Children of Men
Introduction
I probably should have read this book years ago, back when I first saw the movie. I loved the film and wanted to understand the world of Children of Men as it was originally written.
I know movies and books aren’t the same, but the idea really stuck with me. A world without children, slowly heading toward extinction. No real reason to think about ambition, power, or even saving lives. It’s a bleak but fascinating concept.
Running Log
Some random day in April
- I’m almost done with it now. Interesting take.
- The prose is very verbose, very “English.” It’s more about feelings and conversations than explosive action like the movie.
- Julian being pregnant obviously raises the stakes and shifts everything. There’s commentary on power and despotism woven in.
- The tone is sombre. It feels like a philosophical reflection on a childless world. What kind of brutality does that inflict on society?
Thoughts
This is not as batshit crazy as the movie, and not as poetic as the first few pages might suggest. It’s different. More introspective. It really feels like P. D. James wanted to show how an older man would think in this world. That perspective works.
The rural England setting feels suffocating. Decaying villages, ageing population, nature creeping back in. I never felt like I left that landscape. It’s claustrophobic in a quiet way.
The world-building is stronger than I expected, though it’s not as globally expansive as the film. The book isn’t obsessed with geopolitics. It’s more concerned with what humanity becomes internally when the future disappears. What do ambition, power, religion, even relationships mean when there are no children?
But also, this was written in 1992. Back then population explosion was the fear. If you write this book today, the problem flips. Imagine young populations in India or China becoming aggressive blocs while old nations collapse. Young vs old becomes the real axis of conflict. That’s a different dystopia entirely.
Power & Structure
I like the monarchic depiction of power here. It reminded me of Foucault (yes, YouTube Foucault, relax).
This kind of power is old, calculated, administrative. It’s feels like one of those states in game theory which is far from Nash equilibirum. It’s efficient. Nothing goes to waste. If incompetent people rose to power in this fragile world, the system would collapse instantly. So only the cold, strategic types survive. It feels like a feudal system wearing modern clothes.
Even Xan choosing to abandon old villages because there simply aren’t enough people left is chilling. Quietus continuing just to keep the public kneeling is insane. And the refusal to acknowledge rebel pamphlets is a typical playbook move. Don’t argue. Don’t suppress loudly. Just ignore. Starve dissent of legitimacy.
That kind of power works because there is knowledge asymmetry, where ordinary people do not have the resources or infrastructure to constantly verify what is true, so silence itself becomes a tool of dominance. Today it feels different, because attention has become the scarce resource, and power is less about hiding information and more about competing for visibility, which makes it an entirely different battlefield altogether.
Xan (Because He’s Interesting)
- Xan is a fascinating character. He could be a psychopath, or maybe a closeted gay man, or someone who sublimates all desire into control, or perhaps he is like Kissinger handed absolute power. There is a sense of emotional restraint about him that makes him dangerous, and the way he thinks and acts in this world keeps you constantly assessing what he might do next.
Specific Moments
Theo taking Xan’s ring at the end felt complete in a way that made sense of everything that came before; every conversation and interaction earlier in the book leads to that moment, and the movie mirrors it beautifully as well.
Jasper’s death landed differently for me, because Michael Caine brought so much depth and warmth to the character in the film, whereas in the book his ending felt darker, almost abrupt, and slightly off, though perhaps that discomfort was intentional.
Quotes
have no intention of leaving the diary as a record of one man’s last years. Even in my most egotistical moods I am not as self-deceiving as that.
If from infancy you treat children as gods they are liable in adulthood to act as devils.
“That once I was not and that now I am. That one day I shall no longer be.”
Once in the capital, he would show himself at the old Foreign Office, demand to see the Warden, secure in the knowledge that he had reached the place where that demand would be taken seriously, where power was absolute and would be exercised.
They sit and speak, and are spoken to, and listen, and even smile, but in spirit they have already moved away from us and there is no way we can enter their shadowy no-man’s-land.
I was seized with a ludicrous urge to dash to the flower-stall, press notes into the florist’s hands, seize from their tubs the bundles of daffodils, tulips, hot-house roses and lilies, pile them into her arms and take the bag from her encumbered shoulder. It was a romantic impulse, childish and ridiculous, which I hadn’t felt since I was a boy. I had distrusted and resented it then. Now it appalled me by its strength, its irrationality, its destructive potential.
The old gods reappeared, terrible in their power.