E. V. Odle
E. V. Odle (Edwin Vincent Odle), born in 1890 in England, was a notable figure in early 20th-century literature, particularly in the realm of science fiction. He was the younger brother of artist Alan Odle and had connections to prominent literary figures through family ties. Odle's career began in insurance before he transitioned to theater and later became a novelist. His most recognized work, **The Clockwork Man**, explores themes of technology, human identity, and social progress through the lens of a cyborg-like character who navigates a world where the laws of time and space differ from conventional understanding.
Despite its innovative ideas, the novel struggled to find success, partially overshadowed by contemporaneous works like Karel Čapek's **R.U.R.** Odle's writing, particularly in **The Clockwork Man**, raises questions about Darwinism, the role of technology in human evolution, and the implications of social movements of his time, yet these inquiries remain unresolved within the text. After facing health issues later in life, Odle continued to write until his death from heart disease in 1942. His works, while not frequently reprinted, offer a unique perspective on the intersection of science fiction and the socio-political climate of the early 20th century.
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E. V. Odle
Author
- Born: 1890
- Birthplace: England
- Died: 1942
Biography
E(dwin) V(incent) Odle was born in 1890 in England, son of a bank manager. He was the younger brother of artist Alan Odle, who married British modernist writer Dorothy Richardson, author of the novel series Pilgrimage. Vincent (as he was known) married Rose Isserlis, an elementary schoolteacher involved in various progressive movements such as the Fabian Society, in 1910; they had a son and a daughter. A would-be playwright and actor, Odle worked in an insurance company from the ages of sixteen to twenty-one, and then entered the theater. During World War I, he worked for the War Office and then at Woolwich Arsenal. After the war, he worked as a clerk in various factories, until a factory owner became his patron, thus making possible his first novel, A History of Alfred Rudd, in 1921.
His most famous work by far was the science-fiction novel The Clockwork Man, but for a novel mentioned so often in histories of science fiction, it does not seem to have been reprinted many times since its first appearance. It was not as successful as the Odles hoped, since Karel Čapek’s similarly themed play R.U.R. appeared simultaneously. Although the novel begins like one of H. G. Wells’s scientific romances, with the title character making an initially comic but later dangerous interruption into a sedate game of village cricket, it does not follow the usual Wellsian plot development of gradual human understanding of the scientific mystery.
The clockwork man himself has been described as an early precursor of a cyborg, a creature that is a combination of human and mechanical elements: a man from the future seems to have had a clockwork mechanism added to the back of his head. However, the clockwork mechanism has malfunctioned, stranding its owner in the twentieth century. The mechanism controls time in a relativistic, prequantum manner, so that its possessor cannot only control time, but also space, and travel through a multidimensional universe in which Newtonian laws of cause and effect are replaced by Einsteinian potentialities.
The comedy occurs because the clockwork man cannot adjust his own mechanism because of its positioning—a serious design flaw, one might think. Indeed, Odle seems more concerned with the clockwork man’s effect on three inhabitants of the village. In the end, none of them are sure what the clockwork man represents. Is he the apogee of Darwinism, aided by technology, a process that could be speeded up by copying his mechanism? Is he the triumph of the socially progressive movements that began in the late nineteenth century? Has he been created by the “makers,” who themselves might be the humans of his era, for their own amusement? None of these questions are definitively answered, which is perhaps fitting for a novel that describes a creature that can control the multiple possibilities of time and space.
The success of the novel, however limited, made Odle sever his patronage ties, and he held editorial positions with various periodicals until heart disease forced him to restrict himself to freelancing. He died in 1942 of a heart attack. The Clockwork Man might be described as ahead of its time, if not for the quotidian descriptions of the clockwork mechanism itself, but its concern with some of the more ephemeral social movements of the time has limited its appeal for modern readers.