'Stranger in a Strange Land' Robert A Heinlein

[The Wanderer]

I'm Half way through this and enjoying it very much

it's quite dialogue driven, rather than descriptive, normally, I don't like that so much, but the Ideas are colorful and dialogue snappy, witty and funny

Your thoughts please?

 

[j d worthington]

Well, as you've probably noted from other posts elsewhere, a rather polarizing book; those who like it tend to like it very much, those who don't, can't stand it.

Yes, it's very dialogue and idea-driven, more than the normal action/plot driven. It's a novel of an older sort, the "philosophical novel", and quite a good one of that school; but that's something that's been largely out of favor during the 20th century (not entirely, but by no means with the sort of acceptance, let alone following, it had earlier). Personally, despite some flaws -- some serious -- here and there, I find the novel grows with repeated readings, and I've always quite liked it... in part, because when I first read it (I was in my early teens), it was, to use a phrase I've seen elsewhere (Ellison? I think) like "an explosion in a fresh-air factory" -- it challenged a lot of current assumptions, asked a lot of probing questions, did a serious social satire on many of the more ridiculous aspects of various religio-political ideas, and didn't mind stepping on anyone's toes...

Stranger was a book to make one think and reassess things around; in many ways, it is still quite capable of that, in part because of something Iansales brought up as a complaint against it: the cannibalism aspect. Heinlein was taking a completely accepted (to the point of no one even giving it any thought any longer as to what it mean) aspect of the liturgical ritual and, by making it literal rather than symbolic, renewing the original meaning of that symbol for examination, to get people to really think about those aspects of their beliefs (both sacred and secular) that had come to be taken for granted. He did the same with the strict application of many of the teachings of Christ (which, if they were actually followed as they are in the Bible, are very strongly socialist, even communistic, in nature) -- again, posing the West's (especially America's) ostensible Christianity against its opposition to many of the very ideas Biblical Christianity would encourage. It also questioned many other aspects of the social and political scene, quite mercilessly, overall... as well as poking more than a little fun at our confused sexual mores and the reasoning(?) behind them, and how they, too, seldom match up with our practice....

Overall, I still say it's a damn' fine book... but not one for everyone, I'm afraid...

 

[tarifa]

i'm a fan but have to say i prefer 'time enough for love' by a smidgeon

 

[Ursa major]

I wrote one of those critical post to which J.D.Worthington referred. I'd like to see if your opinion of the book changes as you read the second half. (I should say, though, that the references to cannibalism and the author's take on Christianity did not bother me at all.)

 

[Stenevor]

I read the full version if it makes any difference but I cant say I enjoyed it much. Of the books ive read this one stands out for the first and second halves being so different. I really didnt like the first half and almost put it down but it does get better in the second half when it becomes more philosophical and the poor(IMHO) storyline isnt so prominent.

 

[steve12553]

I enjoyed Stranger because it challenged beliefs that need to be challenged.
No religion or system of beliefs should be accepted at face value. There is much good in religion and belief in a higher purpose but it is so easily perverted for political and monetary gains. Many religions started out with wonderful intentions and grew into "organizations" with self-sustaining purposes created by members much later down the road. I suspect Heinlein was trying to demonstrate this and unfortunately a lot of people just didn't get it.

 

[The Wanderer]

OK, finished it - enjoyed it, some wonderful passages, a rather unispired 4th act was the only dissapointing thing about the book, but the 5th comes back strong

I don't quite Grok , the ending

With Foster and Digby, how do they fit in to this, is Heinlein trying to be Paradoxical by Portraying them as real Angels etc?

In fact I don't quite understand where Digby and Foster fit in?

I felt the Canibal elemts have a rather surreal quality to them and made you think about Man's general disliking of the practice

 

[j d worthington]

Okay... the entire archangel bit is something Heinlein revisits in a lot of his work... it's the linchpin of a rather odd early novel, Beyond This Horizon, for instance... a single page brings it in, and at that point the entire novel changes direction -- not because Heinlein was careless, but because he was addressing a larger issue than the novel at first seemed to be.

