Slashdot Mirror
Childhood's End
Childhood's End was Clarke's fourth novel and is one of the books on which his career is founded. It was originally published in 1953 and republished with an introduction and a radically altered first chapter in 1990. It is a novel of visitation by aliens and the vast changes in humanity which result. Of course, many science fiction stories of every vintage could be summarised identically. Clarke displays his awareness of this early in the book when he outlines many of the alternative paths the novel could take and dismisses these possibilities. The story told is profound in comparison with much of the science fiction which had come before. However, the preconceptions which the modern reader is likely to have of this author will jar with the tale told. The original edition states that "the opinions expressed in this book are not those of the author". From reading his new introduction, it would appear that Clarke's subsequent development has distanced him from an even larger proportion of those opinions.
The first chapter discusses the coming of the aliens. The original version posits a space race between the Soviets and America entering the final stages of take off for the moon when alien spaceships appear in the sky. At the time of publication, the setting is clearly twenty years in the future. Because it is also clearly now in our past, Clarke has updated this with a prelude involving Russian and American co-operation for a Mars mission. The subsequent story is unchanged. Having read the original version, I feel that the new-grafted root might make the story even more dated in it's handling of emotion and interrelation between the sexes. However, perhaps these simply form part of the story environment for a reader unfettered by knowledge of the book's antiquity.
After the scene-setting arrival, events skip forward several years to describe the consolidation of the new order. The alien Overlords put backbone into the United Nations and bring about a genuine world government with widespread peace and prosperity despite fears regarding the nature of the aliens, who refuse to reveal themselves. This is followed by a time where humanity, under guidance, transforms the planet into a utopia. The populace of this new era is faced with the question of what to do next. The answers offered by the Overlords are as unpalatable as the physical form of the aliens would have been at the time of their arrival.
The structure of the novel reaches this point without faltering greatly. However, the requirement for continued human narrative is fractured by Einsteinian physics and by the paranormal. The author's desire to escape from the confines of Earth and offer a greater perspective complicate the story but offer intimations of the future awaiting the human race. This future is developed through paranormal mechanisms and disappears into realms undescribable, providing a lyricism at odds with much of the rest of the novel. The characters are often stilted and rather formal. Even in the worst extreme, their emotional life is considerably less interesting than their intellectual activity. The book almost overflows with ideas, making it "archealogically" interesting: it's influence can be sifted from much work of subsequent generations, from 'V' to The X Files. . This contributes to the reading experience but it is not a gripping book. Childhood's End will be worthwhile principally to those interested in the history of science fiction and the development of one of it's leading authors.
Unofficial Arthur C. Clarke homepage: http://www.lsi.usp.br/~bianchi/clarke/
You can purchase this book at fatbrain.
It annoys me when authors feel the need to change fiction to take account of real world progress. Why not leave the book as it was, as an artifact of it's time? That would fit better with the tone of the rest of the book anyway.
It's almost as bad as TV and movie adaptations of, say, Sherlock Holmes stories, when they place them in the present.Generally in HS lit classes, you don't walk away having learned something, or having been profoundly affected.
Thankfully, I took the sci-fi class that was offered, and read the following literary gems:
1. childhoods end
2. fahrenheit 451
3. brave new world
4. 1984 (optional extra credit)
it should have been a class in politics! I learned more from those books about societal skepticism, and conformity than in my US gov't class.
childhood's end also had me reading more Clarke books later on, with the Rama series now being my favorite...
highly suggested reading!
Q: What do you think about American Culture?
A: I think it's a good idea.
(adapted from Gandhi)
I would have to say that this book was definately a product of the fifties. Many aspects of the book played upon the fears and oddities of American culture in that era. There was the beginnings of many movements that have gained more momentum or died out referenced in the book. For instance, the very beginning of the book included a scene wherein viewers of a bullfight felt the wounds inflicted upon a bull. This references animal rights movements that were becoming more mainstream in this time period. There are a lot of other political references in this book.
One thing I would like to say, is that I don't think it is a good idea to try to move this book into the future with a new opening chapter. It is better viewed as a piece of science fiction in the time period for which it was written. The concepts built into it reflect a great deal on cold war mentalities, and the social structures of the time. In particular, it shows that our beliefs, irrational fears, and "The bad guys" are very much products of our society and media. There is nothing like the demonic appearance of the overlords and the strong Communist impression given of the Overmind to show that Clarke was trying to show people that good and bad are very relative. I am not sure if Clarke was a Communist, or was just trying to tick off that psychopath McCarthy.
