horse's snack (Stranger in a Strange Land - Robert A. Heinlein)

Member Name: threadgill

Product:	Stranger in a Strange Land - Robert A. Heinlein
Date:	07/09/01 (70 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: iconoclastic

Disadvantages: hard

Difficult chap, Heinlein. People always seem to want to hold just one opinion about him. Great writer, great prophet, great fascist.
I think there's room for all of the above to be true. I've met people who literally won't let themselves read some of his great space adventures, because they disagree with his politics. Are they afraid of being corrupted? It's the same ridiculous argument as general censorship. (Think about it- a group of old men decide which stuff is two corrupting for us to see, and yet they see it all, without admitting to any ill-effects themselves.)

But back to the point. Yes, Heinlein believed in National Service, Nuclear Power (albeit set safely in space), and was far too patriotic for the taste of many modern readers. But does that interfere with his ability to write fascinating thought-provoking stories? Very rarely.

Take Stranger in a Strange Land, as that is the nominal title of the op. People try to pigeonhole it as a satire, or as utopian, or criticise it for not being their idea of either. But if it fitted everyone's hopes, what would be the point of reading it?

Heinlein's aim, his stated aim, in writing this book was to undermine every single human moral code that he could think of. Hence the unashamed sexuality, hence the eating of the dead and all of Jubal Hartshaw's "shocking" pronouncements. It's not that Heinlein himself was immoral, he just wanted to make people think about how much of their culture was sensible and how much was just neurosis passed down from ancestors.

So he used a literary device as old as the hills, the innocent outsider. (cf Voltaire's Ingénu ) Michael Smith, the man from Mars, sees our human behaviour without social filters and thereby shows it up for what it is, largely automatic and moved by fear and greed.

And then he looks at how to change people, and shows that it can't be done except by example. Even wit
h his powers the man from mars can find nothing more telling than to allow himself to be killed, while maintaining love and serenity.

Does it go on too long? Only if you're not interested in the future of human life. (The stuff among the angels doesn't quite work for me, I will admit, but it doesn't half serve to demystify the afterlife.)


Read this book. Heinlein may have had a big ego, he may also have written for an imaginary future of perfect beings, capable of living up to his impossible standards. But that makes him great. Who wants a writer with a perfect sense of proportion and complete sanity?

Read this book and write down every new thought you have. Then do the same for any other "Great" book, and you will see why this is still talked about after nearly 40 years.

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