Reading The Children of Men by P.D. James

I saw Children of Men at the theater.  It was good.  As usual, I was disappointed when I noticed the item in the credits -- "based on the novel."  Bummer.  I was seeing the movie before reading the book.  Breaking one of my own cardinal rules.

Today, I'm fifty pages from finishing the book.  It took me a while to finally read it.  I recently learned that my course on apocalyptic narratives has been approved -- I will be the professor of "The Apocalypse in Literature and Film" in fall 2015.  I can't help feeling a little proud of myself.  I never wanted to teach writing, always wanted to be a literature professor, felt like I was settling for writing and now, look at me.  Designing and teaching my own "Topics in Literature" course.  There will be grad students in my class.  Grad Students.

Anyway, the book is awesome.  I love it.  What stands out now is the distinctiveness.  It's not the same story from the film.  The characters are different, the plot is different.  I read over a hundred pages, and still nothing had blown up.  The novel's plot is, interestingly, barren, like the human beings who populate its world.  Not much happens.  Theo wanders around a lot, is lonely much of the time.  Kind of how I imagine the apocalypse.

However, the most nuanced and 3-dimensional presence in the text is religion.  I wasn't expecting that because there really isn't much religion in the film.  At least, it's not discussed overtly.  If you think about it, any apocalyptic narrative is about religion in a sense, because of the eschatological nature of the premise.  There is inherent religion in all apocalypses, whether it's discussed or not.

In The Children of Men, James gives us post-apocalyptic religions, and more than one.  People are fed up with a god who has abandoned them.  New preachers and Holy Men come out of the woodwork, preaching that Man has offended God and must repent.  Other spiritual leaders preach the value of love and compassion in a more secular sense. The character Julian finds herself pregnant by a priest in a time where humans are no longer able to conceive.  It's interesting to consider the double meaning of the phrase "to conceive of life..."  I suppose it takes a priest.  Luke.  (Remind me to read The Book of Luke.)

I am excited to keep reading.  It's one of those stories that I don't want to end too quickly.  I mostly know how it ends, but the writing is very good, and I want to see how James gets us to the ending.