Childhood Zen

Last week, while reading The Enderby Quartet , I thought that when I had finished those four books, I'd go on to Anthony Burgess' first published work, The Malayan Trilogy. However, when I neared the end of the final book in the quartet ( Endeby's Dark Lady, or No End to Enderby ) I decided to take a slight detour. The final book in the series began to take on elements of science fiction, which put in my mind a desire to read a bit of real sci-fi.

I picked two sci-fi novels by Arthur C. Clarke - Childhood's End and Rendezvous With Rama . I had read these two before, but after nearly 50 years, it was time for a re-read.

When I was first introduced to Childhood's End by word of mouth, I had misheard the title. I was very interested in Eastern Religions at the time and understood the title to be Childhood Zen. That seems to be all I could remember about the book. I remembered that the plot centered around humanity's first encounter with an alien race, but that was all I could recall. Everything in the novel was new to me. It was as if I was reading it for the first time. This made me wonder if my "memory" of having read the book 50 years ago might really have been a false memory.

Childhood's End was published in 1953. Most of the events in the story take place in the 21st Century, fairly close to the present day. Setting aside to encounter with the aliens, it's interesting how Clarke saw our time from 1953. At one point, one of the characters uses a camera with film. Of course, Clarke could not have foreseen digital cameras. Another interesting point is Clarke's discussion of the word "nigger". He predicted that in the 21 Century, that word would have lost all it's destructiveness.... it would be looked upon as just another neutral word. No one would be upset hearing it. We know that isn't the case in today's world. We must all refer to it as the "N-word". Writers who used the word in earlier times are threatened with "cancellation".

Rendezvous With Rama was slightly more familiar to me. Of course, most was forgotten, but certain bits were still in my memory.

Now that I've finished those two ebooks, I'm trying to decide whether I'll go back to Burgess with the The Malayan Trilogy or stick with Clarke for a few more (like 2001: A Space Odyssey, for example). That decision can wait for a bit.