The Children of Men (1992) by P.D. James

 Audiobook Review

The Children of Men (1992)

by PD James

  I love the movie version of this book- I've watched it several times over the years, and I finally got around to listening to the Audiobook of the original book by PD James.  James made her name as a writer of detective fiction and it's one of three non-detective fiction books she published before her death in 2014.   I believe there are multiple versions of the Audiobook- I would imagine one before the film and one after to capitalize on the revitalized interest.  Whichever version I heard I didn't like the narrator, who had a stuffy, pedantic English accent (as befits the character in the book).  

  As one might expect, the book tells a related but different story than the film, which was obviously diversified in the hands of director Alfonso Cuaron.  In the book, the harsh treatment of would-be immigrants is mentioned as a concern  but not something encountered by the characters.  In the film, the immigrants and their treatment are at the center of the plot.  I found myself wondering about James and her motivation- my thought is that she was inspired by Margaret Atwood and A Handmaid's Tale, which was published in 1985, so it very well could have been in her mind when she first imagined The Children of Men.  I don't see anything in her detective fiction that would have triggered this dark, dystopian tale of a childless future (and neither did the New York Times, both before and after the movie was released.)