The Children Act by Ian McEwan

 

Ian McEwan’s novel The Children Act is probably as close to the label masterpiece as any piece of fiction might get. Having just read David Hume’s ideas on religion, where the all-powerful takes on a human face, where rational thought is raised the status of an ivory tower, and where human prejudice regularly masquerades as potentially rational opinion, this novel provided a perfect fit to counterbalance and contextualise continued thought about these fundamental issues.

The novel immediately introduces Fiona. She is married, her adopted surname of Maye appearing sometime later. She is a judge. She has risen to a significant pinnacle within her profession. Married to Jack, for who knows how long, she shares a relationship which is both childless and lately unsteady, largely because Fiona’s work seems to take over her life.

She is very thorough. The law requires judgments to be correct, justifiable within the confines of the law, itself, especially in the UK according to precedent, but they must also at least approach the concept of natural justice, in that they must at least appear to be morally as well as legally justifiable. The process of reconciling these two demands often results in conflict. Complication arises when the subject of the legal action is a child, because, when that child is below the age of majority, eighteen years of age, the child is not deemed mature or responsibly enough to make up its own mind.

Fiona specializes in cases involving children. These may be to determine custody after divorce, protection against a malevolent parent or merely an absent one. They may involve a care order, where a child is judged to need the safety or stability of institutional care when parents are abusive, drug addicted, negligent, alcoholic, or merely absent. The issues may be fairly clear, but nothing is more complicated than human relationships. And even when these are simple, we seek to complicate them. But when seventeen-year-old is the subject of legal action, the situation is more complex. Especially when religion has reared its complicated head…

Adam has leukaemia and needs a blood transfusion. Without it, his chances of survival are limited because the drugs that form half of his treatment only work if a transfusion is carried out. Alan, like his parents, however, is a Jehovah’s Witness, to whom blood transfusions are anathema, simply not allowed. The question for Fiona to judge upon is whether the child can refuse treatment, whether his parents are denying him a chance of life for ideological reasons and whether the professionals involved should countermand the parents’ and the patient’s wishes. Fiona decides to visit Adam in hospital to inform her position. This happens against the backdrop of her own marriage failing, her husband walking out and an approaching eighteenth birthday for Adam, meaning that then he will be able to decide for himself what happens. She finds Adam interesting. Adam finds Fiona slightly more than captivating.

What happens is the book’s plot, and a reader will just have to discover it by reading the book. What I can write to conclude my review is the fact that these issues of the correctness or rationality or otherwise of belief come into sharp focus when ideology becomes a life and death issue. And Ian McEwan deals with these issues in a highly complex and transparent manner, which is also highly creative. What will always be dilemmas without resolution are presented as such, but somehow, they are never complicated. Decisions taken always seem justified by circumstance. What people do scene by scene makes sense, but then overall everything is driven by the moment, by assumption and by personal identity that we cannot control, because it grows within us, apparently independently. Fiona approaches every situation with a judge’s eye for the law, with an eye for accuracy and correctness. Internally, she reveals herself as vulnerable, open to instinctive and irrational thoughts.

What Ian McEwan does is portray character supremely well, providing a balance between the professional, the personal, and the social elements that contribute to make a human being. David Hume’s quote from Bacon really does ring true, that when we become really involved in the issue, then the case for religion strengthens. As for Fiona, life must go on. But how?