Sirius (S.F. Masterworks)
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'Sirius is a somewhat poignant journey, incalculably emotive and immeasurably introspective, a true masterpiece of literary (science) fiction.' (SFBOOK.COM )
Product Description
Sirius is Thomas Trelone's great experiment - a huge, handsome dog with the brain and intelligence of a human being. Raised and educated in Trelone's own family alongside Plaxy, his youngest daughter, Sirius is a truly remarkable and gifted creature. His relationship with the Trelones, particularly with Plaxy, is deep and close, and his inquiring mind ranges across the spectrum of human knowledge and experience. But Sirius isn't human and the conflicts and inner turmoil that torture him cannot be resolved.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A story about a superintelligent talking dog? It sounds terrible, like something out of a twee Disney film, but in actual fact Stapledon manages to avoid anything like that, and has written an incredible, touching story. It reminds me of "Call of the Wild" and "White Fang", and doesn't avoid the dark side of Sirius' nature... there are a couple of particularly savage passages where Sirius kills a sadistic farmer, and also "murders" a horse just to indulge his canine instincts.
Sirius ends up seeing the full range of human life, from bad to good, and more. He is also not a true dog, and finds himself not only alienated from human beings who cannot accept him fully (with a handful of exceptions), but other dogs who are like cretins to him especially his "lovers" (as the book puts it). Despite having difficulty speaking and writing (he devises ways to get around that), Sirius has an advantage over other dogs through his intelligence, and over humans in his hearing, sense of smell etc. What we get is not only a satire on English life during WWII, but an almost autistic view of the world, seeing everything but not able to integrate oneself into it.
Of course some of the writing is dated, and Stapledon at times takes a very colonial view of the Welsh and their language (Sirius is originally brought up on a Welsh farm by English academics). Some of the style is very dry and typical of the period (for example when Sirius spots a holy roller farmboy pleasuring himself, Stapledon calls it "something unspeakable". Fortunately Victorian hangovers like these are not common).
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
More like a conventional novel than either Last and First Men or Star Maker, this deals with some typical Stapledon themes: alien intelligence or spirit, the quasi symbiosis of different species, the age old question of the purpose of existence. It's an interesting study of a creature's relationship with his creator, his difficulties in dealing with his own uniqueness, and with the fact that his own needs do not always coincide with those of the dominant human species. It raises a number of questions about the type of things which might differ between two species of equal intelligence, and how this might cause conflict between them. Well worth reading!
(I didn't find his style to be a problem; it's just different from what we're used to nowadays.)
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I got this after reading a review of Stapledon's work by the eminent scientist Freeman Dyson (in a collection of essays and reviews called The Scientist as Rebel), himself a writer of science fiction too. Dyson considers Sirius to be Stapledon's greatest work. It is certainly a profound and affecting one. The tragic hero of the piece is a superintelligent dog, capable of thought and speech. The creature is torn between his 'civilised' and his 'wild' sides, and moves between a human world where he is in part understood and a human world where he is persecuted,as well as the wilderness. In this way, the novel harks back to the gothic tradition of Mary Shelley and Louis Stevenson. No doubt there are echoes of Jack London's fiction too. So the book is as much about human nature as about the ethical dilemmas around genetically modifying animals. Unfortunately, fiction in print and on the screen about talking animals from the second half of the twentieth century onward make sections of the novel at first uninentionally amusing. It is worth repressing the impulse to smirk. You will find yourself feeling and thinking deeply well before the climax of this fine book. Thanks, Freeman Dyson, for drawing the attention of a new generation of readers to this writer of philosophical fiction.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
The Forgotten One
Olaf Stapledon, is undoubtedly best known for his amazing novels "Star Maker" and "Last and First Men", but if that is all you have read from him then you have missed out on his... Read more
Published 20 months ago by Dave_42
Miserable but moving
Somebody else said that this book about a dog is, oddly, Stapledon's most human book. Sirius is a dog with human intelligence, but this is no gift, rather an endless burden of... Read more
Published on 4 Aug 2001 by Jason Mills
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