When you try to take this book out of the fifties, it quickly ceases to make as much sense. The book was designed to shock people in a time of prosperity and mild close-mindedness into thinking a bit more about their predjudices and beliefs.
B. Elgin
B. Elgin
"Read at your own risk; feel free to ignore."
I really enjoyed Childhoods End . It's not the "perfect" novel, but I found it an enjoyable read, and a book that had some interesting points to make. I'd give it an 8/10.
My favorite book by Arthur C. Clarke would have to be a more recent (and fairly unsung) work of his, The Songs of Distant Earth . I strongly recommend it.
----
----
Open mind, insert foot.
I would caution everyone reading this review to consider the meaning of good sci-fi versus books written for entertainment. True sci-fi is deeper, and the world it presents is there to make a point, not to 'wow' you into buying a sequel.
Childhood's End is a gem, in the true sci-fi genre. As is Wells' Time Machine. TM is laughable by modern entertainment standards, but the subject matter is arguably more true now than when it was first written.
TM was written in the social context of the industrial revolution, and it's a cautionary tale which speculates on what may be is the industrial-age haves and have-nots continue on their then-existing paths. We have a similar have/have-not situation now, in the industrial age. Most of us 'haves' map well to the Wellesian Morlocks. Think about it.
Childhood's End was written at a time of high tension between the US and the USSR. We were trying to out do one another, and the race to the moon was a good way to posture superiority. The fact was, we were itching for a fight, but couldn't afford one considering the nuclear repercussions.
The arrival of the Overlords, their power and complete subjugation of the world's authority over it's percieved/chosen destiny was a crushing blow to mankind as portrayed in the book. This is where the formality of interactions comes from. We were afraid of being controlled, we couldn't fight back, we had to behave 'well'.
All the while we were treated well, all our problems were taken care of, and we had time for leisure. Consider Maslow's pyramid of needs... Kerellian (Care Alien) and the Overlords created conditions ripe for our spontaneous maturation. By solving our problems for us, they allowed us to make our transcendence into Adulthood.
The story is brilliant. The bitter irony of the alien's true form, and mission. Their role in the elevation of humanity out of Childhood. Knowing our fate and knowing that they were charged with our fruition. Knowing their own full potential.
Read the original book, not the revision. Clarke foresaw a great number of modern day items. (somehow he missed the personal computer though)
Also, keep in mind religion, and Shelly's Mont Blanc.
I tried to not give anything away. Really, I did.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
It's a book about aliens landing, a literary tradition going back to The War of the Worlds. It's unique in that the aliens just don't care. They neither love us nor hate us; at best, they feel a certain distant benevolence. Humanity doesn't matter very much; at best, it's just another one of many races that will evolve to the next stage, and at worst, it's a cancer to be expunged.
This is actually a frequent theme of Clarke's work, and it may be his greatest single contribution to speculative fiction. Most authors write about humanity as if it matters; Clarke repeatedly rubs our face in the fact that we don't matter on a universal scale. We only matter to ourselves.
There's actually an interesting historical note here. I'd wager that almost nobody reading this would admit to having ever read any significant body of work directly influenced by Existentialism. That's not true: the conflict in Childhood's End, and, more importantly, in Sentinel and 2001 is exactly the Existentialist dilemma: how can one act well in a world where one does not matter.
And the next time somebody sneers at you for your taste in literature, point that out to them. Eat you heart out, Jean-Paul Sartre!
Sir Clarke was pestered by his publishers to write 2061 and 3001, and IIRC he sold both of those books for only one dollar. In any case, he's not nearly as bad as many other sci-fi authors, many of whom take a single idea and turn them into an endless stream of books. Hamilton, in particular, irritates me in this way.
_Childhood's End_ is an important book in the history of science fiction as it introduced the concepts of Graduation and Exodus -- that humanity may change into something now unimaginable, and head for the stars. That this vision was generated during the cold war, when it looked very likely that humanity might suicide with nuclear weapons, gives the book even greater impact for its time.
