Monday, June 16, 2008

CHILDREN OF MEN

While I write the chapter for 1953, I'll keep blogging about books I have read recently.

Children of Men, P D James, Alfred A Knopf, 1993, 241 pp

What if the human race became sterile and no more children were born? That is the premise here and all the ways this would affect society and daily life are played out.

Along comes a small sort of revolutionary group protesting some of the government's policies. An Oxford professor gets involved with them which is complicated by the fact that he is a cousin of the head of government. Then one of the women in the revolutionary group gets pregnant!

From that point on the suspense and pace are relentless to the end, at which point the question is raised: what now? It is a good story, with excellent characters and a much better pace than the two of her mysteries I've read. Though it is set in 2021, I didn't find much technological evidence of a society almost 30 years in the future, which surprised me, but the state of the world politically was definitely in a worse way.

I will probably be alive in 2021. I will be turning 73 in that year. I wonder if I will remember this book then. The other night I saw the movie made from this book. It is so much changed that it is a different story but I have to say that it was good. Actually it was almost better than the book.

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous10:30 PM

    I'm a fan of P D James and have read all of her mysteries. However, "Children of Men" was a letdown. The futuristic tale is far-fetched and implausible.

    From A to Z

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  2. As usual, the book was much better than the movie, which was so violent that even pretty Clive Owen couldn't save it. I thought the book was interesting, when you consider it next to Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale".

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