? A little at a time | Main | Together Again ?

January 18, 2007

The Children of Men - P.D. James

This book was extraordinary. Another book I would like to revisit. Puts me in mind of The Handmaid's Tale. The near future is dystopic and humanity faces extinction, having suddenly become infertile in 1995, the year that became known as the Omega. Great Britain, one of the few countries where civilization still seems to survive, although it too is crumbling into chaos, is now run by a dictator known as the Warden of England. People have resorted to watching old movies and television shows about the young, keeping dolls in prams and having their kittens christened in order to cope with the loss of children in the world. There are state sponsored porn shops, the regular checkups of selected men and women for possible fertility, official mass suicides of the old - not necessarily of their own free will - in the effort to sustain remaining resources. Omegas, the last generation to be born, are exceptionally beautiful, cruel and selfish.

Theodore Faron, the main character, happens to be cousin to the Warden of England. He's an Oxford historian, whose area of expertise is the nineteenth century. He has his own loss, his own failures, and has never been able to connect with others in any meaningful way. He becomes drawn in with a group of revolutionaries, and ends up finding the salvation he realizes that he needs. But even at the novel's end, we are left both elated and chilled, wondering what will become of these people.