"Olaf Stapledon - Bio" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stapledon Olaf)

the Friends Quaker Ambulance Corps. His introduction acknowledges this: "The last section of
the chapter on the war, though it makes use to some extent of personal experience, is none the
less fiction." The action in this chapter is undoubtedly fiction in great part, but the detailed
description of the Corps’ origin, the type of people in it, and the general nature of its work is
unquestionably authentic.
Stapledon tells how the Corps was formed by Quakers, who are by religion pacifists, as an
acceptable alternative to conscription into the army. To this corps came, in addition, those
pretending to be pacifists and those ineligible for conscription who would have preferred combat.
The pervasive guilt of some who were part of the unit and the ambivalent attitude of the
populace, which treated its members as either contemptible cowards or as men doing much good,
are comprehensively and sympathetically treated.
The army regarded the Friends Quaker Ambulance Corps as an unnecessary appendage, and
its members were not trusted in combat areas. They conveyed wounded men and did whatever
else they could well behind the battle lines. There were often long periods of inaction during
which the men of their own volition cleaned and polished the equipment to standards beyond
anything the army would have expected. During some of the great battles, when casualties were
enormous, the efficiency and tireless action of the corps won grudging approval from the French
unit to which it was attached. Members were outfitted in officer-type uniforms with large red
crosses on the arms, and although the ethical question was raised as to whether this made them
part of the military, they generally accepted all discipline, issue, methodology, and honors meted
out. Because they did not flaunt their pacifism and merged as much as permitted with the war
effort, they experienced comparatively little discrimination, although throughout the war and
afterward many carried grave personal doubts as to whether they had evaded combat duty out of
actual conviction or cowardice.
In 1932 Olaf Stapledon’s father died. His mother was to die three years later. Their only heir
was Olaf, who commemorated their memory by bequeathing a large tract of woods near his
home on Caldy’s Hill to the public as a park. It is known to this day as Stapledon Wood. I have
already mentioned that an inheritance was Stapledon’s chief source of income for the rest of his
life. This is revealed quite candidly by Stapledon himself:
…I live chiefly on dividends and other ill-gotten gains, even while I proclaim that the system on which I
live must go. But live I must, or will; and so must, or shall, my family; and as amply as needed for their
development in personality. Having failed to earn enough by honest toil (toil there has been, but of a sort
that society does not see fit to recompense adequately), I fall back with due thankfulness on dividends, until
such time as the community has the sense to take to itself the ownership of the means of production, and to
afford me some less disreputable source of income.

Odd John (Methuen, 1935) is about a human mutation with superior mental faculties and his
own standards of morality. It can be considered Stapledon’s first novel. The number, length and
praise of its reviews—so fulsome and extensive that examination is needed for full
comprehension—exceeded even those for Last and First Men. Odd John was easier for the
public to read and understand and promptly secured publication in an American edition (Dutton,
1936). Considering the economic situation of the period, both editions could be judged
successful. A working man in modest circumstances might conceivably have survived for a year
on the proceeds. The book’s popularity was lasting and it became the author’s most frequently
reprinted work. It indicated clearly that Stapledon was not only an imaginative storyteller, but
that he had the potential for becoming a top-drawer novelist stylistically as well. To his
detriment, he either did not recognize or disdained to exploit this talent.
Then, in 1937, Methuen issued Star Maker. This was an incredible imaginative achievement.
Treating the two-billion-year history of the human race in Last and First Men as just one small
event, Stapledon goes on to tell the history of the universe. Although the work was not printed in