Fairy Tale Spotlight: Sirius [Book Review]

[This blog spoils some major aspects of the book.]

"Sirius" is a novel written by Olaf Stapledon. It was published in 1944. This feels like a spiritual sequel to his other book "Odd John," which I reviewed a while back. Where "Odd John" was about a super genius human being, "Sirius" is about a dog who has standard human intelligence. Interestingly, this makes him a super genius as far as dogs go.

Sirius is still a canine in form (a German Shepard in verity), but he has the mind and possibility the spirit of a human inside of him. Basically, he is a person. He can even speak English, although he had an extremely heavy accent since his dog maw isn't really designed for speaking. It takes time to actually understand him when he speaks.

At this book's core, the question of "What makes a person?" is asked. Does consciousness and self-awareness make someone a person? If an animal had the intelligence of a human, should we afford him the privileges and standing of one? The book deals with both sides of the argument, but it treats everything very realistically. This is not bizarro fiction. This is a science fiction with deep and dramatic points of interest. This is something Olaf Stapledon is fairly good at accomplishing, I think.

There was a lot in this book that I did not expect. Sirius gets very interested in religion. I think this is understandable, since he might be questioning his own existence. There are no other dogs like him in the world. He wonders if there is a place for him in the religious sector. Does he have a soul? One wonders! Even I wondered myself.

One of the pastors was very open-minded about Sirius, seeing it more as a miracle of God. In truth, Sirius is actually the product of science, but since all science is of God... You get where I am going with this. Sirius actually becomes a Christian in the book, something that I don't think he ever fully recants, although life becomes so hard for him later on that he doesn't focus as much on the spirit as often. Of course, the question of whether or not God even wants him is always going to be on his mind, mainly because the world is mostly against the idea.

The other pastor is a lot harder on him, seeing him as a product of Satan. This man causes him no end of trouble, ultimately leading to the dog going through madness as the world turns against him, leading to him having a crippling loneliness. Sad stuff really. All this happening during WW2 as well. Dark stuff.

Now, the real driving part of the story in "Sirius" is the love affair he holds with his childhood sweetheart, Plaxy. Plaxy is not a dog; she's human. I didn't think I'd get into the realm of bestiality in a book from the 40's... but I did. And it wasn't something that was really harped on or described, but it does happen. It happens because the world rose up against them and drove them into each other's arms.

This naturally brings up the question whether or not this was bestiality at all! After all, Sirius is not feral. He is a person who has thoughts, feelings, aspirations in life, a sense of self-worth. He laughs, he cries, he loves, he is everything a regular dog isn't. So when he ends up having sex with a human he has known since childhood, and their love is real, is this still bestiality? And that is a debate happening with this book.

The book does briefly deal with politics. Plaxy does favor communism, but surprisingly, Sirius is more the conservative. They argue the two points, and I was enjoying how Sirius rips up all of her arguments. It gave me a lot of satisfaction.

All said, this is a great, well-written science fiction. I gotta say: Olaf Stapledon is a really great author. His chapters are a little overly-long, but the content is so good that I often found the books hard to put down. Both "Odd John" and "Sirius" get a big ol' recommendation from me. True lovers of science fiction should defiantly find a place for either or both of these books.

This blog was written on December 23, 2023.

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