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A review by reasie
Odd John and Sirius by Olaf Stapledon
3.0
File under: historically important, possibly useful for a paper on early SF tropes and what they say about culture.
The interesting thing is that these two novels were written on either side of WWII. The first in the mid-thirties hilariously talks about how there may be war in a decade or so if things don't change. The second came out very near the end of the war and shows a world in which blackout curtains and getting bombed are just the normal every-day things you put up with.
So there's a thesis topic, the way the unthinkable becomes the mundane.
The other thesis topic would be the obsession of early SF authors with eugenics and "supermen" (how relevent to WWII!!) . and how, even a liberal author like this (Liberal by his time's standards... there are frequent "Communism yay!" and "Free love!" mentions) seems to accept the premise of eugenics as valid while perhaps disagreeing about the specifics.
He's not alone. Another golden age novel I read recently imagined a future with kids learning eugenics as a basic school subject.
Odd John twists the eugenics argument by having the 'super men' come from all the worldly races - and in fact wooly hair and broad noses / lips being among the identifying features. Though he falls back on the stereotype that the super-intelligent beings are of fragile health, have long, slender fingers, (one has six fingers on each hand) and large, bulbous heads. And of course there are frequent and disgusting racial stereotypes that the author probably didn't even realize where problematic... I say charitably.
Siris is by far the more readable of the two books, you can tell he's grown as a writer, and the eugenics malarky improves in that the subject is a dog bred by science to man-like intelligence. Though I'll say the book spends more time saying that he provides a view of humanity from the outside than actually showing it.
Sirius' super-intelligence comes from a syrum given to his mother while he was gestating and therefore the traits are not heritable by his children, of whom he has thousands because no one fixes this dog or gets him doggy-condoms.
Sirius also has a sexual relationship with a human woman. It's... I'd say it was delicately handled except it really wasn't. :P
Anyway, both Odd John and Sirius have the journey. They grow and learn and are geniuses, they seek out religion and spirituality as the ultimate thing they can achieve with their great intelligences, and then they are wrongly killed by the misunderstanding masses.
Here's another thesis: the science fiction writer, being almost by course bookish and convinced of his own intelligence, expresses his frustration dealing with people he sees as his intellectual inferiors while they are his power superiors.
The interesting thing is that these two novels were written on either side of WWII. The first in the mid-thirties hilariously talks about how there may be war in a decade or so if things don't change. The second came out very near the end of the war and shows a world in which blackout curtains and getting bombed are just the normal every-day things you put up with.
So there's a thesis topic, the way the unthinkable becomes the mundane.
The other thesis topic would be the obsession of early SF authors with eugenics and "supermen" (how relevent to WWII!!) . and how, even a liberal author like this (Liberal by his time's standards... there are frequent "Communism yay!" and "Free love!" mentions) seems to accept the premise of eugenics as valid while perhaps disagreeing about the specifics.
He's not alone. Another golden age novel I read recently imagined a future with kids learning eugenics as a basic school subject.
Odd John twists the eugenics argument by having the 'super men' come from all the worldly races - and in fact wooly hair and broad noses / lips being among the identifying features. Though he falls back on the stereotype that the super-intelligent beings are of fragile health, have long, slender fingers, (one has six fingers on each hand) and large, bulbous heads. And of course there are frequent and disgusting racial stereotypes that the author probably didn't even realize where problematic... I say charitably.
Siris is by far the more readable of the two books, you can tell he's grown as a writer, and the eugenics malarky improves in that the subject is a dog bred by science to man-like intelligence. Though I'll say the book spends more time saying that he provides a view of humanity from the outside than actually showing it.
Sirius' super-intelligence comes from a syrum given to his mother while he was gestating and therefore the traits are not heritable by his children, of whom he has thousands because no one fixes this dog or gets him doggy-condoms.
Sirius also has a sexual relationship with a human woman. It's... I'd say it was delicately handled except it really wasn't. :P
Anyway, both Odd John and Sirius have the journey. They grow and learn and are geniuses, they seek out religion and spirituality as the ultimate thing they can achieve with their great intelligences, and then they are wrongly killed by the misunderstanding masses.
Here's another thesis: the science fiction writer, being almost by course bookish and convinced of his own intelligence, expresses his frustration dealing with people he sees as his intellectual inferiors while they are his power superiors.