A Man Divided

by Olaf Stapledon

A study of the British science fiction writer and his work by American literary critic.

Study of the themes and images of Stapledon's fiction.

Stapledon derived many of his notions of communal bonding from his experiences at Port Said, an international, cultural crossroads, where he helped with his family's shipping business. Split between two conflicting personalities (the new, epiphanous personality versus the old, less awake one), this story is a "symbolical expression or psychological conflicts" and relationships. This work is considered highly autobiographical.

Genres: Science Fiction

185 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1950

About the author

Excerpted from wikipedia:
William Olaf Stapledon was a British philosopher and author of several influential works of science fiction.

Stapledon's writings directly influenced Arthur C. Clarke, Brian Aldiss, Stanisław Lem, C. S. Lewis and John Maynard Smith and indirectly influenced many others, contributing many ideas to the world of science fiction.

Reviews

[MichaelK · Rating 5 out of 5]

After this I have one more Stapledon novel (DEATH INTO LIFE) to read, then I'll have read all of his out-of-print fiction. So far, this is only one of Stapledon's out-of-print works I'd like to see make a comeback. A MAN DIVIDED is Stapledon's take on a Jekyll&Hyde-style split personality story, written in a similar fashion to Stapledon's other biographical novels(ODD JOHN and SIRIUS): a friend of the extraordinary individual has written a biography about them. It's been a few years since I read SIRIUS and ODD JOHN, but I feel that I can confidently claim that A MAN DIVIDED is on par with both of them, though it is far less fantastical and much more personal, more grounded in the real world.

Victor, the divided man, has two conflicting personalities:

The Somnolent/Somnambulant/Sleepwalking Self is a classist snob who goes through life on autopilot, pursuing a typical business career, seeking wealth and status, wanting an upper class trophy wife, rarely reflecting on the world, other people, or his actions. Etc.

The Awake/Lucid Self has a strong social conscience and great empathy for the suffering masses; he wants to learn as much about himself and the world as he can, and change both for the better; he falls in love with a not-conventionally-attractive woman from a poor background, because he can see her inner beauty. Etc.

The conflict between the two plays out in a way which still resonates today. When the Lucid Self takes over, he calls off a planned marriage with a rich and attractive woman, because he realises that they do not truly love each other and would just be settling for a stable and socially acceptable, but ultimately unhappy, marriage; he realises that his business career is blind self-service which has made him a cog in an economic machine that exploits the poor and is indifferent to their suffering.

And so he embarks on a new life path.

But the Somnolent Self regains control, and thinks that he's gone through a strange idealistic phase and must get back to real-world, must return to his business career and secure an appropriate and lucrative marriage. He must sort out this mess and go back to chasing wealth and status.

Throughout the course of the novel the two selves develop, both affected by the other. There's a lot to be read into this book, and it certainly feels like the most personal of Stapledon's fiction. (Leslie Fiedler borrowed the title for his early - and problematic - biography of Stapledon, OLAF STAPLEDON: A MAN DIVIDED. Robert Crossley's OLAF STAPLEDON: SPEAKING FOR THE FUTURE is considered the definitive Stapledon biography.) I'd love to see this back in print; it presents Stapledon's ideas in a very different way to his other fiction, on a smaller scale than his future histories and in a story less fantastical than the other two biographical novels.