User:Viriditas/Childhood's End/Notes

Background

 * Clarke saw barrage balloons over London in 1941 during WWII, later becoming alien ships in the novel
 * Formation of United Nations; formation of Israel; dissolution of the British Indian Empire; apartheid in South Africa,
 * Clarke's success of two previous books; visit to U.S. exposed him to civil rights issues facing African-Americans; influence on development of Jan Rodricks character
 * Clarke's background; parapsychology in the 1950s; position on paranormal in the 1950s vs. later skepticism (added but more could be said); book disclaimer. Inspiration for the novel, tricked by Uri Geller at Birkbeck College, distancing himself from pseudoscience
 * Stapledon influence; similar works around the same time: More Than Human (1953); The Demolished Man (1953); The Phenomenon of Man (1955)
 * Reference:

Genre

 * When the Second World War ended in 1945, the Golden Age of Science Fiction was in full swing.
 * Golden Age SF; emphasis on concept rather than characters; standard fix-up of previously published novella
 * End of the Golden Age of Science fiction
 * Clarke was part of the "Big Three" of science fiction, along with Robert A. Heinlein and Isaac Asimov
 * argument for anti-science fiction; reliance on psi rather than science. Counterargument: science of star drive to Overlord planet is reasonable; marine science of Sullivan's habitat; social science descriptions behind the development of New Athens utopia; speculative "exobiology" of the Overlords and exoplanetology of the Overlord planet
 * See Magill's Guide to Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature for information on technology
 * Howes (1977)

Narrative

 * Postwar era; Cold war tensions; "age of anxiety"
 * Feenberg (1977)
 * "it belongs...to that group of stories in which vastly superior aliens intrude into the affairs of men—a plot having perhaps its widest vogue during the decade or so after World War II...In this instance the Overlords, who possess the form of Satan, terminate the Soviet-American race for the Moon, end the threat of nuclear holocaust, and in fifty years bring about a seeming utopia." (Clareson 1976)
 * Narrative: complicated, ambiguous, unpredictable
 * Howes (1977)
 * Quests (Waugh 1990)
 * Subplot patterns
 * Parallel subplots
 * Ascent and descent
 * Joining of opposites
 * Hoffmann and Schneider
 * Volcano and lake
 * Stormgren
 * UN office building to Duval in the basement
 * Jean
 * Boyce's party to New Athens
 * Jeffrey and Jennifer
 * Jan
 * Centrality of Karellen

Themes

 * Paranormal; main theme (according to Clarke)
 * "Magic" (psi) vs. science (Ouija, precognition vs. advanced technology of the Overlords) power of science vs. human freedom (compared with Brave New World)
 * Colonialism; compare with the British in India, analogous with the Overlords on Earth
 * Posthuman future; future evolution of humanity or ultimate destiny; main theme (according to critics); Stapledon influence; "what is the next stage of human evolution"
 * Disaster (of transcendent evolution)
 * Utopia.
 * Abrash, Merritt. "Utopia Subverted: Unstated Messages in Childhood's End." Extrapolation 30.4 (Winter 1989): 372-379.
 * Živković, Zoran, "Utopia in Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke"
 * Dalgleish (1997)
 * Alien encounter
 * Beatie, Bruce A. "Arthur C. Clarke and the Alien Encounter: The Background of Childhood's End." Extrapolation 30.1 (Spring 1989): 53-69.
 * Father-son theme (George Greggson and his son Jeff). Clarke's father was injured in WWI, having inhaled poison gas in the trenches.  He died at the age of 43 in 1931, when Clarke was 13.  The theme is found throughout Clarke's work, the first being the relationship between Martin Gibson and his son Jimmy in The Sands of Mars (1951).
 * McAleer (1992)
 * Neoteny, humanity as children; extinction of the Homo sapiens species.
 * Honeyman 2004
 * Clarke denies the existence of religious themes; this conflicts with many critics and interpretations (not surprising considering many of them got the story completely wrong in their reviews)
 * For example: David Samuelson and L. David Allen in Clareson 1976. First Samuelson: "we feel the tug of the irrational, in familiar terms. The Overmind clearly parallels the Oversoul, the Great Spirit, and various formulations of God, while the children's metamorphosis neatly ties in with mystical beliefs in Nirvana, 'cosmic consciousness,' and 'becoming as little children to enter the Kingdom of God.'"
 * L. David Allen: "basically, Childhood's End is a religious vision of the way that mankind might develop and the desirability of that direction." (Clareson 1976)
 * Clarke was an atheist at the time he wrote the story and argues against religious vision in the story itself. That something can be unknown or beyond the state of understanding does not necessarily require religion.  Samuelson and Allen can surely find religious symbolism in just about anything, but there is general agreement that the story is structurally coherent.
 * Criticized for too many themes (layer upon layer)

Development

 * Clarke's speculation about the original idea for the novel originating with seeing barrage balloons over London in 1941
 * Expand prologue version changes
 * The idea for the aliens was influenced by John W. Campbell's story, The Mightiest Machine (McAleer 88) first serialized in 1934 and published in book form in 1947.
 * Original short story was written in July 1946; rewritten in 1947. Scott Meredith attempted to sell it, but it was rejected.  Meredith requested a rewrite, which added a different ending.  It was published in Famous Fantastic Mysteries in April 1950.    Clarke expanded the story in February 1952, becoming Part I of the novel. The first draft was completed in December.  By the end of January 1953 he was still revising.  He visited the New York in April 1953, and Ballantine Books bought the novel at the recommendation of Bernard Shir-Cliff, who told them to buy everything Clarke had, including Expedition to Earth and Prelude to Space. (McAleer 89)

Release

 * Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 (Ballantine No. 41) was published after Childhood's End (Ballantine No. 33)?
 * Both cold war critiques? See Feenberg (1977).

Critical reception

 * Add letter from The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume 3: Narnia, Cambridge, and Joy, 1950 – 1963
 * Add negative reviews
 * Durability and popularity
 * Howes (1977)

Derivative works

 * Compared to Vernor Vinge's Marooned in Realtime (1986) (Harris 2002)

Needs sorting

 * Goldman, Stephen H. "Immortal Man and Mortal Overlord: The Case for Intertextuality." Death and the Serpent: Immortality in Science Fiction and Fantasy. Ed. Carl B. Yoke and Donald M. Hassler. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1985. 193-208.
 * Huntington, John. "From Man to Overmind: Arthur C. Clarke's Myth of Progress." Olander and Greenberg 211-22.
 * Menger, Lucy. "The Appeal of Childhood's End." Critical Encounters: Writers and Themes in Science Fiction. Ed. Dick Riley. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1978. 87-108.
 * Samuelson, David. "Childhood's End: A Median Stage of Adolescence?" Olander and Greenberg 196-210.