The Children of Men

"I’ve started and finished with books that are literary thought experiments. In science, you can learn a lot from a well-conceived thought experiment. In German, it’s called ‘gedankenexperiment,’ and we often use that word, even in English, because it’s such an important way of thinking. It was important in the development of quantum theory. The gedankenexperiment that PD James does here, is to say: ‘Suppose that nobody could have any children anymore. How then would we live? What would we live for? And what would our purpose be?’ She explores how different people would respond, and how different people would live in that situation. The people born in the last generation, called the Omega children, run amuck. Like in the last book we’ll look at, there are two people closely related who have different fortunes. In this case they’re cousins. There’s the narrator, who is an Oxford academic and his cousin, who ends up as the warden of the whole of England. It’s set in Oxford and book opens with the university trying to decide whether or not to reface the crumbling Sheldonian, and you think, ‘If there’s not going to be anyone to see it, why bother?’ And then you think of all the other things that are important to you, and you say, ‘Well, if there’s not going to be any future, why bother with those?’ It’s a very profound study. The cousin, whose name is Xan, wants to keep everything orderly, so that society keeps going until the very end. That’s his purpose. The Oxford academic finds a purpose in helping a group of five people who are trying to alleviate some of the immediate problems. Then, in part two of the book, he finds a deeper purpose. I mustn’t spoil the story. But the real value of the book, for me, is of forcing people to face this question. What is your purpose? What are you living for? And I think this thought experiment does it in a very remarkable way."