3 ms·

My goodness, the name of the leading character in "Stranger in a Strange Land" is as familiar to millions of literate persons as Oliver Twist or Holden Caulfiel

My goodness, the name of the leading character in "Stranger in a Strange Land" is as familiar to millions of literate persons as Oliver Twist or Holden Caulfield. Not reading the next sentence, I thought it was Jubal Hershaw, the author-avatar character but it was Michael Smith and damned if I could remember that. Vonnegut is simply wrong about that. No one remembers Michael Smith by name. It wasn't a good book at all. If it were a first book by an unknown author, it would never have been published. It was just Heinlein trying to do what he thought was a book for adults rather than his usual young adult sci-fi. Aside from grok, there's nothing memorable. The sex cult stuff is just weird. Indeed if you use grok in a sentence today it marks you as a boomer or maybe a techie. I rarely see this book mentioned at all and never by the kidz. Speaking of the kidz, Overly Sarcastic Productions does a good piece on it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jAkplrZci0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jAkplrZci0

JJMcJ 5y ago
I think RAH went over the cliff into self-indulgence with SIASL, as many authors do later in their career. James Michener as an example in general fiction.
- ghaff 5y ago
  It's hard to call SIASL late-career unless you basically consider anything post YA as late career. Heinlein would basically be hardly remembered today had he stopped writing before Starship Troopers.
  - JJMcJ 5y ago
    His later books had the self-indulgent feel that I was referring too. Self-referential, wordy, very strange approach to life.
    - ghaff 5y ago
      It's obviously totally fine not to like post-juvenile Heinlein but my point is that pretty much no one would remember Heinlein for pre-late 50s YA fiction alone.
      - JJMcJ 5y ago
        You may be right. Though not all his pre-1960 work was YA.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
        JJMcJ 5y ago
        One more thought, even if we don't consider Stranger and afterward as "late career" it does feel like a break with prior work, YA or adult.
  - samatman 5y ago
    Agreed, I would place the onset of 'late career' Heinlein at Number of the Beast. Which it turns out Wikipedia agrees with, when I went to check the bibliography, so there's that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_A._Heinlein_bibliography#Late_Heinlein_novels https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_A._Heinlein_bibliograph...
    - ghaff 5y ago
      That would have been my intuitive guess--although, looking at that list, there are IMO some real stinkers in mid-Heinlein and a couple of decent books in late Heinlein. I suppose I'd be a bit hard-pressed to really draw a clear distinction between the two periods.
eesmith 5y ago
As many Heinlein fans may recall, one working title for the book was "A Martian Named Smith". Your comment echoes that of Orville Prescott ("disastrous mishmash of science fiction, laborious humor, dreary social satire and cheap eroticism.") , mentioned both in Vonnegut's review and at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stranger_in_a_Strange_Land#Reception https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stranger_in_a_Strange_Land#Rec... . "Memorable" to you now is certainly different than 1990, when Vonnegut wrote, or 1961 when it was first released. It was released at the start of the sexual revolution. American views on sex were already in flux - look at the reaction to the Kinsey Reports around 1950. Moreover, Heinlein timed the publication because "I had been in no hurry to finish it, as that story could not be published commercially until the public mores changed. I could see them changing and it turned out that I had timed it right." (Quote from that Wikipedia page.) "The kidz" turning 20 now were born 40 years after the book came out, over a decade after the AIDS crisis, in a world where discussions about sex are much more common. Heinlein wrote Stranger "to shake the reader loose from some preconceptions and induce him to think for himself, along new and fresh lines" (Quote from that Wikipedia page.) I think few kidz now consider mid-20th century ideas to be new and fresh. For that matter, how many young Asimov fans are there these days? I don't much like Dune. However, I recognize the impact it had for its era, like its treatment of planetary ecology, written in the new Silent Spring era. I think the same applies to Stranger. And I totally get not wanting to try to understand that era in order grok its context. ("Sure, you don't get it now, but after you watch the next five seasons it will totally make sense!")
- CalChris 5y ago
  I’ll take your point about era. A friend said the same about On The Road, that it belonged to a generation. I don’t think Stranger holds up, probably for the same reason. I’m not much of a science fiction fan but I remember Dune and Bradbury’s Illustrated Man fondly. I can’t say that about Asimov or Heinlein or Fahrenheit 451. (Well the first chapter is pretty good.) But Rachel Carson was great writer; she should be studied and remembered for her craft as a writer and for her ideas.
nilram 5y ago
I have always thought of Heinlein as having written two original books. The first part of _Stranger in a Strange Land_ was one of them, then pick the second part or any of his other books for the other. I really tried to look for originality in his others that I read, but aside from names and settings, I just didn’t find any. I wish he had written more books with the freshness of SiaSL.

