There is definitely something useful about the clean slate created by sleep, yes. Sometimes I think that if I didn't have to sleep, my life would be an endless series of OCD-based context switches and a constant battle against, or for, the switching.
For example, many times I've embarked on music mixing projects and only stopped working on them because it's hit 5:00am and my body has started a full-scale invasion after the economic sanctions failed to unseat my brain. If that never happened, I'd just keep on mixing ... probably forgetting about everything except urination breaks ... for five or six days.
I don't think that would be a good thing. :D
As for Clarke's misogyny ... I hit that observation quite a while ago. It's really not subtle. I think the first major ping on my radar was "The Road To The Sea", from 1951. (The longest short story he ever wrote, closely followed by "A Meeting With Medusa", which I haven't read yet.) I might be mistaken, but, if memory serves, it may also be the first time Clarke ever wrote a speaking role for a female character.
The first third of the story is dominated by a crude love triangle that goes nowhere, and the young woman in the story is not so much a person as she is a patchwork of reactionary stereotypes defined in contrast to the two young men pursuing her. (Sadly, even that portrayal turned out to be a lot better than the dreck he came up with later.)
There's actually a large chunk of autobiography in "The Road To The Sea", now that I think about it. I don't know why it didn't leap out before.
The protagonist of the story is a young man who is more thoughtful and curious than his rival in the love triangle, and also less physically able and less interested in his community's "normal" pursuits. He obsesses for a while over beating the other guy in order to "win" the woman, then goes on a long journey and gets distracted by the mysteries of the world beyond his village. The woman, and his rival, are completely forgotten.
Why write about the love triangle at all, unless he's expressing something personal? Why waste the words?
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Date: 2014-08-27 01:36 am (UTC)For example, many times I've embarked on music mixing projects and only stopped working on them because it's hit 5:00am and my body has started a full-scale invasion after the economic sanctions failed to unseat my brain. If that never happened, I'd just keep on mixing ... probably forgetting about everything except urination breaks ... for five or six days.
I don't think that would be a good thing. :D
As for Clarke's misogyny ... I hit that observation quite a while ago. It's really not subtle. I think the first major ping on my radar was "The Road To The Sea", from 1951. (The longest short story he ever wrote, closely followed by "A Meeting With Medusa", which I haven't read yet.) I might be mistaken, but, if memory serves, it may also be the first time Clarke ever wrote a speaking role for a female character.
The first third of the story is dominated by a crude love triangle that goes nowhere, and the young woman in the story is not so much a person as she is a patchwork of reactionary stereotypes defined in contrast to the two young men pursuing her. (Sadly, even that portrayal turned out to be a lot better than the dreck he came up with later.)
There's actually a large chunk of autobiography in "The Road To The Sea", now that I think about it. I don't know why it didn't leap out before.
The protagonist of the story is a young man who is more thoughtful and curious than his rival in the love triangle, and also less physically able and less interested in his community's "normal" pursuits. He obsesses for a while over beating the other guy in order to "win" the woman, then goes on a long journey and gets distracted by the mysteries of the world beyond his village. The woman, and his rival, are completely forgotten.
Why write about the love triangle at all, unless he's expressing something personal? Why waste the words?