Stapledon's works have inspired me to no end. He is brilliant and visionary. I humbly believe if his works were written now, they would still be ahead of their time. Now, as to the following:
1. fsiekfen: "Even so I'd like to believe Stapledon really was traveling among the stars 'in some way', also his description of the out of body experience is oddly similar to credible accounts later in the 20th century and might be autobiographical but if not could be explained by him reading earlier accounts of this psychological effect."
2. nkoren: "Still, like you, I do like to imagine that Stapledon tapped into something that was somehow beyond the ordinary. I don't feel like speculating beyond that, but however he did it, Star Maker is an extraordinary book."
The two of you and others I assume, might be curious to know about "The Opening of The Eyes" (there used to be an online version here (http://olafstapledonarchive.webs.com/openingoftheeyes_index....) but it's down now. If you like, I could make the .mobi file I created available somewhere from the various parts.
Not commonly known, as far as I can tell, even among Stapledon fans. It was published posthumously by his wife and is written in the first person. Essentially, it's an essay by him to his "creator". I won't comment on what that entails; hopefully his work speaks for itself. But within that story he mentions this - the exact quote:
"Long ago (it was while I was scrambling on a rugged coast, where great waves broke in blossom on the rocks) I had a sudden fantasy of man's whole future, aeon upon aeon of strange vicissitudes and gallant endeavours in world after world, seeking a glory never clearly conceived, often betrayed, but little by little revealed."
It says... something. I'm not sure what. Either way, the piece is a powerful expose on the author. You get to see a lot into his mindset, and even into the challenges he faced in relation to his proposed philosophies. Some interesting commentary on Christianity as well, among others.
But in the end, I guess you get the feeling there's more to him than simple imaginative power. The concept of "fiction as cover for non-fiction (so people will read your stuff without calling you a lunatic) tends to crop up in some of his works too. Either way, his works are nothing short of incredible.
hi cosmicadvocate, thanks so much for your comment! I've been wondering years about his worldview as I recognized much of it from my own questions and answers. If only he'd be alive!
The link is fortunately still present in the internet archive, but if you have a mobi version handy that would be nice for offline reading on my ipad kindle app. You can sent it to fsieFKen at gmail.
There is more to him then simple creativity, he was an academic philosopher and romantic, yearning for the spiritual and his mystic side really shows in this book.
There is some similarity with other writers like the dutch Frederik van Eeden (psychiatrist) and his book "The Deeps of Deliverance", Herman Hesse, Kahlil Gibran and Dostojevski.
"Olaf Stapledon married Agnes Zena Miller, a first cousin from Australia, on July 16, 1919, at Friends Meeting House, a Quaker establishment at Reigate, Surrey. Agnes, the oldest of four children, was born in New Zealand on May 25, 1894, the daughter of Frank Edward and Margaret Barnard Miller. Frank was a brother of Olaf's mother, Margaret the daughter of Charles Barnard, headmaster of a Quaker school in Yorkshire..." Stapledon spent four years in the Friends Quaker Ambulance Corps. "Although he was involved with socialist groups and contributed some articles to leftist journals, Stapledon's earliest literary aspirations were poetic. His first book was Latter-Day Psalms, published in 1914 by Henry Young and Sons, Ltd., of Liverpool." Stapledon's writing reflected intense wrestling with concepts of God and faith.
Also: Olaf's agnosticism also derived from his parents. His father apparently subscribed to no sect at all, so any direct religious influence would therefore have had to come from his mother. She was a Unitarian... In his mature years Stapledon denied that he was a Christian, although the increasing strain of mysticism in his work from the 1940's on indicated a deep-rooted sense of religiosity. [Source: Olaf Stapledon: The Man Behind the Works, by Sam Moskowitz.]
http://www.adherents.com/people/ps/Olaf_Stapledon.html
There is more to him then simple creativity, he was an academic philosopher and romantic, yearning for the spiritual and his mystic side really shows in this book.
I know! I rushed a bit there, but one of things I cherish about Stapledon is his devotion to the nuance of the intangible, the senses, the "spirit" to which he so often refers. Perhaps one of his crowning contributions is that he melds embracing reality as it is and the essence of worship; it's so rare to find the two in the same place, I've found. Maybe I haven't search enough, and will take a trip through some of your suggestions, so thank you. And that link - an interesting site! Thank you for that as well.
For me, for what it's worth, I had spent years searching for something I couldn't quite place, and once I found him, realized it was this tremendous sense of scope, our littleness and such sensitivity to thought and creativity. At time he's so rich in descriptiveness a break helps, sure, and then you pick up again where you left off.
Stapledon's works have inspired me to no end. He is brilliant and visionary. I humbly believe if his works were written now, they would still be ahead of their time. Now, as to the following:
1. fsiekfen: "Even so I'd like to believe Stapledon really was traveling among the stars 'in some way', also his description of the out of body experience is oddly similar to credible accounts later in the 20th century and might be autobiographical but if not could be explained by him reading earlier accounts of this psychological effect."
2. nkoren: "Still, like you, I do like to imagine that Stapledon tapped into something that was somehow beyond the ordinary. I don't feel like speculating beyond that, but however he did it, Star Maker is an extraordinary book."
The two of you and others I assume, might be curious to know about "The Opening of The Eyes" (there used to be an online version here (http://olafstapledonarchive.webs.com/openingoftheeyes_index....) but it's down now. If you like, I could make the .mobi file I created available somewhere from the various parts.
Not commonly known, as far as I can tell, even among Stapledon fans. It was published posthumously by his wife and is written in the first person. Essentially, it's an essay by him to his "creator". I won't comment on what that entails; hopefully his work speaks for itself. But within that story he mentions this - the exact quote:
"Long ago (it was while I was scrambling on a rugged coast, where great waves broke in blossom on the rocks) I had a sudden fantasy of man's whole future, aeon upon aeon of strange vicissitudes and gallant endeavours in world after world, seeking a glory never clearly conceived, often betrayed, but little by little revealed."
It says... something. I'm not sure what. Either way, the piece is a powerful expose on the author. You get to see a lot into his mindset, and even into the challenges he faced in relation to his proposed philosophies. Some interesting commentary on Christianity as well, among others.
But in the end, I guess you get the feeling there's more to him than simple imaginative power. The concept of "fiction as cover for non-fiction (so people will read your stuff without calling you a lunatic) tends to crop up in some of his works too. Either way, his works are nothing short of incredible.
Cheers