Little Freak and Mandog | Odd John and Sirius | William Olaf Stapledon, Olaf Stapledon

The Overman Cometh | Odd John and Sirius | William Olaf Stapledon, Olaf Stapledon

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	• Odd John and Sirius William Olaf Stapledon, Olaf Stapledon Dover Publications, 1972 - 309 pages average customer review:based on 18 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Stapledon's Parallel Lives.

The editors of this volume have had a brilliant idea; both stories may be read as a pair of Plutarch's "Parallel Lives".
They have many traits in common. It is very interesting for the reader to see the author's evolution on some considerations about humankind in a 9 years span.

Olaf Stapledon (1886-1950) is believed to be the generational link between H. G. Wells (with whom he corresponded) and more recent British sci-fi authors as Arthur C. Clark (who recognizes Stapledon's influence on his "Childhood's End").

Born in England, spent his infancy at Port Said, absorbing the influence of the multicultural environment. He was a conscientious-objector but served as ambulance driver in WWI. In 1925 he was awarded with a Ph.D. in Philosophy and this is clearly perceptible in his novels.
He had a powerful imagination and humanistic, scientific and philosophical interests that he poured in his four major opus: "Last an First Men" (1930), "Odd John" (1935), "Star Maker" (1937) and "Sirius" (1944).

I'll comment each novel in particular and try to draw a parallel between them.

Odd John.
The present story follows the life and deeds of a Super Human. He is the product of an evolutionary jump and graced with super human intelligence.
This intelligence needs time to evolve and grow, so John maintain infant characteristic by a longer period than normal.
He is in permanent conflict with his surroundings, mastering them is a hard task. In order to receive help he recruits/bewitch a family's friend, who is the narrator in this novel.
John grows up and discovers he is not alone; there are other specimens of Homo Superior around the world. He sets out to search and recruit them for a unique project: establishing a Colony of his kind.

Stapledon use the different anecdotes to illustrate his reflections about human kind, religion, politic, justice, ethic and more, many more subjects of transcendence.

Sirius.
This novel follows the life and deeds of a Super Dog. He is the product of a biological experiment and was gifted with a human equivalent intelligence.
He is raised as a step-son in his creator's family and develops a very intimate relation with Plaxy the younger daughter of Dr. Thomas Trelone.
Sirius' career comprises being a super sheepdog, wild wolf, laboratory subject, farmer and investigator.
There is one central issue that traverses the whole narration: Sirius' uniqueness and solitude. He is a Dog in Man's universe, a Wolf in Monkey-land. He goes from alert inquisitiveness to deep dark depression and back. A melancholic air is always present until the unavoidable tragic ending.

Parallel.
Two extraordinary creatures are examined in detail from birth to death.
Both of them are immersed in an alien environment, no "equals" are around. They are raised by well-meaning people but still not of their "class".
Sirius and John are compelled to kill a human forced by circumstances. Stapledon use these events to generate a deep cogitation about self defense and its limits.
Both characters observe humankind from an outsider's look and pass judgment on many significant issues.
Sirius and in a lesser way John are doomed by loneliness.
The two novels are constructed as a tragedy; no matter what the protagonists do they are doomed.

It is thought provoking double volume and deserves to be present in every sci-fi fan's collection.

Reviewed by Max Yofre.

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Little Freak and Mandog

Olaf Stapledon was a visionary philosopher who utilized archetypal science fictional concepts, in the 1930s and 1940s, to comment brilliantly and movingly on the human condition. While Stapledon cannot be easily categorized as "sci-fi," he has had a wide, but currently unappreciated, influence on the field. His profound influence on Arthur C. Clarke and Ray Bradbury is quite obvious, and sci-fi historians will probably recognize Stapledon's wide-ranging influence immediately. This particular volume collects two novels with a related theme - the destruction of intelligence and dignity by an uncomprehending and hostile society. These stories are brilliantly written and astonishingly insightful, and are highly recommended for both sci-fi fans with a historical interest, and lovers of deeply philosophical literature.

"Odd John" (1935) is a fascinating, though sometimes overly talky, tale of a weird misfit kid with strange physical powers and cosmic thought processes. Eventually John learns to harness his powers for great personal achievement, and to communicate telepathically with others of his kind around the world. John and his brethren are not mutant freaks as they appear on the surface, but the next step in human evolution (a premise borrowed directly by Clarke for "Childhood's End"). John organizes his superhumans on an island colony dedicated to scientific and philosophical research for the betterment of society. Unfortunately, the reaction they face from unenlightened old-style humans is both tragically sad and tragically predictable, allowing Stapledon to comment harshly on humanity's hatred of nonconformity and inherent backwardness.

