Farewell, Sir Arthur
Arthur C. Clarke died today (actually "tomorrow" in Sri Lanka where he has lived for 52 years). Strangely I was wondering only this past week if he was still about but the departure of the man who predicted geosynchronous satellites twenty years before the 1965 launch of Early Bird (Intelsat I) and who collaborated with Stanley Kubrick on 2001: A Space Odyssey was unlikely to be a small ripple. A quick glance at my bookshelf tells me I own about twenty books of Clarke's but I think more remain on the "to follow" shelf in my family's house in Ireland.
Although most renowned for The Sentinel/2001, Childhood's End and Against The Fall Of Night, I would urge someone who has never read Clarke to seek out first his short stories in collections like The Other Side of the Sky, The Wind From The Sun and Tales From Ten Worlds. He had a few weaker works, particularly his later collaborations such as Cradle which I felt were a vehicle more for his co-authors than representative of the solo writing of earlier times, and the 2001 series dwindled with the last two volumes in particular.
For how many years will people shudder at the thought of man's interference with one of Jupiter's moons - "all these worlds are yours - except Europa. Attempt no landings there" and how fascinated were so many of us with the Eye of Iapetus which Voyager 1 blurrily hinted at until Cassini laid it finally to rest with its superior images.
Here is Clarke's 90th birthday broadcast, where at the end he quotes Kipling:
"If I have given you delight with all that I have done, let me lie quiet in that night which shall be yours anon. And for the little, little span the dead are borne in mind, seek not to question other than the books I leave behind."
Although most renowned for The Sentinel/2001, Childhood's End and Against The Fall Of Night, I would urge someone who has never read Clarke to seek out first his short stories in collections like The Other Side of the Sky, The Wind From The Sun and Tales From Ten Worlds. He had a few weaker works, particularly his later collaborations such as Cradle which I felt were a vehicle more for his co-authors than representative of the solo writing of earlier times, and the 2001 series dwindled with the last two volumes in particular.
For how many years will people shudder at the thought of man's interference with one of Jupiter's moons - "all these worlds are yours - except Europa. Attempt no landings there" and how fascinated were so many of us with the Eye of Iapetus which Voyager 1 blurrily hinted at until Cassini laid it finally to rest with its superior images.
Here is Clarke's 90th birthday broadcast, where at the end he quotes Kipling:
"If I have given you delight with all that I have done, let me lie quiet in that night which shall be yours anon. And for the little, little span the dead are borne in mind, seek not to question other than the books I leave behind."
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"There can be no reasonable doubt: the ancient mystery solved at last. Yet, oh God, there were so many stars you could have used. What was the need to give these people to the fire, that the symbol of their passing might shine above Bethlehem?"
Arthur Schopenhauer said “To read is to think with somebody else’s mind.” It’s a nice idea, but it takes a very good writer to bring it off. Arthur C Clarke, who died recently, was one such writer.
With typical prescience Sir Arthur said goodbye to his fans at Christmas. It’s pleasing to say that he kept his wits, sense of humour and his distinct Somerset accent - intact to the end.
Many tributes have been written about him, and many words have been spent discussing the Clarke ego and sexuality. All I knew of him was what I learned from his books.
Margaret Attwood said that the Golden Age of Science Fiction is fourteen. If you are going to be an SF fan, that’s when you find out, the age when it changes you forever. That was true for me. And it was the writings of ACC that did it.
What a delight it was, to visit the village library after school and discover another of those yellow Gollanz Science Fiction volumes. Before Victor Gollanz got SF between hard covers, it was not respectable reading material.
ACC, at his best, in a collection like ‘The Other Side of the Sky’ was a master of the Science Fiction short story. ACC made it seem so effortless that, later, I was dismayed to discover that a lot of other writers didn’t come close. In his hands the SF short story could be polished, memorable and beautiful.
Many of his stories, as was usual in the SF of that era, came with a twist ending. ‘The Nine Billion Names of God’ is one of the best known. In this story Tibetan monks have been engaged for centuries in a search for the ultimate - correct name of God, the quest involves writing out all possible words that may be derived from combinations of characters in a special alphabet. After soldiering on for centuries using pen and parchment, technology becomes available and the monks buy a computer and printer to quickly hash through all the remaining word combinations.
In the story we follow along with a couple of techies who are the site support for the machine. One of them has discovered that it is the belief of the monks, that once all possible names have been written down, man’s purpose will be complete. They decide to leave before the machine has made it all the way to letter combination nine billion, and as they journey down a dusty mountain road – well let ACC tell it his way:
‘Look ,’ whispered Chuck, and George lifted his eyes to heaven. (There is always a last time for everything)
Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out.
I know this story very well and the punch line is no surprise, but getting there is so much fun. It’s like anticipating a memorable chord in a favourite song, I know its coming and I enjoy it all the more. And what a note to close a story on!
The narrative has taken us from the mundane here and now, - a computer factory in Manhattan, via a monastery on the side of a Tibetan mountain, to a universe where a rather petulant god can, at will, terminate the whole of creation. Not a bad trip, thanks to a man equipped only with a typewriter and a few sheets of A4.
Now if Schopenhauer is right, and you’ve read all these words, you too will have got to think, just for a moment, with the mind of ACC. That fact that he’s dead and gone matters not. A little part of his conscious just had a moment inside your head.
Now he’s been inside my head quite a bit longer, so I guess there’s more of him in there to contemplate that idea – and you can take it from me – he’s absolutely delighted with the notion.
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:)
Student of Toronto college