Oh for F***** sake!

[butterflydreaming]

I'm typing this so that I won't light the library's copy of Stranger in a Strange Land on fire. I feel like pitching it across the room.


The problem with preachy books is that the statements contained, even in character dialog, stop being part of the story and sound like nothing more than the author's viewpoints. In the last 300 pages, I've put up with the outdated sexist attitudes. At first, these were even a little bit antedeluvianly cute, like the use of the word "spinster". The blah blah blah about the Fosterites at least contains some ambiguity as to whether they are to be praised or reviled; besides, I'm willing to have some on-and-on about that because it is one of the book's major points. And okay, p 303, Mike is straight and wouldn't, in Jill's opinion, take a gay water brother. (That confused me. The girls were kissin' on each other. Didn't a three-way happen with Pat, the tattooed woman? Did I read that wrong?) And Jill, who I strongly dislike, suddenly discovers that she's an exhibitionist.

But this I can't take: [Jill] 'Nine times out of ten, if a girl gets raped, it's partly her fault.'

My anger is because I know how many times I've heard this book cited as influential to a friend's outlook. Polyfolk often point to Heinlein. I thought TMisHM was just okay, yet that still had a *story*. Mercedes Lackey is horribly preachy, and that's why I don't run out to read her newer books, even though I like her older ones quite a lot. But I digress. I'm angry because as I see it so far, this book is poisonous, and it's one that has been recommended to me repeatedly from various sources. If there's a glimmer of gold in this, is it worth wading through the garbage? How many readers took statements like that rape statement along with the mind-broadening concepts about ownership, death, and interpersonal connection in, took all of that in without tasting the vile rot of something that should have been dead a long time ago?

I'm not even angry at the *author*. If he was a hack and a sexist bastard, he still had a few ideas and sold books, and neither really have anything to do with me; he's not eating at my table. I'm upset because, except for once when I was offered water, I have not been told about what's in the book, in a this is an interesting idea that this book contained way, but that the whole thing has been suggested to me as a "read this book!".

A hundred pages to go. I'll finish this book and then I'll find something to scrub out my brain. And then I'll give it back to the library, because I don't *actually* burn books.

As a side note: I notice loose similarities to Brave New World. (The Noble Savage serves as a contrast to society.) BNW is a novel I've read three times, one each as a child, a teen, and in my early 20s. I decided that it had something to say, even though I also came to the conclusion that I don't like it. I've been pondering what I would have thought of SiaSL at 10, 16, and 20.

Comments

[adventurat.livejournal.com]

I mostly loathed the Heinleins I read. (Is SiaSL the one where the very rich dude has a brain transplant into his sexy female assistant's body? That one, ugh.

[shadow-and-veil.livejournal.com]

No, it's the one about the human raised as a Martian. I'm sure my f'list will provide the title of the brain transplant one.

[adventurat.livejournal.com]

Friday, I think. Saw it in another comment and it rang a bell.

[joyful-storm.livejournal.com]

Out of curiosity, are you reading the restored full text as originally written or the earlier-published, censored version?

I have to admit, I don't remember the quote that has upset you so at all. . . I must have put on my Heinlein-sex endurance goggles and not have had it hit my radar or something. Or it seemed plausible to me for Jill to have thought that and said it in its context, however much I happen to disagree with it.

I started reading Heinlein at the urging of samildanach in my mid-twenties. I can see why it's regarded as classic sf, and there are some quite good bits, but on the whole I found it much less impressive and influential than I might have if I was exposed a decade earlier.

Given your response to this book, I suggest that you forgo reading Friday.

[shadow-and-veil.livejournal.com]

After I posted this post, I couldn't go back to the book right away, so I read the Wikipedia entry. Half an octopus would have been good for me before even starting the book, I think. Then again, unsullied horror has its place. I saw there that there was a full text version; the book I'm reading is the earlier-published.

I have to admit, I don't remember the quote that has upset you so at all. That's exactly why I get so upset about it. I could see that many would say the same.

I am *so* done with Heinlein.

[joyful-storm.livejournal.com]

I've only read the full version, but I can imagine what bits were probably cut and how that would affect the story flow.

I'm reminded of having watched Clive Barker's Hellraiser as edited for broadcast by the SciFi Channel with my mom once. She said it made absolutely no sense to her. Having read the novella it's based on, I responded that Barker tended to put the most important plot points in the most graphic parts of the story, so "cleaning it up" rather makes an empty shell of it.

I'm not saying that if you read the full version it would redeem the work in your eyes (I doubt it), but it might make the book seem more self-referentially coherent in its own little pocket universe.

[spazzychic.livejournal.com]

Keep in mind it was written 40 years ago... but still the gospelization of Heinlien is bothersome..

[shadow-and-veil.livejournal.com]

Keeping the age in mind is what got me past the first 20 pages. I don't expect it to match contemporary thinking. That's not the real issue. Granted, it would probably bother me less if it wasn't sci-fi, set in a future... where nothing had changed.

[kaligrrrl.livejournal.com]

I would never recommend Heinlein. yuck.

If I'm preaching the poly-influential sci-fi, it's going to be Marge Piercy's Woman on the Edge of time.

[mimerki.livejournal.com]

It's important to remember where a lot of us were when we read this book. I was a freshman in high school in rural Ohio. The idea that Mike might feel like there was something wrong with a gay man but be perfectly comfortable with bisexual behaviors (on the part of both genders) was a lot more open-minded feeling then than it is now.

I think the book may be a period piece, from the golden age of science fiction. That age being 14.

[buhrger]

That age being 14.
heee. now i'm wondering if all genres of fiction have their own golden ages...?

oh, and wrt SiaSL you're likely right.

[ironymaiden]

i was 14 too, and it blew my mind. imagine that pretty much every concept in the book is new to you. and the rape statement is the most charitable to the woman that you have ever heard...

[shiro-no-wired.livejournal.com]

outdated sexist attitudes
That's because its an old book.
I have to confess, I'm not too fond of Jill myself. I think she's too "old-fashioned."

I missed most of what you have problems with, most likely because I was young, but also because I read SiaSL like watching a movie, and I just accepted what happened in it as consistent with the context. I know Cygna hates that I do this, but I stick characters & scenes I dislike into the "Fuck Off" file, and just forget about them, so they won't clutter the rest of the book.

Nonetheless, I still like the book. I think the concept was neat.