"Sirius" (1944) is the stronger of the two novels here, and its display of writing skill will amaze the reader. The story has a premise that soon became overused - a scientist hopes to engineer an advanced human, and in the course of his research creates a super-intelligent dog. You may find this to be cheesy comic book material, but Stapledon takes this simplistic premise to astonishingly philosophical lengths. With his human intelligence, Sirius faces human emotional challenges while also trying to cope with his wild canine side, finding himself unable to fully fit into either realm. Stapledon works wonders with an intelligent dog's potential thoughts and interests, with highly enjoyable examinations of what a dog would think about things like music, art, and religion. And through the eyes of a dog (the classic "outside observer" method), Stapledon mercilessly skewers the weaknesses of human society, turning a simple tale of a smart dog into a philosophical powerhouse. The conclusion of this story is also tragically predictable, and crushingly sad as well. Olaf Stapledon was a skilled and visionary writer with strengths that will open the minds of fans from any literary genre. [~doomsdayer520~]

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The Overman Cometh

Olaf Stapledon is one of the founding figures of modern science fiction. His books explored a lot of topics that would later be expanded upon and explored by others. I won't say he was the father of science fiction, first because he was preceded by several others, including H. G. Wells, Jules Verne and Mary Shelley, second because the title is a bit overused anyway. But his was a powerful and unique voice. Although I haven't read it myself (yet), from what I know, his Last and First Men is a book still unequaled in scope and subject matter almost a century later.

But moving from the book to the author, Odd John is the story of a superhuman, and finally of a super-race, emerging from among us. From the start, the book reminds me of what C.S. Lewis said regarding most depictions of the superhuman in science fiction, that the author presents something significantly less than human and tries to make up for it by giving this being an over-sized brain or wings or tentacles. (Unfortunately, I can't find the source or exact quote right now.)

Odd John and his fellows (when he finally finds them) treat human beings and most of our standards with utter contempt, killing ordinary humans without any compunction or remorse if it suits their purposes. Their focus is solely on founding their new race and achieving some sort of (terribly vague) spiritual transcendence.

Perhaps I'm just being a wishy-washy bleeding heart here, but I believe if some kind of inherently superior humanity were to appear, it would first show it's superiority by doing its utmost to raise up the rest of us, not casting us aside like trash.

That aside, this book is fascinating and definitely worth reading. Like I said, Stapledon lays down many of the common themes of later science fiction. He also presents a version of time travel I haven't seen anyone else write about (or at least very rarely, and with no significant depth.)

Finally the writing itself has a unique texture to it. It doesn't have the character depth and intricate storylines of today's s.f., but it also doesn't have the pulp style almost ubiquitous in other early 20th century s.f. (early Asimov and Bradbury, for instance.)

My final evaluation: Pick the book up, but please don't subscribe to his version of utopia.

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superhuman

In this pair of novels Stapledon treats two related sci-fi ideas: a mutant superman, and an animal endowed with human intelligence. In both cases he completely avoids the comic-book approach and instead focuses on the philsophical implications. How would humanity appear to an intelligent (or super-intelligent) outsider?

ODD JOHN is the weaker of the two. As in LAST AND FIRST MEN and STAR MAKER, Stapledon is playing with ideas rather than sticking with one throughout, and in particular he seems trapped between two points of view. On the one hand he treats ODD JOHN as his ideal and frequently uses him as his spokesman, discussing issues of the day. On the other hand, Stapledon (writing in the 1930s) apparently foresaw some of the horror that results when a powerful person decides that he belongs to a "master race": Odd John kills at least 2 people who are in his way and feels that he is justified in doing so. To me, at least, the two sides never quite reconcile.

A warning about two things that date the book. Although he satirizes racism ("Amazing, they think someone ELSE if inferior!") Stapledon uses the N-word to describe an African superman, without seeming to realize that it would be offensive. Also he tells us that Odd John violated a sexual taboo, but that censorship won't let him what it was. To a 2010 reader this is just confusing and a hole in the novel.

SIRIUS is almost without flaw, as it describes the psychology of its unique protagonist. Sirius is terribly alone; he cannot identify with either humans, most of whom cosider him a freak, or with fellow dogs with whom he cannot communicate. His animal senses (particularly smell) gives him sensations for which English (his only language) has no words; on the other hand his vision is impaired compared to any humans'. His potential for cruelty, which would be normal in a dog, frightens him. He has vague religious yearnings to which his technocratic human friends are unsympathetic.

Censorship was apparently not a problem here: Stapledon is able to discuss homosexuality and some other sexual matters, and even has a daring joke in which Plaxy, Sirius' closest human friend, tells Sirius that "I'm your loving b**ch". The one awkward thing in the book is the narrative point of view: it is narrated by Robert, the man who marries Plaxy after Sirius' death. He not only has to piece the story together, but even quotes conversations where people talk disparagingly about Robert himself! Stapledon apparently could not dispense with his customary talkative narrator.

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Visionary!

W.O.S. is the writer that so many contemporary writers emulate without even knowing it. I make it a point to re-read his Last and First Men every 3 years to catch up on his accuracy of prediction. Jules Verne had nothing on this man.

Two great novels: definitive fictionalization of mutated superman and an alien intelligence finds himself in an all too "human" world.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

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