As Stapledon himself put it, by most literary standards, it fails as a novel. The feeling is both tempered and encouraged by the simplicity and starkness of the text. None of it was truly new to me but seeing it in its original form was an interesting and even moving experience. Perhaps the feeling could be compared to finding an old holy text in your tradition that is new to you. I don’t know if I can still manage the sort of feeling of a thirteen year old seeing “The Matrix” for the first time, but I did feel a certain degree of awe. So, did Olaf Stapledon “blow my mind” with “Star Maker?” To a certain extent, yes, he did. Seemingly every surprise since 9/11 has sucked pretty hard and I think this has made my generation skeptical of the idea you’re going to surprise them in a good way, which seems pretty basic to the concept of having one’s mind blown. Maybe it makes sense, in my thirties, I know fewer such enthusiasts. I knew teens and very young adults who were into getting their minds blown and expanding them in the various by-then traditional countercultural ways. Maybe it’s just an artifact of when I grew up. Olaf Stapledon, “Star Maker” (1937) – Do people still say that things “blow their minds?” I feel like you get a lot less of that sort of rhetoric now that it’s associated with online goobers and the hucksters who fleece them. Name Asterisk on Review- Ma, “Harassment A…
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