The Children of Men by P. D. James

[la_mariane]

I just finished The Children of Men by P. D. James, making it my 38th book in my personnal reading challenge. This book is actually a re-read : I first read it more than 10 years ago. I was on a P. D. James trend and I was reading all her Adam Dalgliesh novels I could find. The town library also had her one sci-fi novel, so I read it. I remember

Comments

[la_mariane]

The book was quite good but the lack of explanation bugged me. I don't care if the lack of kids is caused by a curse, or pollution finally catching up with us, but I need a reason!

[calico_reaction]

the whole diary/narration thing. The story begins with Theo's (the main character) diary, and it's all we have for the beginning of the book. Then, there is plain narration, and, towards the end of the book, Theo destroys his journal. Why begin with a diary if you don't stick with it afterwards?

Great point!

Why do people stop having children, and why does it start again? There are no answers in the book, and it's quite frustrating.

That's one of the things that really frustrated me about the book AND the movie. No answers!

[la_mariane]

Readers need answers, it should be written somwhere on the author how-to textbook.

Also, the thing with the diary really bothered me. Using a diary as a narration device can work really well in a novel (I'm thinking of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley), but here I didn't see why P.D. James used it. Maybe she wanted to show that Thoe uses writting as an introspection mechanisme, and he doesn't need it at the end, because he's already changed? ... I still haven't found an explanation I'm happy with.

[calico_reaction]

I don't think answers are always REQUIRED. But I do think that, if your intention is to explore the world without ever revealing how the world came to be, you need to be very, very careful about your set-up.

[la_mariane]

Good point, I had never thought about it before. It's true some very good books don't explore why the world is as the reader sees it (I'm thinking of The Giver, for eg). But when the reader ends up wondering why things are as they are in the story, I'm pretty sure the world building is lacking. It shows once again how important a good editor is.