How to explain this...? Well, it's a sort of reincarnation, on the story level... Heinlein's inclination to think that there probably was something immortal to human beings (if I read him correctly -- at least, that's the idea as it comes across in a lot of his work), but without an entirely simple idea of immortality, or even the "classic" idea of reincarnation.... more along the line of each person who has such a "soul" (for lack of a better term) -- and not all, I gather, do -- plays different roles at different times; they "choose" the next role before rejoining the eternal game, but once they are actually in the game, in order to play it to its fullest, they forget that higher plane of existence, or only have brief flashes or intimations of it.

It's a complex aspect of Heinlein's fictional philosophy, part of (as TT noted) his "the world as myth", because there are things in the work indicating that only those who truly move and shake have this sort of immortality, while the vast majority do not. (It may not be only the major movers and shakers, but also those who do lesser, but still important, things in changing the world.) There's a touch of solipsism to it (another theme that he frequently explores in his work -- cf. "All You Zombies--"), but, again, it's more complex than that. But a basic component of it is tied to the "Thou art God"... we are all God, in a sense, and God is "playing with himself" in the sense of playing a game, and we are all a part of the godhead... each segment split apart and pitted against each other to make the game more interesting. A part of that includes growing through the experience, as well.... (There is a name for this particular metaphysical philosophy, but for the life of me, I can't remember the darned word at the moment....) So Foster and Digby are two such avatars... Mike's challenges (and he theirs), through which each of them grows and matures and prepares for the next round of the game....

That's on the story level. Metaphorically, it goes back to the bit from Shakespeare: "All the world's a stage / And all the men and women merely players / They have their exits and their entrances; / And one man in his time plays many parts..." In other words, the variegated way we learn and grow as human beings. Or, to use another quote:

Such is our condition that we are not permitted to arrive all at once at something reasonable no matter what it is. Before that it is necessary that we go astray for a long time, that we pass by all sorts of errors and degrees of impertinence.

-- Fontenelle, from Digression sur les Anciens et les Modernes

Hence Digby and Foster (and Mike and Jubal, for the matter of that) may be seen as some of that "passing by ... errors and degrees of impertinence", all working simultaneously.

Heinlein was good at using such theatrical material and metaphor in his work (see, for instance, Double Star); and used books like Stranger both to intrigue and (he hoped) entertain, but also to explore some very complex ideas about various aspects of being human, including our belief systems, our mores, the nature and origin of personality, etc.... (For example, Time Enough for Love has Lazarus Long playing many parts himself, as he lives through several different lifetimes -- cf. the final line of the novel for the connection.)

 

[The Wanderer]

Thanks for that, that brings if more into focus

It seems there is a lot of cud to chew on with this book


I feel I could go back and re-read certain chapters and conversations and get alot from them, though not the whole book

great philiophical digressions, like Jubal's praising of Rodin's sculptures

even going back and reading some of Jubal's flippant remarks is fun

 

[Bick]

I re-read Stanger in a Strange Land. My review (cut and pasted from my website):

Stranger in a Strange Land is one of the most famous SF novels of all time. First published in 1961 by Putnum it came in at just over 400 pages, and at that size it was still unusually long for SF at the time. In fact, Heinlein had cut about 70,000 words from his manuscript followings howls from the publisher regarding the length of the book. I just re-read the novel, this time tackling the unabridged version that was posthumously retrieved from Heinlein's archives in the University of California. It is interesting to note that the reinstated material doesn't comprise added sections of plot or further chapters, but the reinstatement of all the adverbs, adjectives and other descriptions that Heinlein culled from almost every paragraph throughout the entire book! We therefore get a book that has exactly the same plot but with many more words. This leads to the first of a number of problems with the book; despite its reputation and Hugo Award win in 1962, I discovered it is in fact a flawed novel and one of my least favourite books by Heinlein.

I have checked the prose of the original published version with the unabridged version side-by-side. The original version has the advantage of moving things along much better, while the actual prose of the unabridged text is better written. Thus, Heinlein wrote a book that was flawed from the outset by its length. The full length version is bloated and progresses too slowly - the plot does not support the length - while the shorter version reads much less well. It's therefore hard to recommend either for different reasons, and Heinlein would have been well advised to simply write a shorter book that didn't compromise his prose in the first place.