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
Initially I planned to stay out of this discussion as I do with most Slashdot threads. I read the review and thought to myself "This person just doesn't get it." Which isn't a big deal. A lot of people don't get Clarke. It's nothing against them, it's just his style. Then I read a lot of the comments mirroring my feelings on the book. (I loved it, by the way. I've read it two or three times now and I've been thinking lately it's time to read it again.) So I was reassured that my comments were unnecessary. But then I read some comments like this and I really can't pass up the opportunity to converse with someone who really does seem to "get it". This is what I got out of it, I'd be interested to hear what you have to say on the subject. First, I would suggest that the book is more of a tragedy than sci-fi. To back this up I would also suggest that the main characters in the book are the Overlords, not the humans (which is why I feel they come off so flat sometimes.) This isn't such a stretch when you think about Clarke's other books, like 2001, where the protagonist is clearly the computer. It is the only fully emotionally-developed character in that book. But that's off the point. My biggest problem with the review is that somehow the reviewer seems to have gotten the cause and effect relationship regarding the arrival of the Overlords exactly backwards. That's not all that hard to believe since the denoument is only touched on briefly and near then end of the book when a lot of other things are happening all at once. Anyway, let me be perfectly clear on this point. The Overlords arrive because humanity was nearing the next (final?) evolutionary step. (He is also suggesting, in a back-handed manner, that evolution is a stepped process, a theory that is still debated if I'm not mistaken.) So how do I say this is a tragedy? The Overlords have become something of caretakers or custodians of our plane of existence. They have slipped into an evolutionary cul-de-sac and in an attempt to discover how to get back on the path, they are overseeing each race's final moments on this plane in hopes that it will reveal something about how they too can evolve. Clarke gives some small hope for the future of their race, but he doesn't leave you with a lot of confidence in them. Anyway, that's my take on it.
-Joe
The most satisfying part of the book is reading the "denouement" that comes not at the end, but in the middle of the book when the aliens' physical appearance is revealed after decades of concealment. The reason for the concealment (which I don't want to give away here) is quite clever, thought provoking and original. Like a good mystery, there's growing suspense and anticipation, yet once the secret is revealed, all the previous comments fit into
place.
The book is a little unusual for standard sci-fi in its tribute to a previous literary-philosophical strand of thought developed by a popular American author in the 1800s, Ralph Waldo Emerson. The end of the book is not primarily about "paranormal" themes as the reviewer states, its really a sci-fi exploration of trancendentalist themes, the joint-consciousness of the "overmind". Few sci-fi books provide interesting, original depictions of religious concepts, and this is one of them.
--LP
All three favorites of mine too. I got my start in SF on Arthur Clarke books (it didn't hurt he had the same first name as me - I was only about 8 or 10 when I started reading them!) and he's still my favorite author. A lot of people know him through 2001 - I didn't see or read that until much, much later. I think The City and the Stars is still my favorite of his; both it and Childhood's End were the kind of book that afterwards I put down and just sat, thinking, for quite some time. Profound.
People criticize Clarke's characters - but I think like a lot of good SF, the plot ideas take the place of the human characters in carrying the story forward, and I really don't have a problem with that. The later Rama books were pretty horrible though...
Energy: time to change the picture.
I never particularly admired Clarke's long works. However his short stories including Tales From the White Hart and of course the famous Sentinel are terrific.
If you want a really good classic sci-fi novel of the same era you should read Clifford Simak's City. It is far more worthy than Childhood's End.
in childhood's end, a.c.clarke came really close to depicting the aliens as i had always imagined them: detached entities. i wish he had kept them disembodied until the end of the book instead of revealing their physical properties to us. we -- humans, i think, are excessively concerned with the physical, the body. the u.f.o. enthusiasts are impatiently awaiting the arrival of the silvery space ship fleet over the manhattan sky-line. in giving the aliens physical attributes, a.c.clarke falls into the pitfall..
I apologize if I give anything away.
I read this book as a junior-high kid, and it had a few profound impacts on me:
The simplicity with which the various human evils were eliminated by the Overlords sent the message that so much of our suffering is caused by irrational traditions and shallow beliefs, and
The picture of the Overmind at the end depressed me so greatly (and, I think, was meant to -- that's why we had the astronaut's perspective?) that I have since always carried around the idea that the Christian depiction of Heaven really isn't that appealing -- a life of struggle and torment is far more appealing than "paradise", because it brings real meaning to whatever joy and discovery might be experienced.
One last thing: if you've read Rendezvous with Rama, you must conclude that Clarke intended the second lesson in Childhood's End, as Rama is a celebration of the wonder of an accidental experience that vanishes without impact, and a warning of the danger of focusing on the destination to the exclusion of noticing the journey (after all, the aliens came all that way, and never imagined or noticed the puny Earthlings).
Thanks for the review. This book deserves to be read and remembered.
"You can't get something for nothing." - my grandfather, on the stock market and Reaganomics.