wot i red on my hols by alan robson (scriba)

Clarke of the Court

Because it was there, I decided to binge watch the TV adaption of Arthur C. Clarke’s novel Childhood’s End. The series is a joint American-Australian production so I had high hopes that the Australian influence would mean that it wouldn’t be too full of Hollywoodisms. Sadly I turned out to be wrong about that…

Childhood’s End is Arthur C. Clarke’s very best novel, but you probably shouldn’t take my word for that because I’m biased. I find myself quite unable to distinguish between eight magnificent Arthur C. Clarke novels. I am absolutely convinced that every single one of them is his very best novel. They are all firm favourites and I re-read them at regular intervals. There is no doubt whatsoever in my mind – every single one of these eight books is his very best novel.

Let’s play a game. Go away and write your list of Arthur C. Clarke’s very best novel. Then carry on reading this essay. When you get to the end, you’ll find my list of his very best novel. Let’s see if you and I agree with each other…

Childhood’s End begins with the arrival of a fleet of alien spaceships which position themselves above Earth's principal cities. The aliens (who are quickly dubbed "The Overlords") announce that they are taking over the supervision of international affairs in order to prevent humanity from destroying itself.  This ushers in a time of apparent utopia, albeit under indirect alien rule. Some people worry that this may be a threat to the future of the human identity and culture. This worry proves to be not completely unfounded, though as it transpires, the manner of its final manifestation could not have been predicted and surprisingly it turns out to be not entirely without its benefits.

There is only one contact point between the aliens and the people of Earth. Karellen, the "Supervisor for Earth," periodically meets with Rikki Stormgren. In the novel, Rikki is from Finland and he is the UN Secretary General when the aliens arrive. Clearly he is the only logical person to negotiate with the Overlords as the representative of the Earth as a whole. After all, that’s almost the definition of the entire purpose of the UN!

Amusingly, in the TV series, Rikki is re-cast as an obscure  American farmer plucked seemingly at random from a field somewhere in the middle of Missouri. Obviously his agricultural experience makes him much better qualified to negotiate with the aliens than is a mere UN Secretary General. Quite why the TV people felt it necessary to make this change is utterly beyond me. Presumably an American TV series is simply not allowed to have a non-American hero. As a minor consequence of this silly decision, all the Finnish jokes that appear in the novel never make it to the screen, which is a shame. There are a couple of rather good ones...

Big Spoilers in the Next Paragraph.

A century or so after the arrival of the Overlords, human children are starting to display clairvoyance and telekinetic powers. Now Karellen can finally reveal the Overlords' true purpose. Far from being the lords of creation that they appear to be, they are actually merely servants of the Overmind, itself a vast cosmic intelligence, which (who) has sent them to Earth to supervise and guide the children into a transformative union with the Overmind. The Overlords have performed this function many times before with many other races. They are insatiably curious about how the process works and they will observe this transition closely, as they have observed it so many times before. But it will do them no good. They themselves are doomed to remain forever out in the cold, forever unable to take this final evolutionary step no matter how much they may yearn for it. One starts to feel a certain sympathy for their plight...

The TV adaption comes in three parts. I thought the first part was actually pretty good. It stuck quite closely to the spirit of Clarke’s book and Karellen’s make up was absolutely stunning. Some of the characters had their names and ethnicities changed for no very good reason that I could see – Rikki Stormgren’s transformation from Finnish diplomat to Missouri farmer is only one of many. But at least he managed to retain his name, which is more than can be said for Jan Rodricks who, in the TV series, metamorphoses into Milo Rodericks. Note the subtle spelling change in the surnames, and the not quite so subtle change in the forenames. But such peccadilloes are no more than cosmetic and I couldn’t really see that they made very much difference to the development of the story. So I just shrugged and let them get away with it.

The rot set in with the second and third parts which were both diabolically bad. They introduced a lot of (mostly Christian) religious shit, which made it very clear that, as far as this TV production was concerned, whenever the meaning of life, the universe and everything (as Douglas Adams so memorably phrased it) is up for debate, subjective faith is a trump card that is far more important, meaningful and compelling than any objective fact. This, of course, is completely antithetical to the message presented by the novel. It makes you wonder why they bothered making the programme in the first place if they hated the ideas so much.

In the novel, Clarke spends quite some time musing upon the reasons why humankind has always felt the need to develop so many completely contradictory religious beliefs – by definition, they can’t all be true. Then he goes on to demonstrate that when the reasons for depending upon those religious beliefs no longer apply, the religions themselves will, of necessity, wither and die. He clearly states that the only religion to survive this winnowing process is Buddhism, mainly because it isn’t actually a religion at all (a typically Clarkean joke).

The transcendence which the Overlords are there to supervise is strongly fought against in the TV series. It is portrayed as a terrible fate which must be resisted at all costs. Even the TV Overlords express some sympathy with this viewpoint which is utterly ridiculous, given their reason for being there in the first place! The novel, on the other hand, portrays the change as a natural evolutionary step, one to be coveted, welcomed, accepted and embraced. It can be (and probably should be) interpreted as something that leads to a complete absorption into (and therefore a direct understanding of the nature of) what we might as well call God, for want of a better term.

Having thrown away everything that matters about the novel, the series was left with little choice but to pad itself out with far too many pointless scenes in which characters try to solve whatever arbitrary problem is currently facing them by instantly losing their temper with it, screaming in hysterical rage at it and waving a gun around in its face. After all, it is common knowledge that rational people all over the world invariably react in that way to any and all minor difficulties...

All of this made the last two episodes almost impossible to watch. Whenever a significant crisis occurred on the screen the programme invariably favoured a (generally not very) dramatic spectacle (often with superfluous special effects attached to it) over any intellectual speculation or discussion whatsoever. Consequently the richness of the novel was completely overwritten and overwhelmed by the vast poverty of cliché.

Clarke is often criticised for his poor characterisation and wooden prose. I can only assume that the critics who say such things are tone deaf – I’ve always found Clarke’s characters to be vibrantly three-dimensional. His heroes are invariably competent, intelligent, quirkily erudite and witty. In other words, his heroes are all Arthur C. Clarke, and Arthur C. Clarke understands himself very well indeed. This, of course, is exactly why his heroes come to life so well on the page as they explore all the ramifications of the plot, both overt and covert. (As an aside, I note that in his youth Clarke shared a flat with other young SF fans. They quickly christened him with the nickname Ego. Not because he was big headed, but because his intelligence was frightening. I rest my case).

Clarke’s prose always flows smoothly across my eyeballs. His descriptions of people and places are always crystal clear and his observations are often extremely funny, though the wit and humour are invariably so very, very dry (and so very, very British) that I can easily understand how it may well pass some people by.

Clarke’s best novels are always profound and they address problems that have been the subject of philosophical debate, sometimes for centuries. Invariably he highlights his own generally rather oddball thinking about the topics under discussion. He explains his ideas clearly and he sneaks up on the topics from new, thoughtful and unexpected directions – though it has to be admitted that sometimes his conclusions mimic the solution adopted by Alexander the Great when he was faced with the Gordian Knot!

I strongly suspect that, in his own quietly understated way, Arthur C. Clarke is the most insightful SF author I’ve ever read.