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Yaşlı Adam Yeni Dünyada
Yaşlı Adam Yeni Dünyada Bilim Kurgu Öyküleri
- GenresScience Fiction
128 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1944
30 people want to read
About the author
Olaf Stapledon
94 books559 followersExcerpted 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 23, 2019
Interesting utopian short story examining a post communist future in which the next generation have different ideas than those in authority.
Made available by the Merril Collection.
Made available by the Merril Collection.
February 24, 2017
A short story published as a small book by PEN back in 1944, and out of print since: it wasn't included in any of Stapledon's short fiction collections, and I couldn't even find it as an ebook anywhere. Luckily, a slightly battered edition was available for £3 on Ebay, so I can now say that I have Stapledon first edition. Unless you've set yourself the silly task of reading all of Stapledon's fiction, you'd be best skipping this story in favour of Stapledon's major works: Last and First Men, Star Maker, Odd John, and Sirius: A Fantasy of Love and Discord.
'Old Man in New World' is a vision of a post-WW2 future, published shortly before the war's end. An Old Man, a veteran of the Old World, is invited to the Procession of the People's, a parade celebrating the achievements of the New World. About half of the book consists of the Old Man's conversations with the pilot flying him to the procession; these conversations inform the reader of this reality's history: some decades after the end of WW2, a Utopian revolution takes over the planet and establishes a World Government, a New World Order. The Old Man took part in this revolution.
The New World dedicated itself to equality and improving the human lot, with a new educational curriculum for all children born into the New World. But this led to a host of new problems: a lack of diversity meant less creativity and originality, uniformity brought staleness. To combat this, the New World has taken to promoting individualism and the old national identities. The Old Man, having lived before the Revolution, having seen WW2, disapproves of these measures and finds himself becoming disillusioned with the New World. He has an authoritarian, communitarian outlook, and distrusts the newly-promoted individualism. Both viewpoints, the Old Man and the Young Pilot, are convincingly and sympathetically drawn.
The story features a few ideas that crop up in Stapledon's earlier work, such as 'the light' (the language surrounding the Old Man's revolution is reminiscent of the Tibetan revolution in Darkness and the Light) and his trademark 'agnostic mysticism'. It's a competently written story, an interesting future vision from WW2, and satisfying enough for Stapledon fans.
'Old Man in New World' is a vision of a post-WW2 future, published shortly before the war's end. An Old Man, a veteran of the Old World, is invited to the Procession of the People's, a parade celebrating the achievements of the New World. About half of the book consists of the Old Man's conversations with the pilot flying him to the procession; these conversations inform the reader of this reality's history: some decades after the end of WW2, a Utopian revolution takes over the planet and establishes a World Government, a New World Order. The Old Man took part in this revolution.
The New World dedicated itself to equality and improving the human lot, with a new educational curriculum for all children born into the New World. But this led to a host of new problems: a lack of diversity meant less creativity and originality, uniformity brought staleness. To combat this, the New World has taken to promoting individualism and the old national identities. The Old Man, having lived before the Revolution, having seen WW2, disapproves of these measures and finds himself becoming disillusioned with the New World. He has an authoritarian, communitarian outlook, and distrusts the newly-promoted individualism. Both viewpoints, the Old Man and the Young Pilot, are convincingly and sympathetically drawn.
The story features a few ideas that crop up in Stapledon's earlier work, such as 'the light' (the language surrounding the Old Man's revolution is reminiscent of the Tibetan revolution in Darkness and the Light) and his trademark 'agnostic mysticism'. It's a competently written story, an interesting future vision from WW2, and satisfying enough for Stapledon fans.
January 21, 2021
A short utopian story, which starts with a pre-utopian and post-utopian man having a conversation about the nature of the change that has come over the world. The old man is skeptical of how much has really changed in humanity since the worldwide revolution, while the young man is adamant that the old cannot understand how deep the change has been on a psychological level. This manifests in a disagreement about whether discipline to maintain the gains of the revolution, or exploration of the new possibilities and problems of humanity, is paramount. This section also functions as a summary of the spread of a non-dogmatic agnostic-mystic religion prevented the outbreak of WWIII and led to revolution, resulting in a worldwide of federation of socialist states. The second segment has the old man observe the change in London after the revolution, partially triumphant and partially regretful. He then observes the procession of representatives of the various states of the world, and is disturbed by the addition of mocking jester figures to the processions, as a measure to check arrogance and pride of the representatives, a well as the mystic speech of the head jester that interrupts the president of the federation. The old man is moved to tears, but internally fears that it is all a politically motivated farce, and represents the reintroduction of religion to post-revolutionary society.
One of Stapledon's weaker entries. It wants to be more than a diversion like like Arms out of Hand, A Modern Magician, World of Sound and some others, but the two characters are almost solely talking heads, comparing poorly to the more in-depth portraits of Four Encounters, and it only sketches the utopian state. Finally, the old man's fear is hard to gauge - is his fear about the future of the revolution well-justified, or as the young man says, is he unable to see the depth of the change that has already happened? The view we get is so superficial it's impossible to say. I suppose we can read this story as personifications of Stapledon's ambivalence about the possibility of long-term social change, but it does nothing more than restate that same ambivalence that can be read in most of Stapledon's other (better) works.
One of Stapledon's weaker entries. It wants to be more than a diversion like like Arms out of Hand, A Modern Magician, World of Sound and some others, but the two characters are almost solely talking heads, comparing poorly to the more in-depth portraits of Four Encounters, and it only sketches the utopian state. Finally, the old man's fear is hard to gauge - is his fear about the future of the revolution well-justified, or as the young man says, is he unable to see the depth of the change that has already happened? The view we get is so superficial it's impossible to say. I suppose we can read this story as personifications of Stapledon's ambivalence about the possibility of long-term social change, but it does nothing more than restate that same ambivalence that can be read in most of Stapledon's other (better) works.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews