The Children of Men

Author: P. D. James

Genre: Dystopia, Apocalypse

Summary: Human kind is going extinct. The last human born, in 1995, dies in a pub brawl in 2021, which is when the book starts, as Theo, the protagonist of the story starts keeping a diary.

Mankind has either given up, preparing themselves for the eventual end, or cling to delusions, welcoming evangelists and various cults and practices for salvation. More and more women adopt kittens or dolls, carry them around as they would children. Children's playgrounds have been long converted into golf courses for the aging populace, as people seek pleasure and comfort before the eventual end. The eldest either give up, or are ceremoniously killed in mass suicides organized by the state.

Society seems to be falling apart, and it becomes more and more difficult to care, as people just want to have a comfortable life until the inevitable end.

Review: This book was kinda disappointing. It was all beautifully hopeless, gorgeously dystopic in the first volume. The emptiness, the not caring, was conveyed wonderfully. Theo's past was shocking and somehow understandable, pitiful. The way society is described, is realistic, and makes you think, what if such a thing happened, how would our present society cope with it? It's all so distant, and real, yet possible.

I liked how the apocalypse was coming, but its nothing loud with pomp and grandeur like a meteorite hitting the earth, or aliens invading or an atomic explosion or whatever, which hits mankind suddenly without warning. Granted, it does hit without warning, but then it doesn't wipe away the race at one blow. The population is unable to recreate and thus destined to dwindle and die out. It's much more simple, much more plausible.

Then it somehow became all trivialized by becoming a love story. And then in the second volume they had to bring in hope, and ruin it all. Trust me, I am not against hope or anything. But this was totally UNEXPLAINED hope, with which I have an issue. There was no reasonable explanation, or any explanation at all, given as to why [Spoilers]

Julian suddenly happened to expect a child. It just wasn't explained. No one even thought about it, everyone just accepted it. I know that she was a 'disabled' and hence not subject to the test like all others so they had her undiscovered. But still, why? There was also no explanation, as to why mankind became infertile in the first place either.

This causes the book to lose it's impact somewhat, because in this age of facts and scientific progress, somehow, the known threat seems more real, more frightening, compared to the unknown.

This book was good for how it brings across society though. It becomes more significant because it's not exactly a story about the society or the situation. it's clearly a story about Theo, and how he sees things, the society he lives in. It's his story. It has his past relationships, and childhood. It shows a society about to cease to exist, through his eyes. And it makes you think.

Rating: 6/10

Quotes:

Pleasure need not be less keen because there will be centuries of springs to come, their blossom unseen by human eyes, the walls will crumble, the trees die and rot, the gardens revert to weeds and grass because all beauty will outlive the human intelligence, which records, enjoys and celebrates it.
I tell myself this, but do I believe it when pleasure comes so rarely and, when it does, is so indistinguishable from pain?

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