Well...looks like I solved my own problem here.
Turns out there's a DBMS package call DBMS_LOB. See below for description

The Function to translate CLOB datatype into varchar() is DBMS_LOB
The DBMS_LOB package provides subprograms to operate on BLOBs, CLOBs, NCLOBs, BFILEs, and temporary LOBs. You can use DBMS_LOB to access and manipulation specific parts of a LOB or complete LOBs. DBMS_LOB can read and modify BLOBs, CLOBs, and NCLOBs; it provides read-only operations for BFILEs.

Here is the syntax you might want to use for your requirement:

Syntax:
DBMS_LOB.SUBSTR (lob_loc, amount, offset)

Parameter Description
lob_loc: Locator for the LOB to be read i.e CLOB column name.
amount: Number of bytes (for BLOBs) or characters (for CLOBs) to be read.
offset: Offset in bytes (for BLOBs) or characters (for CLOBs) from the start of the LOB (origin: 1).

Example:

CREATE OR REPLACE VIEW temp_view
AS
SELECT
column1, -- datatype numeric
column2, -- datatype varchar()
DBMS_LOB.SUBSTR(column3, 2000,1) as column3, -- datatype CLOB
column4 -- datatype numeric
FROM temp_table;

Note: In this example I am reading first 2000 charactres.


Well, there you go.
Thanks to Tom Chen and Rakesh Dudhia for this info.