From: steve (steve365@btinternet.com)
Date: Thu Feb 28 2002 - 11:59:59 MST
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Clark" <jonkc@worldnet.att.net>
To: <extropians@extropy.org>
Sent: Thursday, February 28, 2002 3:42 PM
Subject: Re: Movie: Childhood's End
> G.P. <gdotpdot@usa.net> Wrote:
>
> > "The City and the Stars" may have been re-written but I may
> >have it wrong.
>
> Actually Clarke re-wrote his first novel from the mid 40's "Against
> The Fall of Night" in the mid 50's and called it "The City And The Stars".
> I enjoyed them both but even as a kid I wondered why the author went
> on and on about how life was so terrible in the City ("Despair" I think
was
> the name of the city or close to it). True the city wasn't perfect but I
> can think of worse places to live, immortality is better than a poke in
> the eye with a sharp stick anyway. I didn't like the "happy" ending when
> people started to die again either.
>
> John K Clark jonkc@att.net
I must say that's not how I remember it. As I recall life in Diaspar was
presented as being very good, enormously pleasurable in many ways, but
futile. The alternative society (Lys) was seen as strong where Diaspar was
weak but having its own flaws. Apparently Clark was moved to write/rewrite
the book as a comment on the cultural/psychological split between city and
country. Steve Davies
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