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Title: Childhood's End
ISBN: 0330487698
Author:
Arthur C. Clarke
Publicate Date: 2001-06-08
Publish: 2001-06-08
List Price: $14.45
Average Customer Rating: 4.5
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $22.47
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1: The Beginning of the End
Arthur C. Clarke was a writer a great imagination and prescience. His science fiction tales are fantastical and sometimes frightening in their prophecies for the human race. Perhaps his most famous tale of what might happen to man in regards to the cosmos is "2001: A Space Odyssey", but Clarke's 1953 novel "Childhood's End" is just as disturbing a look at the very last generation of man on Earth.
The novel begins with the Secretary-General of the United Nations holding his usual meeting with an alien species they have termed the Overlords. The Overlords arrived mysteriously one day, their giant ships hovering over every major city on earth, but they did not come to conquer, merely to observe and guide humanity through its unknown transition. The Overlords will not reveal themselves initially to humans, which causes suspicion among many who doubt the intentions of their alien guardians. Fifty years later, when man has become comfortable with the new world the aliens have wrought, one of great peace and prosperity, their alien watchers reveal themselves and the true course that humanity will take.
"Childhood's End" is a quick-paced and fascinating read, filled with some imaginings that are all too real. Clarke's vision of technical advances for the future were sometimes spot-on, and his treatise of the end of the world is laced with a wry humor and sarcasm. Yet for all of its enigmatic buildup, the last fifty pages of "Childhood's End" seems to derail from the inital story. While readers are introduced to a variety of characters and several different plotlines, by the novel's end there seems to be too little to tie these together with what happens to the last race of mankind. Still, it is an impressive tale, one that touches on many themes and questions that still resonate today.
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2: Far Out
Having read both the original opening chapter and the 1990 opening chapter, I can appreciate the updates that Arthur C. Clarke put into this often underappreciated work. Known best for the 2001 Series and its parallel movies, Clarke is among the elite science fiction writers. It is remarkable to reflect on the acccurate visions of the future such writers presented in their writing. Clarke hits the conscience of mankind with marksman like accuracy in "Childhood's End". Yet even with the stunning achievements of this book, the climax seemed a bit far out.
"Childhood's End" sees the end of the human race's childhood as an alien race arrives on Earth to guide humans to the next phase of evolution. While that phase may be hard to grasp, the themes in the process of the change are not. Along the journey, readers observe themes such as cruelty to animals, man's inability to live in a utopian society, the idea of a greater purpose than life on this Earth, and the apocalyptic idea of the last man on Earth.
Though humans come to embrace their alien overloads who save them from themselves, a mysterious set of events gives hints as to the aliens' motives. While the mystery unravels, Jan Rodricks escapes to visit the home planet of the Overlords. As he learns of the Overlords' planet, Earth is in its final stages and will not be the same when he returns.
"Childhood's End" progressed in such a way as to make the reader want to know the next phase and the story's conclusion. I found the final phase to be somewhat of a reach, though this did not take away from my enjoyment of the story. Clarke's insight into man and the glimpse into something greater speaks volumes of his skill as a writer.
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3: C. S. Lewis Called It AN ABSOLUTE CORKER
My copy of this 1950s science-fiction classic has a quote by C. S. Lewis on its cover: "There has been nothing like it for years; partly for the actual invention, but partly because here we meet a modern author who understands that there may be things that have a higher claim on humanity than its own survival."
The other day, while reading *The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume 3: Narnia, Cambridge, and Joy, 1950 - 1963,* I found Lewis' entire review on *Childhood's End.* I was surprised, though, that he did not write it to be published at all. Instead, the review is a personal letter to his pen pal and then-future wife Joy Davidman Gresham, who had cautiously recommended the book to him. Joy subsequently showed the letter to Clarke himself, who asked Lewis if the publisher may quote from the letter for promoting the book. To which Lewis replied, "If you will let me know *which* bits of my letter your people want to use, I am sure I shall have no objection - as you know one doesn' t like to give a free hand for *selection.* It is sometimes so done as to credit one with ungrammatical or even nonsensical sentences." This probably explains why the above quote differes somewhat from the actual letter.
Since Lewis' thoughts on the book mirror my own experience in reading it pretty closely, and since I suspect that people will be more interested in a review by C. S. Lewis than a review by me, I will give you the letter in full.
Here we go:
As far as I can remember you were non-committal about *Childhood's End*: I suppose you were afraid that you might raise my expectations too high and lead to disappointment.
If that was your aim, it has succeeded, for I came to it expecting nothing in particular and have been thoroughly bowled over. It is quite out of range of the common space-and-time writers; away up near Lindsay's *Voyage to Arcturus* and Well's *First Men in the Moon.* It is better than any of Stapleton's. It hasn't got Ray Bradbury's delicacy, but then it has ten times his emotional power, and far more mythopoeia.
There is one bit of bad execution, I think: chapters 7 and 8, where the author doesn't seem to be at home. I mean, as a social picture it is flat and stiff, and all the gadgetry (for me) is a bore.
