Cabell reference in science fiction story

I knew of Robert Heinlein's longstanding interest in and emulation of Cabell, but I just stumbled across a reference from one of the other writers once classed among the "Big Three" of science fiction.

In the 1949 story "Breaking Strain" (first published in Amazing Wonder Stories as "Thirty Seconds--Thirty Days") Arthur C. Clarke partly defines the moral sensibility of a main character by remarking that he is an avid reader of Cabell:

"The engineer had a large library of microfilm books, for he read widely and his range of interests was unusual. His favorite book, Grant knew, was Jurgen and perhaps even now he was trying to forget his doom by losing himself in its strange magic." (The Sentinel, 118)

While my familiarity with Clarke is not from recent reading, nor was it ever particularly deep, still I would not have picked him for someone likely to make a Cabell reference.

In 1949, this was hardly an "of the moment" allusion.

>2 elenchus: In 1949, this was hardly an "of the moment" allusion.

My thought exactly.

Good eye...

Looking back on the quote, I wonder if Clarke meant it as an implication Jurgen was not serious literature, useful only as escapist reading: "perhaps even now he was trying to forget his doom by losing himself".

A quick online search reveals that Heinlein and Clarke were friendly until a famous "spat" over SDI in the 1980s. Perhaps Clarke in 1949 simply took a good-natured dig at Heinlein's admiration for Cabell. But this take assumes both that Clarke knew about it, and didn't himself admire Cabell.

The crux of the Clarke story is the moral contrast between the two characters, pilot Grant and engineer McNeil. While it's true that Grant would (at least at that point in the story) view Cabell reader McNeil as an escapist, with Jurgen as a stigma thereof, the story ultimately makes it clear that McNeil's moral sensibility is more layered and complex than that of Grant, and I suspect that the reference to Cabell is meant in both registers.

I don't know when Clarke and Heinlein became friends, but it's possible that Clarke had picked up an interest in Cabell from enthusiast Heinlein. Not the reverse, though. It's well established that Heinlein was a Cabell fan long before he became a science fiction writer.

In 1949, trans-Atlantic travel was expensive and neither Heinlein nor Clarke was a rich man. Without double-checking, I doubt that the two had met, although they did of course know of each other. Clarke had just been a published writer for a couple of years, though. So it's highly unlikely that they were "friends", but quite possibly they had exchanged letters.

The story has a wikipedia article dedicated to it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaking_Strain

It was also adapted to cinema: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108380/

Thanks for the link to this thread, paradox! In my estimation, Arthur C. Clarke deserves his own thread, so you did good finding that reference. Can't believe I didn't beat you to it, being such an admirer of his work, and especially of his short stories and the earlier novels he wrote that weren't collaborations with other writers. Hadn't read "Breaking Strain" in decades, long before I knew about JBC. Terrific find.

I ran across this reference to the Henry Kuttner & C.L. Moore story "The Children's Hour" (1944)

-"The Children's Hour" is full of connections to other SF literature. Charles Fort and James Branch Cabell are mentioned, and a scene in Alice in Wonderland is referred to (Kuttner and Moore's most famous story, "Mimsy were the Borogoves," prominently features Lewis Carroll). I wondered if the talk of cubes and tesseracts in "The Children's Hour" was influenced by Heinlein's "--And He Built a Crooked House--," which had appeared in Astounding three years earlier, or if Heinlein and Kuttner and Moore were just drawing on the same source material. -

http://mporcius.blogspot.com/2015/05/four-stories-by-henry-kuttner-c-l-moore.htm...

Edit: I found that reference at https://dmrbooks.com/test-blog/2019/4/17/forefathers-of-sword-and-sorcery-james-...