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

the war that he received his Ph.D. from the University of Liverpool). His grades at Oxford were
middling. During that period he attained his full physical growth of five feet, eight inches and
140 pounds weight, a weight that seldom varied for the rest of his life. He was muscular and
rowed in the college eight.
If we can accept A Man Divided as autobiographical, we may infer that Stapledon’s first
amatory experiences occurred at Oxford. In this book he expresses the view that the protagonist,
Victor, knew intellectually that sexual prudery was wrong but was emotionally bound up with it.
Victor talks of his experiences at school with two women, one of them older than himself.
Looking back on these liaisons from the perspective of age he is convinced that Freud was wrong
and that there may have been more value in Victorian standards than he was willing at the time
to acknowledge. Victor finds his experiences to be satisfying physically but otherwise sterile,
and he did not continue or resume these relationships.
The foregoing is a prelude to stating that there is much discussion of sex and sexual mores in
Stapledon’s novels. Today, when readers are accustomed to accept the raunchiest material
without blinking, it is easy to overlook the fact that for their time the cast of all his works is
unusually candid and direct. Sexual customs of his fictional civilizations are described just as
fully as their science, art and philosophy. Incest is strongly implied in Odd John. The plot of
Sirius pivots on the sexual relationship between a woman and a dog with human intelligence.
Wife-lending occurs in Last Men in London. When Stapledon’s characters describe their sexual
education, it is not unreasonable to wonder how much of the author’s own experience is being
recounted. Freudian analysis aside, the sex in Stapledon’s fiction adds rather than detracts,
lending another dimension of richness to his best works.
After Olaf left Oxford, his father got him a job with the Blue Funnel Line of Liverpool, where
he performed various minor managerial duties without enthusiasm. It was his father’s hope that
he would make a good showing and eventually inherit his own excellent, well-paying position.
Olaf liked ships but not the paperwork that went with them. At one point he could not account
for 20 pounds of petty cash, which may have been a factor in his eventual leaving.
Following this, he accepted a position as Master at Manchester Grammar School. His favorite
teaching technique was setting up events in history like plays and having his class act them out.
The noise and activity of this got on the nerves of other instructors, and the job lasted only a
year. For short periods after this he worked for William Stapledon and Sons in Port Said, running
a motorboat to reach and board ships to see if they needed coal before or after their canal
passage. (The firm was still in business when Egypt closed the canal after the 1967 war with
Israel, in the control of a cousin.) Olaf’s family—particularly his mother—did not want him
away from home and discouraged his Port Said efforts. They were also happy when a hoped-for
position at the University of Wales fell through.
 While working at both the Blue Funnel Line and the Manchester Grammar School, Stapledon
had lectured evenings in the Liverpool area at the Workers Educational Association on literature,
psychology and industrial history. These lectures frequently stressed left-wing views, for he was
deeply immersed in socialist philosophy at the time. It is probable that such views met with
criticism from Stapledon’s employers. In A Man Divided his character Victor runs into
continuous and severe trouble of that sort, too, and tells of arguments with his influential father
about it. Not improbably, Olaf Stapledon’s chief difficulty in obtaining a permanent academic
post was his politics. This was to be true his entire life. He was frequently hired for night
extension courses, never a full-time appointment.
He rationalized this in A Man Divided by terming himself only a "second-rate academic," and
does the same in Last Men in London, where an influential father gets him a post—as if a man
with his accumulated knowledge and ability to write, speak and organize his thoughts were
inferior to the majority of tenured professors.
Although he was involved with socialist groups and contributed some articles to leftist