The plot itself is an interesting concept: a baby (Michael Valentine Smith) is left on Mars, the sole survivor of the first manned mission to the planet, and is raised (rather like Tarzan) by the local Martian aliens. When he is recovered from Mars by a second mission a couple of decades later, he is essentially Martian in thought and perspective and when he's brought back to Earth, he is indeed the titular 'Stranger' to humankind. It's a decent idea, and the initial sections concerned with his incarceration in a hospital, escape, and early days in refuge are well done. We can sympathise with Smith's predicament and are interested to see how he integrates with humanity and learns our ways. From hereon however, the book goes downhill on a number of fronts.

Smith takes refuge with Jubal Harshaw, a lawyer, doctor, novelist and one the most smug characters ever written. Harshaw is Heinlein, basically, and the only character in the book with any character. Smith's ignorance of the world and human behaviour provides a mirror by which Harshaw can constantly comment and educate, generally in a biting, satirical manner. He offers logical insight into various topics, and a lot of what he has to say is quite clever. We find ourselves sagely nodding at many of arguments. However, this is supposed to be a novel about Smith, and Smith has no character to speak of, being both paper thin and unappealing. We therefore have a novel in which there is no main character: it's not actually Smith, who is a sounding board and acts like an automaton most of the time, and its not the peripheral figures either.

And here also lies the greatest flaw in the novel. Because he is Martian, and has no humanity to speak of, Smith cannot resonate with the reader. Harshaw has to provide all the human connection to the book. If Smith were to become more human as the book unfolded, he would become more engaging over time, and we could connect and sympathise more with him. But this doesn't occur - he remains Martian in thinking and outlook throughout, and moreover, all the other main characters join him, becoming more and more Martian themselves. By the end of the book none of the key characters have remained human in outlook, and we struggle to connect with anyone or any outcome.

The second major problem with the book is one of believability. Heinlein imparts other-worldly powers to Smith, such that he can make objects and people completely disappear just by thinking of it, he has telekinetic powers, he can adjust his body metabolism, change his physical appearance, and generally behave like a god. The rationale for all this is that he was raised by Martians, and that what we can do (from a psychic perspective) is simply dictated by our early learning and methods of thought. I didn't buy it; his acolytes can use all these powers after a year or so of practice even though they grew up in Boston or Schenectady, and this is glossed over. It's a weakness of the novel to my mind, given Heinlein is usually quite stringent on employing good science.

The final significant flaw in the book has to do with the incorporation of many of Heinlein's more controversial themes. The second half of the book centers mainly on the development and practices of Smith's church of 'All Worlds', and it is through this device that Heinlein offers various ideas for his readers - ideas that would become hobby horses in his later novels. Foremost among these ideas is free-sex and polygamy. This was the sixties, and he was writing for the zeitgeist to some extent I imagine, and these ideas are not that extreme by themselves. However, he dwells on the importance of free-sex and partner-swapping for a couple of hundred pages, which on the one hand becomes tedious, and on the other it strays into the unacceptable territory when Smith is arrested for statutory rape, for instance. The girls in the church figuratively roll their eyes when this occurs, as if to say, "good grief, he only had sex with underage girls, what's the big concern?" It's all rather unsavory.

In short, Heinlein wrote some terrific SF novels, but this is not one of them. It is either far too choppy in it's prose or otherwise far too long (depending which version you read), it has real promise at the start but peters out in its plot - which becomes increasingly self-indulgent - and it offers little humanity with which to connect. While the book did win the Hugo Award for best novel in 1962, that was actually against a backdrop of some severe criticism at the time of release. So, while I was surprised to find it is quite so flawed on this re-read (it was 35 years since I first read it), I should perhaps not have been too surprised.

 

[Toby Frost]

Smith's ignorance of the world and human behaviour provides a mirror by which Harshaw can constantly comment and educate, generally in a biting, satirical manner. He offers logical insight into various topics, and a lot of what he has to say is quite clever. We find ourselves sagely nodding at many of arguments. However, this is supposed to be a novel about Smith, and Smith has no character to speak of, being both paper thin and unappealing. We therefore have a novel in which there is no main character: it's not actually Smith, who is a sounding board and acts like an automaton most of the time, and its not the peripheral figures either.

This sounds exactly like the relationship between Johnny Rico and his various teachers, officers and other authority figures in Starship Troopers, which was one of the main reasons I thought it was a weak book.