>It takes 2 billion years for humanity to accept and partake

>>9135155

Olaf Stapledon is the fucking best but holy shit is he bleak.

>>9135161
If you mean his "prose", then totally. He's masterful with the sentence but he reads like a technical manual that mentions spirit and beauty unexpectedly and then you start tearing up.

>>9135155
I find the more times I read it the more accepting of his prose I got. The first time I read L&FM at 14 I got by on pure concept and skimmed the first few chapters and several sections that I didn't really "get", like the end of the second men. The second time a few years later I read the whole thing and actually understood it. From there I've reread Star Maker and L&FM several times, and I think his prose's nature ties into the book's themes quite well. It's sort of a debased version of how the group-mind of the last men experiences the history of humanity. It's the general view without the corresponding personal view that the group-mind also experiences. As first men we're limited to either the in-depth exploration of one person, or the very general treatment of a whole civilization. It also inculcates the sort of tragic appreciation for the death of a civilization he talks about a lot - when we're deep into the individual perspective, we can't see beyond the tragic of that individual (or our own lives). His prose's coldness pulls us out and lets us see the bigger picture, sort of like how you can only see the whole of the earth by leaving it with a spaceship. By reading one of these books you enter an austere, super-worldly realm that allows a form of appreciation you don't normally get in life, then you return to the ground when you close the book.

Sorry for rambling, I hardly ever get a chance to talk about these books. Have you read any of his others?

>>9135155
Pronouns. The new ones.

Humans already do this, it's called the Eucharist.

>It takes two people to make you and one people to die. That is how the world is going to end.
Damn...

File: 1487556094639.jpg (100KB, 768x768px) Image search: [Google]

100KB, 768x768px

>>9135155
sugoii

>>9135209
Ah you have totally put it to words. I've heard people whine about his cold/dryness, but reading it, and comprehending I would argue, it has always made sense much due to what you've said.

Sadly this is my only experience with Stapledon, and it's only by some miracle that I even heard of him tragically enough. He seems to be unrecognized in this age, only his influences are noticed.

>>9135219
Eat me.
Whoops! Can't do that in the Christian west!

>>9135239
To add: trying to retain this sort of disassociated and enamored perspective on mankind, when you put the book down as you've said, feels graceful. While reading this I feel like I've become more sensitive to the drama of all life a bit more and that enough makes this book special to me.

>>9135239
Read star maker next

>>9135239
I can understand his not being read now - his prose and language seem a lot more late 19th century than early 20th, so the books sound even older than they actually are. A Wells book is more "readable" to a modern audience despite being older.

If you liked L&FM, I cannot recommend Star Maker hard enough. It dwarfs L&FM in every dimension. Between the two Stapledon invents almost every scifi concept of the next 50 years. Other than that I'd say Sirius is his best work, its the only book I've read that actually got me to cry. Most of the rest are for Stapledon fanatics only.

Any favourite bits of L&FM?

>>9135155

There are tribes in India that eat the dead.

>>9135276
I think the decline, and philosophical self-defeat the Second Men find themselves fatally wounded by was fascinating. I also found myself actually pretty saddened when the fifth men had to leave Earth, theirs and our own ancient home.

Also I wrote this line down because it's themes about the universe and our impermenance: "Even thus imprisoned in an instant, the spirit of man might yet plumb the whole extent of space, and also the whole past and the future; and so from behind his prison bars, he might render the universe that intelligent worship which, they felt, it demanded of him. Better so, they said, than that he should fret himself with puny efforts to escape. He is dignified in his very weakness, and the cosmos by its very indifference to him."

>>9135209
P.S. I wrote this post down and tucked it into my paperback to act as an Anonymous forward to the book. I really appreciated this read on his writing.

>>9135320
>>9135314
Aw, thanks. Yes, the end of the 2nd men really was great. I really didnt underatand it the first time I read it and it seemed to be saying nothing at all. A few years later and it seems to be saying everything. I've found the more I reread these books the more I get out of them.

Personally, my favourite bit was the fusion of the degenerated martians into the 5th men. It felt like a redemption for the 2nd men to me, given how similar the 5th and 2nd are, and I like to imagine the last men's group mind feels the martians as one of its ancestors. And of course, that redemption only leads to greater tragedy on Venus. The 2nd men to 5th men sequence is probably my overall favourite.

Of course the book isn't perfect. The bit on the island with the American and the Chinese guy is unbelievably hokey no matter how many times I read it.