Just Finished Reading: The Children of Men by P D James

In the Year 2027 Theo Farren (played by Clive Owen & named Theo Faron in the 2006 movie adaptation) is just trying to get by as the world slowly comes to an end. For the last 25 years no new children have been born and slowly the world is falling apart, pulling back into the cities as an aging population gives up any hope for the future. Almost alone England is choosing to die with dignity. With Theo’s cousin in charge everything is going into orderly decline with sanctioned suicide, enforced social duty and regular fertility trails. Criminals of all kinds are transported for life to the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea to fend for themselves and the State Police handle troublemakers before they can manage much more than simplistic poster campaigns. But then Theo is approached by a group calling themselves The Five Fishes who want his influence with the Warden of England. Knowing that he’s wasting his time he tries anyway and, as predicted, fails to change his cousin’s mind or the course of unfolding events. But when Theo discovers that one of the group is pregnant everything changes as State Security pull out all the stops to find them and Theo himself discovers he is in love for the first time in his life.

Mainstream authors like P D James – more know for her tightly plotted murder mysteries – don’t normally have any feel for Science-Fiction. James is one of those rare examples that do. In fact reading this book reminded me very much of the work of John Wyndham which is certainly not a bad comparison. Wyndham specialised in end-of-the-world stories where small groups of people from different backgrounds fought for survival against overwhelming odds and situations completely out of their control (or influence). Here we have a pretty good example of that often very English sub-genre. If you have seen the movie (which I generally enjoyed a great deal) you might be surprised, as I was, at just how different the book was. The basic disaster is the same as are the names of most of the protagonists. But that’s pretty much where the similarities end. I’m not going to spoil things by giving details of the many differences as to do that I’d pretty much have the précis the entire book but you might get a flavour of what I mean when I tell you that the Theo character in the book is an Oxford don rather than a London reporter (possibly) in the movie. But despite both book and film being so very different they are still rather complimentary. You can see in the book where they got some of their ideas from and you can see where the director made many improvements – including tightening the plot a good deal. The book certainly works at the Wyndham level but because of that feels very dated. It is very much a gentle read rather than a thrilling one. Recommended.