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

in a high managerial position.
The first six years of Olaf’s childhood were spent at Port Said, although his mother had
returned to England to give birth, which proved an extremely difficult one. As a result, Olaf was
rather a lonely child. His closest friend was Rip, a rough-haired terrier which he never forgot and
whose literary echo undoubtedly sounds in some of the animals in Stapledon’s books.
He got along extremely well with his father, who was a great educator and who had a fine
library of classical literature. Many volumes in this were passed on to Olaf and are still in the
possession of Agnes Stapledon. He did not get along as well with his mother, who was
extraordinarily possessive and fearful for his welfare, though by nature she was a kind and gentle
person. Like her husband she also had literary interests; her idol was John Ruskin, with whom
she corresponded extensively.
Ruskin—through his mother—appears to be one of the major influences in Olaf’s adolescent
life. Ruskin, the son of wealthy parents, established himself early as an outstanding poet and
eventually became one of the leading art authorities and social critics of the nineteenth century.
He was ahead of his time in supporting national education, condemning industry for wasting
natural resources and polluting the land, in battling for old-age pensions and championing the
organizing of labor. He also advocated the return to a simpler, less artificial life, and this aspect
of his philosophy attracted a sincere and adoring cult. Emmeline Stapledon was so firmly
convinced of Ruskin’s belief that old handicrafts be kept alive6 that she procured a spinning
wheel. Her cousins supported this enthusiasm and made a pilgrimage to Brantwood, on Coniston
Water, where Ruskin lived. Ruskin’s works were always at hand and discussion of them was
perpetual in the household, so it is easy to understand Olaf’s advocacy for the cause of the
working man and his enthusiasm for socialism in general.
While Emmeline imbued her son with social science, William emphasized the rudiments of the
natural sciences. The boy absorbed enough of both to create that remarkable combination of
philosophy, sociology and science whose balance elevates his writings to their level of greatness.
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. Unitarianism is an offshoot of Protestantism which rejects the Trinity and the
divinity of Christ and believes—like the Jews—that God is a single being. Unitarians do,
however, accept the teachings of Christ, emphasizing his ethics and morality. They stress the
importance of character and are known for their tolerance of other religions.
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. In The
Opening of the Eyes his position is that of a "disbeliever in God," because of the hopelessness of
finding any final answers through man acquired knowledge. He also seems to espouse clearly a
higher temporal sphere of existence:
 Thus seemingly the scientific temper itself is being forced to conceive that the intricate universe of our
extant science is but a province within an ampler, stranger universe. And so we are surely compelled to
take seriously once more the thought that this world of time and space is but the threshold to another world.
We, who formerly . . . rejected all wild rumours of the unseen reality, must now, it seems, earnestly attend
to those who claim access to that sphere, assuring us that all souls are destined to pass over to it.

Olaf Stapledon had six years of elementary education at Abbotsholme, a progressive boarding
school located in Uttoxeter, Derbyshire. The founder of the school was Dr. Cecil Reddie, who
believed that certain young people should be educated for leadership and responsibility. Olaf
performed extremely well there, but one of the things he most clearly remembered about his stay
was acquiring a first-hand knowledge of how to wash sheep.
His higher education was acquired at Balliol College, Oxford, where he earned both B.A. and
M.A. degrees in history, completing these before the onset of World War I (it was not until after