Good Reads
From My Personal Bookshelf: The City and The Stars
If I were writing these Good Read posts chronologically, this would have to be my first book. I read it as a kid, and to this day, I just adore this story. I think it’s at least partly responsible for some of my adventures I’ve taken, both within myself and in the world at large.
The Book: The City and The Stars by Arthur C. Clarke, 1956
From Amazon:
This grand space adventure explores the fate of humanity a billion years in the future— A visionary classic by one of science fiction’s greatest minds.
Far in the future, Earth’s oceans have evaporated and humanity has all but vanished. The inhabitants of Diaspar believe their domed city is all that remains of an empire that had once conquered the stars. Inside the dome, the citizens live in technological splendor, free from the distractions of aging and disease. Everything is controlled precisely, just as the city’s designers had intended.
But a boy named Alvin, unlike his fellow humans, shows an insatiable—and dangerous—curiosity about the world outside the dome. His questions will send him on a quest to discover the truth about the city and humanity’s history—as well as its future.
A masterful and awe-inspiring work of imagination, The City and the Stars is considered one of Arthur C. Clarke’s finest novels.
I spent years (before the internet) tracking down this book. I wanted a copy for my own.
I believe I read this book ‘the summer there wasn’t a summer’. This would have been after sixth grade had ended and my (highly alcoholic, insane and dysfunctional) mother forbid me from having any friends. I, apparently, was not worthy. The summer stretched endlessly before me as my soon-to-be-former-friends swam and laughed and went to camp. And I wouldn’t be joining them.
That was the summer I discovered the library.
I’d ride my bike to the library and lose myself in the stacks. One of my favorite sections was sci-fi where I discovered all sorts of prescient and entertaining authors, and my mind went to a wider world, away from the hurt in my own.
The City and The Stars (perhaps my favorite book ever) is a story of two societies, separated by millennia of lies.
One society, Diaspar, is a technological marvel where everything is instantly available, people project their images rather than meet in person, and the sole focus of each citizen is self pleasure. (Hmmm…I think there’s a metaphor in here somewhere)
After a suitably long lifespan, each person edits their memories and returns to the central computer where they’ll be technologically re-incarnated at some future date. In this way, the population mix in Diaspar changes, but the society never does.
It’s a society of homgeneity. Everyone shares the same matrix of fear and fun. There is pleasure within the safety of the dome that surrounds the city. But outside, well no one would ever want to leave Diaspar!
The other city in this story, Lys, has an agricultural and intellectual ethos. People communicate telepathically. At the end of a long lifetime, they simply pass away. It’s a society that meshes heart, brain, body and soul. They value their humanity.
Alvin, however, is a Unique. He is “born” from the central computer into Diaspar. Uniques have never existed before; they enter the world without any preprogrammed societal knowledge, preferences or fears.
The creators of Diaspar created the Uniques as agents of change. They would periodically appear. Most quietly disappeared. But no one really noticed. The citizens of Diaspar were wrapped up in their own version of reality.
Diasapar bored Alvin. Why was everyone so content with the safety of the status quo? He was inextricably drawn to adventure. What else existed in the world and where might he find it?
In the story, Alvin discovers a long abandoned underground transport system. He has no choice. He has to explore. He jumps in a transport with “Lys” glowing above the doors. And his adventure begins.
Not to give too much away, Alvin’s lack of social compliance, his curiosity and his need for adventure changes the world.
I guess you could say I identify with so many aspects of Alvin. I identify with his isolation. I identify with his feeling so apart from his peers. I LOVE his sense of adventure.
Adventure was part of my young life too. My family traveled a great deal (I once tried to count how many times I’d been to Paris and I think I gave up somewhere around 37 or 47…I no longer recall).
It was a different time, and my parents were definitely not helicopter parents. As a result, I often wandered and got lost in unfamiliar places.
My cousin once abandoned me on a French beach. I’d never been there before and I had no way of knowing which way was home.
I was quite young-maybe eight or so?- and I had to figure things out. I did’t speak French. I had no map or money. But I had to find my way back to the villa on the hillside.
Being lost was scary, but it was also an adventure. I knew I had to go uphill, away from the water. So I did. Past houses, onto streets I’d never walked. I knew at some point I had to cross a small highway. So I did. When I spied the place with the fabulous gelato, I knew I had found the right road. And up the hill, beyond the stucco wall and gate, was the house, overlooking the Mediterranean.
I got turned around in the ancient tunnels of Villefranche-Sur-Mer. I ended up in a part of Paris I’d never seen before. The list goes on.
And I would go on to get ‘lost’ many times in my adult life too.
I survived it all and in doing so, I learned that being lost isn’t all that terrifying. It’s just a pause where the familiar gives way to a new direction and somehow it’ll all work out.
As I look back at my early years, it’s no surprise that this book spoke to me so strongly. And unbeknownst to me at the time, it quietly reinforced my own experience that adventure may have its ups and downs, but adventure is what it’s all about! Push against the invisible norms; ask questions; make up your own mind! Most of all, follow your intuition.
Today, approaching my seventh decade (how did that happen?) I am so grateful for my curiosity. It’s led me to remarkable places and adventures that seem like the stuff of a novel. Who knows? Maybe it will be.
In the meantime, The City and The Stars is an absolute must-read.