The Children of Men

I am consistently intrigued by books with opposing reviews. Some hail the book as amazing, while others barely give it one star. Such books are the ones I'm most excited to read. It's super interesting to understand what causes people to be so strongly opinionated about a story and what triggers them to like or dislike it to the extent of giving those ratings.

I enjoyed reading through the reviews, checking both full-mark ones and lower-rated ones, and I have to say I can see why someone would feel the emotions they did and form the opinions stated in those reviews.

I did not find a review that aligns with my thoughts though. Now, as I understand, there has been a movie made with a similar storyline. What I gathered only from the reviews is that it focuses more on the infertility of manhood and the ending of the human race. A significant portion of the book also delves into the dictatorship in England and the way Warden Xan Lypiatt rises to the title. Contrary to most negative reviews that found some details or parts of the narrative unnecessary, I found everything useful. In my view, every detail helped me form an idea of the world we would live in if there were no hope of future reproduction. It was intriguing to me how people would evolve and live with that thought.

Approximately half the book unfolds as a journey through the childhoods of Xan and Theo, the central character. Despite criticisms branding Theo as an unsuitable narrator, I appreciated the complexity he brought to the narrative. His unlikable traits, deemed selfish by some, seemed a plausible response to the unimaginable losses he endured—losing a child, grappling with guilt, blame, and a fractured marriage. The honesty, humility, and vulnerability emanating from Theo's diary entries, essential to comprehending the characters' world, added authenticity to the storytelling.

Humans are a complex subject. Good narrators shouldn't always be perfect; most people aren't ideal figures. In this story, we delve into the protagonist's thoughts through his diary. His reflections are honest, humble, and vulnerable. It's unfair to blame him for expressing what he truly felt since his thoughts are crucial to understanding the characters' world. I particularly appreciated the parts where he meets his ex-wife and her new husband. Observing her genuine happiness and love, and his inability to relate due to past experiences, added depth. The childhood memories also spoke volumes about his adult self. It's normal to feel a mix of emotions, to be angry yet composed and not overly joyous at reconnecting with someone from the past—a portrayal that captures authentic human experiences.

The Quietus was another important point for me. The idea of collected suicides that were not even suicides, the brutality of it, I can imagine it happening. Man is vulnerable to such behaviors, and that is why we need police figures and some form of control, but in this world, even they cannot do the deed. It makes you realize how many things we do solely for the next generations, how much importance there is in the children to come and how negligent we've been of that. It definitely made me ponder on it.

Then we have this island where they send people who have wronged society, the criminals. They just leave them there with the simple explanation that giving them seeds and water is enough for them to survive with no police, no control. But we have thieves, robbers, killers, not people who can grow vegetables, not people who can survive on their own like this. All the lies and petty excuses the Council has given just to impose some safety, some peace in the country, so scared of misbehaving citizens that they send any potential criminal to that island and forget about them, leaving them with no contact with the outer world. It becomes known of the brutal conditions and the horrors happening there because one person manages to escape and tell his sister, then is collected and killed under very curious circumstances.

The people are so anxious to find a way to reproduce that they have the degrading initiative of sperm testing for every healthy male and female mandatory. The irony is that an epileptic man, excluded from the tests, is the one to impregnate a woman first.

The second part of the book tells a different aspect of the story. Having decided to fight against the dictatorship and the happenings I described above, a group of five decides to rebel against it, stopping when they find that a child is to come into this world—the first in twenty-five years. They get Theo to help them, him being the Warden's cousin and having a car. It is quite an adventurous ride, and I saw the value in every part of it. A lot of horrific details will be spared in this review, but everything that happened was very justified, and I could see it happening. It was sad, difficult to read at times, emotional, but the truth. Portrayals were so real, and a lot of things I got out of the dealings of the characters, but I would like to let everyone experience them on their own. I saw a growth in Theo; he understood so much, found love, matured, probably more than in his whole life, and felt real joy and real pain. Everything revolved around that one baby, the hope for a future, so much was sacrificed, people died for it, and yet it got born and it brought joy and a view for a brighter future.

This is definitely a book not everyone needs to read; not everyone can take it, understand it, or make use of it. A lot of important messages were thrown in that made me reflect on various topics. I think a lot of discussion could awake from this book and I would love to discuss it with others. I don't have a lot of quotes marked and that is because I was so involved that I could not realize in the moment what was something to reflect on in the future. But you can find some in other reviews or maybe read the book yourself.