Thoughts on Star Maker, by Olaf Stapledon
Jun. 10th, 2017 04:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
child_of_the_airIt is...hard to figure out what exactly to say about or make of this book. I could try to evaluate it as Golden Age science fiction, and note that the outdated science and the obsession with telepathic unity and perfection--which it shares with Last and First Men--do seem characteristic of one of the ways science fiction was going at that time, albeit not a way I find appealing. After all, I hated Clarke's Childhood's End even though that is generally celebrated as one of his greatest books.
Or I could judge it on the basis it has usually been recommended to me: as, along with Last and First Men, the first great work of future history. By this standard, it is rather interesting. The first half had quite interesting world-building, and I can see a number of worthwhile settings to play around with, even if I wish Stapledon had developed them more. In that regard, it did seem like his focus on "higher" and "higher" civilizations weakened the future history, since it made it harder for him to describe anything in much useful detail.
But Star Maker is something different from an attempt at world-building, or even an attempt to write a mythology, like the Simarillion. It appears to be an attempt at a theological exercise, and one that I'm not certain I'm actually qualified to evaluate. Stapledon builds up societies of increasing levels of "perfection" as a way to work towards a final revelation of a Theistic-seeming creator god. I think it's accurate to describe his theology as Platonist--perhaps that's the main legacy he gets from Christianity (though he was an agnostic)--combined with a Hegelian-Marxist understanding of history.
Stapledon's theology and understanding of the cosmos is vastly at odds with mine, but it was certainly interesting to read, and he made me more interested in learning about how Platonism became embedded in Christianity and (I believe I've been told) Judaism. I still don't understand how Platonism can make conscious sense to people, and yet I'm also not sure my subconscious isn't partly contaminated by it.
Or I could judge it on the basis it has usually been recommended to me: as, along with Last and First Men, the first great work of future history. By this standard, it is rather interesting. The first half had quite interesting world-building, and I can see a number of worthwhile settings to play around with, even if I wish Stapledon had developed them more. In that regard, it did seem like his focus on "higher" and "higher" civilizations weakened the future history, since it made it harder for him to describe anything in much useful detail.
But Star Maker is something different from an attempt at world-building, or even an attempt to write a mythology, like the Simarillion. It appears to be an attempt at a theological exercise, and one that I'm not certain I'm actually qualified to evaluate. Stapledon builds up societies of increasing levels of "perfection" as a way to work towards a final revelation of a Theistic-seeming creator god. I think it's accurate to describe his theology as Platonist--perhaps that's the main legacy he gets from Christianity (though he was an agnostic)--combined with a Hegelian-Marxist understanding of history.
Stapledon's theology and understanding of the cosmos is vastly at odds with mine, but it was certainly interesting to read, and he made me more interested in learning about how Platonism became embedded in Christianity and (I believe I've been told) Judaism. I still don't understand how Platonism can make conscious sense to people, and yet I'm also not sure my subconscious isn't partly contaminated by it.
