it was very different from the movie, so I was unsurprised by this fact, but it still bears repeating. There really is only a skeleton of James's vision in the final film. The premise: that humanity has endured roughly twenty years of sudden-onset, incurable sterility, is fascinating. James does a good job of painting a picture of an England in which personal and social freedoms are slowly being drained away, and very few people care. Even the protagonist - a character who is not fully likable but more human than many heroes - is caught up in the general ennui that, James seems to posit, stems from the need for a defense mechanism against the terrible knowledge of humanity's impending extinction.

Needless to say, his view is slowly changed as events unfold, culminating in a race against both time and the dictatorial English government. I found myself engrossed in the story and horrified by some of the things which occurred. Unlike the film, which literally starts with a bang, there is very little violence on display through the first half of the book. This makes the first instance of such - particularly given against whom the act is performed - supremely disturbing to both the reader and the protagonist. In effect the violence is more powerful because there is less of it. This continues throughout the book: the vast majority of atrocities being committed in the world, both inside and outside of England, are only hinted at. The violence we're allowed to see is deeply personal.

The novel unravels a bit near the end, in my opinion. Some decisions are made that seem to happen more for the convenience of the plot than for the characters. There is a gun with a single bullet prominently involved in the second half of the story, and there is very, very little doubt about who that bullet is intended for. Also, it becomes increasingly more heavy-handed in its Christian overtones, which isn't really my thing. Still, I enjoyed it quite a bit and highly recommend it.
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Feb 08, 2009 Mike rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: pulp

I was a little confused by the book, and particularly the ending -- it had some more serious themes, but they were never completely developed; and it had a thriller plot, but a somewhat anti-climatic "deus ex machina" type ending where everything is solved in just three (yes *three*) pages -- but it was a very interesting combination of a standard thriller type book (which is the aspect I assume the movie centred around -- to be honest I hadn't even heard of the movie until I saw the "now a majo...more

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Feb 01, 2009 Shirley rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: sci fi fans

This short book has an interesting idea. What would people do if the whole world becomes infertile. There hasn't been a child born in the last 25 years. The storyteller is a Victorian history professor who is cousin to the Warden of Britain. The only thing that the Warden thinks people care about are comfort, peace, and order. There are too many old people, so the government sanctions suicide. There aren't enough workers so they import immigrants but they don't give them any civil rights.

Howeve...more

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Jan 21, 2009 Rachel rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Dec 09, 2008 Ryan rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I found this one difficult to get into. The main character was not likable from the start, and his 'transformation' toward the end didn't hold any triumphant satisfaction for me. He did not seem to deserve the honor placed upon him from either a moral or competency standpoint.

Moreover, the plot holes bugged me after a while. For instance, the reverence with which they hold the mother and child seems totally misplaced. The miracle was the fertile male, not the fertile female. This asinine group...more

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About P.D. James

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P. D. James is the author of twenty books, most of which have been filmed and broadcast on television in the United States and other countries. She spent thirty years in various departments of the British Civil Service, including the Police and Criminal Law Department of Great Britain's Home Office. She has served as a magistrate and as a governor of the BBC. In 2000 she...more

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Shroud for a Nightingale (Adam Dalgliesh, #4)

The Private Patient (Adam Dalgliesh, #14)

An Unsuitable Job For A Woman (Cordelia Gray #1)

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“If our sex life were determined by our first youthful experiments, most of the world would be doomed to celibacy. In no area of human experience are human beings more convinced that something better can be had only if they persevere.” — 649 people liked it

“Feel, he told himself, feel, feel, feel. Even if what you feel is pain, only let yourself feel.” — 74 people liked it

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