The Children of Men
P.D James
"If our sex life were determined by our first youthful experiments, most of the world would be doomed to celibacy. In no area of human experience are human being more convinced that something better can be had only if they preserve."
"Feel, he told himself, feel, feel, feel. Even if what you feel is pain, only let yourself feel."
Everyone told me that the movie was so great (I have never personally seen the movie), so I thought that I would give the book a go to see if I would love it. I was extremely disappointed by this book. The first part felt to drag on, I just wanted to get to an exciting part. There were many parts of the book where I was going, "Are we there yet? Are we there yet?" and then there were some parts of the book that were slightly interesting - but still wasn't a good read for me.
Humanity was becoming extinct. It is set in the year of 2021 and the last child born to humankind was killed. Every person on the planet somehow became infertile and couldn't produce anymore children.
The characters live in a world where men have no more sperm, so that means no more babies in the world (obviously!). So this meant that the world was slowly dying off because there were no more people coming in. I didn't care about the problems in the book that the characters had to go through. The world is plausible. I didn't care that everyone was dying and that the world was dying off because everyone was so despicable. There was one character that wanted to change the world and do good for the world but this didn't sway my decision about the story. Eventually, women became kind of crazy and started to treat dolls as children. The novel also spent way too much time on the politics of the dystopian England. This part was very lengthy and seemed to drag on for a long time. The novel eventually gets into the discussion on power and the abuse of power, but the small story of the childless world was still in the background.
When I was reading, I tried to think about what it would be like to live in a childless world. It would be tough, the economy wouldn't grow, it would just crumble and I think the whole world would be in some sort of chaos. There wouldn't be people growing up to take over jobs or take care of the sick and elderly. Is it everyone against the world? See who can live the longest? Read for yourself and let me know what you think!
Until next time!
Rebekka.
