Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein

 (Book Review)
The Bear once recommended this book to me way back when we were still Calvin students. We were having a late night political/philosophical discussion, and he said to me, “Chewie, I think you would really enjoy this book. It was the hippy bible.”

The book stayed untouched on my bookshelf for a couple months before I finally gave it back to the Bear. Taking the time to read a book, at least for me, is enough of a commitment that I can never seem to do it for other people’s reasons.

But recently I’ve been trying to return to the idea of reading for fun, and thought I might take the Bear up on some of his science fiction recommendations.

This book is a cult classic, which means, according to the definition of cult classic, it is very well known inside of some circles, and then almost completely unknown once you get outside of those circles. It was published in 1961 and, as the Bear mentions, became very popular with the flower children. This is also the book responsible for introducing the word “grok” into the language, or at least into hippy or science fiction circles.

The plot of the book is about the first Martian visitor to the US. Only it turns out the first Martian is actually a human.

The first human expedition to Mars resulted in the death of all aboard except the infant Valentine Michael Smith. Years later, the Martian named Smith, now an adult, is sent back to earth to rejoin his race.

So this is a typical “Man from Mars” outside observer type story line, except this time its literal. Smith doesn’t understand anything about human culture, and has to learn about the human race and all its idiosyncracies.

Between the observations of the man from Mars, and the long diatribes by philosopher Jubal Harshaw (who acts as Heinlein’s mouth piece) there’s a lot to chew on in this book. In fact arguably too much. If Heinlein isn’t outright violating one of the cardinal rules of writing, “Don’t cram too many themes into one book”, then at least he’s pretty damn close.

But near the end of the book especially a few main themes do start to emerge: critiques of organized religion, advocating free love, and a communal view of property. (Did I mention this book was popular with hippies?)

The politics of Heinlein are rather interesting and not always consistent. (This wikipedia entry does a good job of trying to sort it out). Some of Heinlein’s more militaristic views in other books, such as the idea in “Starship Troopers” that citizenship should be based on military service, would not have been popular with the 68 generation. But all of that is absent from “Stranger in a Strange Land” which, if taken alone, would easily lead one to believe that Heinlein was an anarchist socialist.

Still, its difficult to know how seriously to take this book as manifesto. The idyllic free love commune that is created near the end of the book is predicated on Martian telepathy and special abilities. If Science Fiction is about the “What ifs” instead of the “what is” than this makes interesting reading, but is Heinlein advocating this kind of lifestyle for us ordinary humans?

After growing up in an environment where sex was demonized, in my young days at Calvin I was very attracted to the philosophies of Karl Marx, Mikhail Bakunin, Emma Goldman, Rosa Luxembourg, and other thinkers who advocated abolition of the traditional family in favor of free love associations. (In fact I think it might have been during a discussion on this topic that the Bear recommend this book.) But my actual experience at the time was limited.

In the years since I’ve been out in the world, my experience is that people do really get hurt by casual sex relations. But whether this is because of societal conditioning or raw human nature is beyond me. In my experience, it seems like it is the woman who ends up hurt, thus leading me at times to wonder if free love might be a male fantasy more than a well thought out philosophy. But when I tried to make up this point once, my sister violently disagreed and said that girls were more than capable of taking care of themselves, and that I was being a misogynist. And now that I think about, both Emma Goldman and Rosa Luxembourg were women.

...Well, obviously I’m still sorting through some of these issues. To sum up: “Stranger in a Strange Land” is a pretty good book, that will give you some interesting things to think about, although you do have to be patient with the various philosophical digressions the story takes.

Useless Wikipedia Fact
In one anonymous letter sent to King just before he received the Nobel Peace Prize, the FBI threatened King with releasing information about his affairs unless he committed suicide

Link of the Day
Conservative pundits made wildly wrong claims about how Iraq would turn out -- what are they saying now about the Middle East?

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein: Book Review (Scripted)