Nearly three decades ago, I read a novel by P.D. James. She was (and still is, rest her soul) my favorite author, and her then-latest book was a departure from the series of crime novels starring her poet-detective Adam Dalgliesh. The Children of Men came out in 1992, and was set in a dystopian future-England of 2021. The last human was born some two decades previous, the reason for a lack of any further births unknown, and society has cratered as a result. I was riveted by the book, reading it late at night, at school, even waiting for a dental appointment.
The novel was adapted into a much ballyhooed film in 2006. It dropped the "the" from the title, and made a few more changes, but the core idea was there. It's a captivating movie, with assured director Alfonso Cuaron at the helm, though it takes on a darker, gritty, and more violent nature than its source material. Or perhaps all of that was on the page, but my mind interpreted it differently than it was intended? Regardless, I found P.D. James's work to be more cerebral, more thoughtful in its approach than its celluloid counterpart.
Maybe it was because I was a teenager, and hadn't really thought of certain issues before, but what The Children of Men novel did was give me pause about how and why much of the world works. The premise was revelatory for me then, and has informed aspects of my thought process ever since. Memories of the book were with me when, a little over a decade ago, our community built a brand new library. I went to the opening, taking-in the gleaming facility, and thought, This isn't really for now. This is for the future. Building new things is, partly, a marker of hope, an assumption that succeeding generations that will carry on in the world when we are older, or gone completely.
The Children of Men has been on my mind of late because of current circumstances. Much of the world has been on a lockdown (of sorts) since March, due to the coronavirus, and many aspects of society have ground to a halt. My own state is on stay-at-home orders through the end of May. Thing is, plans to "re-open" our economy remain foggy, at best. There's been vague talk of a phased plan, but a lot remains unclear. This is, of course, to be expected, given the unprecedented circumstances. People's s health and safety is paramount. This is, basically, a situation we find ourselves in and must endure, however long. Some people are adapting to the altered way of life well, others... not so much.
We're not in such harrowing conditions as people ceasing to be born and the impending death of humanity. We are, however, in a distinctively strange situation of having a definitively uncertain future. I say "definitively," because our future is always uncertain. We simply convince ourselves we have a good idea what it will be, and plan accordingly. Now the facade has lifted, the scales fallen from our eyes. So many of us now are bereft of a trajectory, of a certain future we can convince ourselves of achieving. Today is more difficult because we do not know what tomorrow will bring.
Perhaps this is the great takeaway from the teachable moment we find ourselves in? Maybe this is the time to understand how random life really is? And, of course, to find hope in the hopelessness. That's something else I took away from The Children of Men, all those years ago.
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