Birdyline Book Blog

The Children of Men by P.D. James
My rating: 1 of 5 stars
View all my reviews (goodreads)

This is going to be a very informal review. And a negative one at that.

I cannot stress how disappointed and angry I was at this dumb novel! I watched the movie in my film class, and was enchanted. I actually called my mom to gush about the movie and expressed how much I needed the book.

In Children of Men, human kind has become infertile and faces the apocalypse. Cool premise! … Dry and agonizingly boring book.

The film is rich with deep, impactful messages and contrasts hope and destruction to the last minute. As someone raised in church, the religious symbolism drew me in in a way I had never experienced before. Just to name my favorite of these symbols (spoiler warning) throughout the movie the group refers to the unborn baby using he and him pronouns. Then, the baby is born as a girl. The antagonists planned to use this baby as a political tool to overthrow the government, and so addressed “him” as a warrior of sorts. After she is born it is reminiscent of Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem, when the Israelites believe that he has come to become the new king and overthrow the government. But in reality Jesus is never a warrior. He is a healer and teacher, and the attitudes surrounding the baby’s birth echo the idea that this baby will be some sort of militaristic weapon but instead she is a step towards a cure to the infertility that plagues mankind.

The book has no religious symbolism. The book is simply religious. The only “good guys” in the book are Christian. Somehow they are the only ones with morals. It feels throughout the novel as if the author is trying to shove the idea of Christianity being the right way down your throat. Ok lady, we get it! Give me a second to breathe please. I would love to see religious values work throughout the novel, but these aren’t introduced in a meaningful or impactful way. It doesn’t ask you to think about it, it just states it in a dull way that lacks any substance.

In the movie a young unmarried girl is pregnant. She represents Mary. She has a low status as she is also an immigrant and she is scared and does not know what is going on. Meanwhile in the novel the pregnant woman is a devout (and judgy) Christian woman who is almost as unbearably annoying as her husband.

Her husband is constantly rude and straight up mean to the dude who repeatedly saves their lives. (although the main character is also completely unlikable, I’ll get to that.) The worst part is when he starts talking about how he’s super important and amazing because his sperm can get people pregnant and how he’s the most important person in the group. INCORRECT. If you could slap people through the pages, I would have. The most important person there is your wife, buddy! To further specify, your wife and her baby! Why are we praising the man who can get people pregnant (allegedly, I mean you’ve only done it once) instead of the woman who can get pregnant and is now carrying the first child in twenty some years that may be the key to the survival of humanity?

I could go on and on about that. The main character, though, needs to be complained about too. He’s disgusting. He actually killed his daughter by accidentally running her over when she ran outside unsupervised. It was a horrible freak accident, so I’m sure that it haunted him for life. Nope! He notes repeatedly that he never actually wanted to be a father, implying her death was convenient for him. He complains how his wife at the time was never the same again, because of course she should just get over her child dying. It eventually wrecks their relationship and they divorce. He then goes to her house multiple times and grumbles the whole time about how he’s waaay better than her new husband and how she decorates her house is dumb because humanity is ending anyway and also she should stop bringing up their daughter because it was sooo long ago and she’s soooo mean for simply having a husband. I hated him very quickly.

Lastly, the ending is horrific to say the least. It defeats the very purpose of everything the book worked for. If you don’t mind having it spoiled, the main character overthrows the evil dictator and then restores Britain to peace! Just kidding, actually he just becomes the next dictator. Given that he’s a terrible person I don’t think his shot at governing will be much better.

Watch the movie instead.