The Children of Men

I love the film of The Children of Men (and have blogged about it here); however, not until this past weekend had I read the book, and Oh My Word! It is better than the movie!

Really, the movie has so little in common with the book (except the setting: in a world in which fertility has ceased and the government is quasi-fascist, a woman conceives a child and convinces an unlikely man to help them escape the government). And the book is so much better (in most ways). In the book, it is a fifty-something professor of history at Oxford who gets shaken from his ennui, becomes a criminal and robber to protect the woman, Julian, and her unborn child from the government (a government which forces the elderly to commit suicide in a ritual called, "Quietus" by drugging them and offering financial incentives to their family).

The book is unswervingly realistic--it refuses to see any man as perfect and sinless--even our narrator at the end makes us wonder at the end if power doesn't unfailingly corrupt. In addition, the father of the child is not her husband, but rather the Anglican priest friend of Julian's--both share a real faith (rare in their day) and yet conceive an illegitimate child. The conception of the first child in twenty-five years by Julian and this priest is ironic in the book, for both are handicapped in some way--they are not numbered among the finest in their society, among those who are being prepared to repopulate the earth, should a fertile male be found.

There are only two things that I liked better in the film: the character, Jaspers (our narrator's friend and mentor), is much nobler in his care for his wife and for his friend. Second, there is a particularly poignant scene with the narrator and the girl and her baby in the film in the midst of a battle--when the soldiers here the baby crying, all of the fighting stops and they all admire the child.