I read it een a booook
Aug. 31st, 2005 05:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ajvaI don't read much fiction, it has to be said. Occasionally, I get a notion to fill in the odd gap in my reading, and recently I got the itch again. The upshot being, yesterday I finished Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land for the first time.
To be honest, I didn't really like it. At first I found it rather fun, and I had sympathy with the characters, but the last three hundred or so pages I found a real chore. And started to find the characters were becoming more distant to me, too. I suspect it would have had much more impact on me if I had read it at the age of, say, 15 or so. The strength of the novel - and indeed the power of it that sees it feted as a classic - lies less in the storytelling as such IMHO, and more in the challenge to conventional wisdom, particularly with regard to sexuality and religion. I can well see how shocking or revolutionary this must have been in 1961, when the book was first published. However, for me now, the idea that, say, multiple sexual relationships is something not only possible but also laudable is not terribly challenging.
And in a way, this is also what I found most interesting about the novel: it is very much a product of its time, in the way that Heinlein's relentless exposition of his own progressive ideas mingles with his own unthinking old-fashioned prejudices.
For example, I found the book to be just as unthinkingly sexist as many other writings of the period. The female characters read to me fairly two-dimensionally. The domestics in the tale, such as they were, all seemed to be women; it is even a woman who comes out with the classic line: Nine times out of ten, if a girl gets raped, it's partly her fault. And while it could be argued that the Man from Mars's love-centric philosophy would allow, on close reading, for tolerance towards homosexual relationships, in practice homosexuality is only referred to explicitly in passing as something to be avoided.
There were other irritations: I found much of the story implausible, even within its own universe. I could not bring myself to be convinced, for example, that a human being, simply by virtue of being raised by Martians, is so totally without any instinctive fear of death that he cannot understand the concept. The notion that the Martians could choose to destroy Earth on a whim was nowhere dealt with to my satisfaction. The Man from Mars's ultimate martyrdom I found irritatingly convenient plot-wise (six hundred pages in? Book fullness is...Must be time for an ending...), and the novel's attitude towards religion I found annoyingly half-in, half-out. I may be a frubbly sort, but I'd far rather share a pint with Jubal down his local than set a single foot inside Mike's nuthouse free-love sect. I reckon I'd run a mile from any one of his converts, terrified by their glassy-eyed euphoria.
Now, I've not read any other books by Heinlein; should I? Is he perhaps simply not my cup of tea? Or would anyone recommend a different title?
I am interested to hear any comments anyone has...
To be honest, I didn't really like it. At first I found it rather fun, and I had sympathy with the characters, but the last three hundred or so pages I found a real chore. And started to find the characters were becoming more distant to me, too. I suspect it would have had much more impact on me if I had read it at the age of, say, 15 or so. The strength of the novel - and indeed the power of it that sees it feted as a classic - lies less in the storytelling as such IMHO, and more in the challenge to conventional wisdom, particularly with regard to sexuality and religion. I can well see how shocking or revolutionary this must have been in 1961, when the book was first published. However, for me now, the idea that, say, multiple sexual relationships is something not only possible but also laudable is not terribly challenging.
And in a way, this is also what I found most interesting about the novel: it is very much a product of its time, in the way that Heinlein's relentless exposition of his own progressive ideas mingles with his own unthinking old-fashioned prejudices.
For example, I found the book to be just as unthinkingly sexist as many other writings of the period. The female characters read to me fairly two-dimensionally. The domestics in the tale, such as they were, all seemed to be women; it is even a woman who comes out with the classic line: Nine times out of ten, if a girl gets raped, it's partly her fault. And while it could be argued that the Man from Mars's love-centric philosophy would allow, on close reading, for tolerance towards homosexual relationships, in practice homosexuality is only referred to explicitly in passing as something to be avoided.
There were other irritations: I found much of the story implausible, even within its own universe. I could not bring myself to be convinced, for example, that a human being, simply by virtue of being raised by Martians, is so totally without any instinctive fear of death that he cannot understand the concept. The notion that the Martians could choose to destroy Earth on a whim was nowhere dealt with to my satisfaction. The Man from Mars's ultimate martyrdom I found irritatingly convenient plot-wise (six hundred pages in? Book fullness is...Must be time for an ending...), and the novel's attitude towards religion I found annoyingly half-in, half-out. I may be a frubbly sort, but I'd far rather share a pint with Jubal down his local than set a single foot inside Mike's nuthouse free-love sect. I reckon I'd run a mile from any one of his converts, terrified by their glassy-eyed euphoria.
Now, I've not read any other books by Heinlein; should I? Is he perhaps simply not my cup of tea? Or would anyone recommend a different title?
I am interested to hear any comments anyone has...
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Date: 2005-08-31 04:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-31 05:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-31 05:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-31 05:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-31 05:31 pm (UTC)So, as regards Heinlein, you could try some of his much later stuff, see if it doesn't strike you as better. _Friday_ is considered one of his better ones and was written a bit later in his career. On the other hand he's writing a female protagonist in it and sometimes that can make the misconceptions even more glaring.
Off the top of my head, I'd say that _Stranger in a Strange Land_ is a bit of a hard introduction to him.
So what I'd recommend is, if you want to give him a decent chance as an SF author, read _The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_, it's an early work of his and was the first book of his that I read, it's just a damned good SF novel, with a bit of the poly theme in it still, but in a *much* better context and it's not at *all* the story.
The litmus test for his sexism would probably be _Friday_, it's later in his writing career and is considered one of his better books. He's writing a female protagonist. If you read that book and still find a bitter taste in your mouth, then you should probably walk away from Heinlein, because he's not going to get much better than Friday and you'll only be pissing yourself off.
additionally
Date: 2005-08-31 05:39 pm (UTC)Also he ties the racial issues into his poly subtext somewhat, and also gives it a compelling reason in the context of the novel.
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Date: 2005-08-31 06:21 pm (UTC)Not really, some works of art age better than others and SiaSL clearly isn't one of the ones that age well.
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Date: 2005-08-31 06:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-31 06:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-31 11:00 pm (UTC)I'd say Stranger is far from his best book, it's certainly not one that I re-read very often.
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Date: 2005-09-01 08:49 am (UTC)Eh? But I didn't! I was trying to point out that the fact it had aged badly was what I found most interesting about it.
Also, books in particular are prone to suffering from conceptual shift.
Yes, quite possibly - and I think it's valid to point out when they have.
Ultimately, we all function within an invisible cage of attitudes we take for granted, some of them unjustifiable. If we are fortunate, we live long enough to find out some of where we were wrong. This book is all the more interesting for throwing this process into sharp relief.
If the plot had been better executed, I may well have enjoyed it better, but I am not surprised to hear that this is not universally considered his best book, as I feel it was flawed in ways not connected to its outdatedness.
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Date: 2005-09-01 09:36 am (UTC)Stranger... not his best, though interesting. The homosexuality thing annoyed me too.
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Date: 2005-09-02 09:31 pm (UTC)I recommend the Moon is a Harsh Mistress (interesting ideas on group poly-like relationships included), and Time Enough for Love (ideas on time travel affecting relationships). Also some short stories - they vary from excellent to routine.