JJMcJ 5y ago

I think RAH went over the cliff into self-indulgence with SIASL, as many authors do later in their career. James Michener as an example in general fiction.

ghaff 5y ago
It's hard to call SIASL late-career unless you basically consider anything post YA as late career. Heinlein would basically be hardly remembered today had he stopped writing before Starship Troopers.
- JJMcJ 5y ago
  His later books had the self-indulgent feel that I was referring too. Self-referential, wordy, very strange approach to life.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    It's obviously totally fine not to like post-juvenile Heinlein but my point is that pretty much no one would remember Heinlein for pre-late 50s YA fiction alone.
    - JJMcJ 5y ago
      You may be right. Though not all his pre-1960 work was YA.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - JJMcJ 5y ago
        One more thought, even if we don't consider Stranger and afterward as "late career" it does feel like a break with prior work, YA or adult.
- samatman 5y ago
  Agreed, I would place the onset of 'late career' Heinlein at Number of the Beast. Which it turns out Wikipedia agrees with, when I went to check the bibliography, so there's that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_A._Heinlein_bibliography#Late_Heinlein_novels https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_A._Heinlein_bibliograph...
  - ghaff 5y ago
    That would have been my intuitive guess--although, looking at that list, there are IMO some real stinkers in mid-Heinlein and a couple of decent books in late Heinlein. I suppose I'd be a bit hard-pressed to really draw a clear distinction between the two periods.

eesmith 5y ago

As many Heinlein fans may recall, one working title for the book was "A Martian Named Smith". Your comment echoes that of Orville Prescott ("disastrous mishmash of science fiction, laborious humor, dreary social satire and cheap eroticism.") , mentioned both in Vonnegut's review and at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stranger_in_a_Strange_Land#Reception https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stranger_in_a_Strange_Land#Rec... . "Memorable" to you now is certainly different than 1990, when Vonnegut wrote, or 1961 when it was first released. It was released at the start of the sexual revolution. American views on sex were already in flux - look at the reaction to the Kinsey Reports around 1950. Moreover, Heinlein timed the publication because "I had been in no hurry to finish it, as that story could not be published commercially until the public mores changed. I could see them changing and it turned out that I had timed it right." (Quote from that Wikipedia page.) "The kidz" turning 20 now were born 40 years after the book came out, over a decade after the AIDS crisis, in a world where discussions about sex are much more common. Heinlein wrote Stranger "to shake the reader loose from some preconceptions and induce him to think for himself, along new and fresh lines" (Quote from that Wikipedia page.) I think few kidz now consider mid-20th century ideas to be new and fresh. For that matter, how many young Asimov fans are there these days? I don't much like Dune. However, I recognize the impact it had for its era, like its treatment of planetary ecology, written in the new Silent Spring era. I think the same applies to Stranger. And I totally get not wanting to try to understand that era in order grok its context. ("Sure, you don't get it now, but after you watch the next five seasons it will totally make sense!")

CalChris 5y ago
I’ll take your point about era. A friend said the same about On The Road, that it belonged to a generation. I don’t think Stranger holds up, probably for the same reason. I’m not much of a science fiction fan but I remember Dune and Bradbury’s Illustrated Man fondly. I can’t say that about Asimov or Heinlein or Fahrenheit 451. (Well the first chapter is pretty good.) But Rachel Carson was great writer; she should be studied and remembered for her craft as a writer and for her ideas.

nilram 5y ago

I have always thought of Heinlein as having written two original books. The first part of _Stranger in a Strange Land_ was one of them, then pick the second part or any of his other books for the other. I really tried to look for originality in his others that I read, but aside from names and settings, I just didn’t find any. I wish he had written more books with the freshness of SiaSL.