Sirius by Olaf Stapledon

Sirius: a fantasy of love and discord by Olaf Stapledon
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A gem of a classic SF book; from 1944 – so the science may not be plausible – as if any science in SF has any rational basis or credibility! Whimsical at times, poignant at times, but essentially a philosophical treatise that offers an in-depth insight to canine psychology and physiology viz, the acute auditory and olfactory perception of dogs. Sirius is as much a Frankenstein creation as he is an enigma.

In his puppyhood Sirius sang only human music. Throughout his life he was deeply interested in the great classical achievements of man’s musical genius, but as he had always found the fundamental structure of human music crude, and inadequate to his interest in sound-form and the emotions with new scales, intervals, and rhythms, suited to his more sensitive hearing. He made use of the quarter-tone and even the eight-of-a tone. Sometimes in his purely canine mood, his melodies divided the octave in quite a different manner from any human musical mode.

Sirius complains to his creator in an emotional moment

There is no place for me in man’s world, and there is no other world for me. There is no place for me anywhere in the universe.

Sirius planned to write a book The Lamp-post, A study of the Social Life of the Domestic Dog. The opening passage reflects the author’s temperament

In man social intercourse has centred mainly on the process of absorbing fluids into the organism, but in the domestic dog and to a lesser extent all wild canine species, the act charges with most social significance is the excretion of fluid. For man the pub, the estaminet, the Biergarten, but for the dog the tree trunk, the lintel of door or gate, and above all the lamp-post, form the focal points of community life. For a man the flavours of alcoholic drinks, but for a dog the infinitely variegated smells of urine are the most potent stimuli for the gregarious impulse

His canine scribblings revealed

a mind which combined laughable naivety in some directions with remarkable shrewdness in others, a mind moreover which seemed to oscillate between a heavy self-pitying seriousness and a humourous detachment and self-criticism.

His sublime exposition of spirituality and religion

I see, indeed I know, that in some sense God is love, and God is wisdom, and God is creative action, yes and God is beauty; but what God is actually is, whether the maker of all things, or the fragrance of all things, or just a dream in our own hearts, I have not the art to know. Neither have you , I believe; nor any man, nor any spirit of our humble stature

Should humans ever encounter extra-terrestrials, it would be worth going through this book to comprehend how aliens would perceive mankind – goofy, bullying tyrants bent on eliminating anything extraneous!
You may ignore what follows:
Sirius is the brightest star in the night sky. Its name is derived from the Greek word Σείριος, or Seirios, meaning 'glowing' or 'scorching.' The Greek word itself may have been imported from elsewhere before the Archaic period, possibly from the Egyptian god Osiris. Sirius appears bright because of its intrinsic luminosity and its proximity to the Solar System. Sirius is colloquially known as the "Dog Star", reflecting its prominence in its constellation, Canis Major. The heliacal rising of Sirius marked the flooding of the Nile in Ancient Egypt and the "dog days" of summer for the ancient Greeks, while to the Polynesians, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, the star marked winter and was an important reference for their navigation around the Pacific Ocean. In Iranian mythology, especially in Persian mythology and in Zoroastrianism, Sirius appears as Tishtrya and is revered as the rain-maker divinity. Tishtrya is a divinity of rain and fertility and an antagonist of apaosha, the demon of drought. In this struggle, Tishtrya is depicted as a white horse. In Chinese astronomy Sirius is known as the star of the "celestial wolf." Many nations among the indigenous peoples of North America also associated Sirius with canines; the Seri and Tohono Oʼodham of the southwest note the star as a dog that follows mountain sheep, while the Blackfoot called it "Dog-face". The Cherokee paired Sirius with Antares as a dog-star guardian of either end of the "Path of Souls". The Pawnee of Nebraska had several associations; the Wolf (Skidi) tribe knew it as the "Wolf Star", while other branches knew it as the "Coyote Star". Further north, the Alaskan Inuit of the Bering Strait called it "Moon Dog."
What has all this mythical stuff from Wikipedia to do with the book in question? Frankly, nothing!

View all my reviews