But what there is on the credit side! It is rather like the effect of the *Ring* [by Richard Wagner]--a self-riching work, harmony piling up on harmony, grandeur on grandeur, pity on pity. The first section, merely on the mystery of the Overlords, would be enough for most authors.
Then you find this is only the background, and when you have worked up to the climax in chapter 21, you find what seems to be an anti-climax and it slowly lifts itself to the utter climax. The first climax (...) brought tears to my eyes. There has been nothing like it for years: partly for the actual writing--"She has left her toys behind but ours go hence with us," or "The island rose to meet the dawn," but partly (still more, in fact) because here we meet a modern author who understands that there may be things that have a higher claim than the survival or happiness of humanity: a man who could almost understand "He that hateth not father and mother" and certainly would understand the situation in *Aeneid* III between those who go on to Latium and those who stay in Sicily.
We are almost brought up out of *psyche* into *pneuma* [that is, from matters of the soul to those of the spirit]. I mean, his myth does that to us imaginatively. Of course his own *thoughts* about what the higher level might be are not, in our eyes, very new or very profound: but that doesn't really make so much difference. (Though, by the way, it would have been better, even on purely literary grounds, to leave it in its mystery, to philosophise less.) After all, few authors' glosses on their own myths are as good as the myths: unless, like Dante, they take the glosses from other men, real thinkers.
The second climax, the long (not too long) drawn-out close is magnificent.
There is only one change (in conception) that I would want to make. It is a pity that he suggests a jealousy and a possible future revolt on the part of the Overlords. The motive is so ordinary that it cannot excite interest in itself, and as it is never going to be worked out of the handling cannot compensate for the banality. How much better, how much more in tune with Clarke's own imagined universe, if the Overlords were totally resigned, submissive yet erect in an eternal melancholy--like the great heroes and poets in Dante's Limbo who live forever "in desire but not in hope."
But now one is starting to re-write the book.
Many *minor* dissatisfactions, of course. The women are all made up out of a few abstract ideas of jealousy, vanity, maternity etc. But it really matters very little: the thing is great enough to carry far more faults than it commits.
It is a strange comment on our age that such a book lies hid in a hideous paper-backed edition, wholly unnoticed by the *cognoscenti,* while any "realistic" drivel about some neurotic in a London flat--something that needs no real invention at all, something that any educated man could write if he chose, may get seriously reviewed and mentioned in serious books--as if it really mattered.
I wonder how long this tyranny will last? Twenty years ago, I felt no doubt that I should life to see it all break up and great literature return: but here I am, losing teeth and hair, and still no break in the clouds.
And now, what do *you* think? Do you agree that it is AN ABSOLUTE CORKER?
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4: The evolution of humanity
Though Clarke is known mostly for writing "hard" science fiction, this book is a surprising departure from his usual style. The very technical descriptions that abound in 2001 are absent here, allowing for an easier and more enjoyable reading. It begins with a premise used in countless books and movies since then: aliens finally approach Earth, and human beings don't know what to expect. But this isn't your typically "humans revolt against evil aliens" story. This tale is about mankind's evolution to the next level of consciousness as the Overlord aliens guide humanity along this path. This process takes place over the course of many decades, so there's very little character development; most characters only make appearances in short chunks. In spite of this, the story moves well through the first 100 pages, providing the answers to many mysteries that arise along the way. However, I found the second half of the book a little disappointing since it provides very few answers to any lingering questions. The lack of any explanation as to why humanity suddenly evolves seemed like too much of a cop-out to me. It's easy to say that we can never understand why this happened; it's much harder to provide a rational explanation. Still, compared to some of Clarke's other books, this book was much more enjoyable and reader friendly. Just be ready for an open-ended conclusion.
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5: Fair warning: you won't settle for typical, banal science fiction after this one
Arthur C. Clarke's early science-fiction classic is a study in juxtapositions and contrasts: Simple, extremely-readable prose describes complex, mind-blowing concepts; broad, epic chapters on the fate of mankind alternate with cozy scenes set at intimate cocktail parties; the peace and simplicity of commune life in the tropics precedes descriptions of sweeping alien landscapes almost too big to fit in one's head; and, finally, the entire mind-boggling package takes the form of a compact, non-threatening 250 page or so book (depending on what edition you read).
This isn't one of those science-fiction novels that tries to speculate where mankind genuinely might be heading. Rather, to use a phrase probably a little casual for this great work but useful for our purposes here, the story more closely falls under the category of "wouldn't it be neat if..." That is, the novel, like so much great art, is ultimately more about itself than being something as mundane and banal as a simple editorial statement on its ostensible topic (in this case, mankind, our foibles, and our place in the universe). Look at the epic, sad, moving, awe-inspiring (it's all of those things) conclusion, and see if you agree. If it wasn't before, is the book really about anything other than itself at that moment?
And that's fine. Because a creative work mostly about the wonder of its own imaginings in many ways still reflects the world of its birth, magnifying and questioning and critiquing aspects of that world. And "Childhood's End, as fresh today as when it first appeared in the early 1950's, does all that and more. So much more.
In other words, if you thought the Arthur C. Clarke/Stanley Kubrick collaboration "2001: A Space Odyssey" was off-the-charts "out there", try a little Clarke in its pure, unblended form.
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