Book review: The Children of Men
Tuesday, January 9th, 2007
Because I read it in a week and was moderately entertained the entire time, this book gets a C+.
The premise of PD James’ The Children of Men is killer: It is 2021 and no babies have been born for an entire generation. Humanity is dying; on the verge of the apocalypse — not because of war but rather our own impotency. Great Britain is now under the rule of a ‘Warden’, who along with his closely knit and carefully chosen Council, has instituted mass suicides of the elderly, compulsory deportation of even minor criminal offenders and state-sponsored slavery of young foreign immigrants. Meanwhile the countryside runs amuck with tribes of nihilist 20-somethings, priests are performing christenings on kittens and sex has lost all meaning.
The novel spans a little under a year in the life of Theo Farron, a middle-aged history professor who has basically failed at life. A cousin to the Warden, he’s withdrawn, he’s unsympathetic, he’s sort of a selfish bastard just scraping through what is left of life in England. Theo asks for nothing and gives nothing — that is until he gets mixed up with an unlikely group of revolutionaries dead set on changing the world before it ends.
It’s been said before in reviews and it’s worth repeating: James spends the first half of this novel setting up the slow decay of England. It reads slowly. It feels slow — but it didn’t bother me because she set’s up this world of slow decay. The second half of the novel is largely made up of a chase scene between the Warden and the dissidents – and for that it feels like it belongs in a different story. While I enjoyed and appreciated the great creativity and originality of the plot, the pacing of the second half was simply unbelievable (in a bad way).
James, known mostly for her great detective fiction, writes great lead characters. The reader both hates and loves Theo Farron – after awhile his misgivings almost make him endearing, and in contrast to his cousin, Xan Lyppiant the Warden of England, he’s a saint at least capable of recognizing his lack of compassion. The secondary characters are hinted at, but not as clearly defined as Theo and Xan: Jullian’s motivations are unclear – and the rest of the band of revolutionaries (The Five Fishes) are unfortunately cookie-cutter. I was disappointed by this, because the details that James does give out about her supporting cast are interesting and I wanted to know more.
Warning: I spoil the whole book under the cut!