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nineteenthly 's review for:
The Children of Men
by P.D. James
This book is kind of a companion volume to 'The Handmaid's Tale', but written from a more conservative mindset. It's excellent but interestingly unlike the much more liberal but equally wonderful film adaptation.
In the real world, at around the time this book and Atwood's were written, a marked decline in human fertility had been noted. Both authors chose to explore this possibility and took it in similar but different directions. Both envisaged the emergence of oppressive regimes in response. Both are very bleak. However, whereas Atwood depicted a religiously fundamentalist theocracy, James expected nihilism. There is also a religious element in the possibility of a final baby being born, who would be venerated like the Christ child, and in fact I can easily imagine this would be so.
As time goes by, the scenario becomes less plausible and it's not particularly easy to get on board with James's idea that we would throw open our borders and welcome all and sundry, and that this would be a bad thing, so to that extent the film is more convincing to me than the book. In a way, for me there is hope in this story, not so much because of the single final baby as that if the human race did die out, the rest of the planet could recover, and for me that's the hope for the future.
Oh, and the monarchy seems to be gone as well, presumably because they died without heirs, although the time scale seems wrong for this.
In the real world, at around the time this book and Atwood's were written, a marked decline in human fertility had been noted. Both authors chose to explore this possibility and took it in similar but different directions. Both envisaged the emergence of oppressive regimes in response. Both are very bleak. However, whereas Atwood depicted a religiously fundamentalist theocracy, James expected nihilism. There is also a religious element in the possibility of a final baby being born, who would be venerated like the Christ child, and in fact I can easily imagine this would be so.
As time goes by, the scenario becomes less plausible and it's not particularly easy to get on board with James's idea that we would throw open our borders and welcome all and sundry, and that this would be a bad thing, so to that extent the film is more convincing to me than the book. In a way, for me there is hope in this story, not so much because of the single final baby as that if the human race did die out, the rest of the planet could recover, and for me that's the hope for the future.
Oh, and the monarchy seems to be gone as well, presumably because they died without heirs, although the time scale seems wrong for this.