On 10 Jul 97 , SMCharnas wrote:
> At 6:22 AM 7/10/97, Petra Mayerhofer wrote:
> >The title of P.D. James's SF novel is 'The Children of Men'. In my
> >opinion the starting-point of the novel is great, but the plot and
> >the ending are very weak.
>
> I can't say that I've read it -- I stopped reading James when I
> realized that in a preponderance of her mystery novels the murder
> hinged on some awful woman having had (gasp!) an abortion because
> she just couldn't be bothered raising a child. I did skim THE
> CHILDREN OF MEN, and it seemed to me to run true to form at least to
> this extent: the climax/ending was the resumption of human
> procreation (after a hiatus for reasons I don't recall) with the
> birth of -- GUESS WHAT? -- a son.
Exactly.
The reason why for 25 years no children were born was never
explained. I've got the impression that James meant it as a divine
affliction. In many of her mystery novels religion is a topic. An
important point was also that the mother was (very) slightly
handicapped and thus not considered in the large government programs
to test for fertility in women.
On other birth control books: Has somebody already suggested
'Barrayar' by Bujold? Birth control is not the 'main' interest but it
is part of the background of the novel. The heroine Cordelia
Naismith is from the planet Beta. There, all women get an implant
after their first menstruation. Wish to be parents have to apply for
the right to get a child after they pass an exam on parenting. In
vitro or in vivo pregnancies are both common.
Naismith marries somebody from the militaristic, patriarchal
Barrayar and moves there. They want a child immediately. It is
extensively discussed how strange an in vivo pregnancy feels for
Naismith. Furthermore, briefly a fantasy of her is described to get
as many children as possible, now that there are no restrictions. One
gets the impression that Bujold thinks that without outer pressure
(no money or space restrictions) women like to get children by the
dozen.
That reminds me of the Darkover novel by Marion Zimmer
Bradley, in which the first colonists land on Darkover. In that novel
it is explicitly stated that without overpopulation women would want
to get more and more children and that emancipation, learning and
practising a profession is only a meager substitute. That book made
me really angry (in that respect Zimmer Bradley succeeds quite
often in her books).
Petra
** Petra Mayerhofer ** pm@ier.uni-stuttgart.de **
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