![]() ![]() Which isn't saying much, as John calls the slavishly devoted helper "Fido" and treats him badly throughout.įor this is what surprised and slightly distressed me about ODD JOHN. He acts as a foster uncle and accomplice to the arrogant young superman, and is as close to a human friend as John can have. The story is told by an unnamed man who once was in love with John's mother and who remained a friend of the family. I know also how John and all his followers died."Īfter putting all that in the fourth paragraph, Stapledon then fills out the events of John's career in great detail, with a sense of inevitable tragedy hanging over every phase. ![]() "I know that he never walked until he was six, that before he was ten he committed several burglaries and killed a policeman, that at eighteen, when he still looked like a young boy, he founded his preposterous colony in the South Seas, and that at twenty-three, in appearance but little altered, he outwitted the six warships that six Great Powers had sent to seize him. On the very first page, the narrator gives us a summary of John Wainright's life, so I think this absolves me from having to use Spoiler warnings. It's well-written by Olaf Stapledon but quite unpleasant and, well, ODD. From 1936, this is one of the earliest "mental superman" books. ![]()
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