This was my first time reading anything by Heinlein. I really enjoyed the first half, and I was pleasantly surprised by how readable and entertaining it was, but I disliked the second half quite a bit.

The main premise is that there is life on Mars, and humanity has only just begun to travel there. As a result of the first trip, a baby is born on Mars, his parents die, and he is raised by Martians. When the book begins, Mike, the baby in question, is now an adult and he has just traveled back to Earth to meet his race.

I thought the first part was great. It was a bit dated in some of its attitudes and beliefs, but the story was interesting and I really liked how Heinlein built up this alien culture which looks at things so differently from humans, to the point that some things simply can’t be translated in terms humans can understand and vice versa. The characters were relatively interesting and likeable. Even Jubal was likeable at first. I had the impression, without knowing anything about Heinlein’s personality or beliefs, that Jubal was Heinlein’s voice in this book, representing the ideal older man and expressing the ideas that Heinlein wanted to convey to his readers.

The second half devolved into mysticism, orgies, and, worst of all, monologues, and I didn’t care for the ending. But my biggest complaint was with the monologues. They weren’t terribly long, but they were frequent. The author, usually through Jubal, seemed to have a lot of opinions on religion, philosophy, families, and cultural taboos that he wanted to express. My problem really wasn’t with the opinions themselves. I agreed with some and disagreed with others. I was horrified by a few and amused by others. It’s just that they were presented in a manner that felt too preachy, and that pulled me out of the story. And at that point, the story itself became less interesting and everything felt like a vehicle to deliver the monologues.

I have a couple of Heinlein’s other books on my reading list, and I’ve seen them compared more favorably to this one, so I intend to cycle back around and give him another try eventually. When he was just telling me a story and not trying to preach at me, I enjoyed his writing style. On the sites where I can give half stars, I’m rating this as 2.5. On Goodreads, I decided to round up to 3 based on the first half and parts of the second half.

If you’ve ever trip-sat for a dudebro on acid, reading this book will feel fairly familiar.

You kind of tilt your head patiently and reluctantly say, “...go on.” You’re really hoping he’ll stop talking and put some wonky music on and talk about how he’s seeing the key of F# on the ceiling or how “this song is sooo the colour chartreuse, you know?”

But instead he’s going on and on about his ideal world and how he feels about religion and how this one girl he likes is a bitch for not liking him but he really believes in love and thinks we’re all connected and death isn’t something to be afraid of because Newton said energy is not lost or gained so our energy just flows back into the universe like waves back to the sea and-

Deep breath.

This was my first Heinlein book and I was all excited to get into him. But after this book I went through all 8 of my Heinlein to-reads and summarily deleted them, with the exception of The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, which I’m still going to read because it’s such a great title. Yes. I know. That’s a terrible reason.

I think Heinlein himself puts it pretty nicely when he has his protag Michael say, "What I had to teach couldn't be taught in schools; I was forced to smuggle it in as a religion- which it is not- and con the marks into tasting it by appealing to their curiosity."

I don't know if that's a fleeting moment of self-awareness on his part, or if it was unintentional, but that's what Heinlein thinks he's doing here. Educating us. Enlightening us.

And instead of writing a manifesto, which no one would read, he's writing it as fiction packed with all the things humans find curious- orgies, cannibalism, cults- to make it more palatable to us Earthlings.

Story time. I was raised with horses. When they needed medication, I'd grind up the pills and put them in applesauce and shoot it into their mouths with a turkey baster. One of the horses, Teddy, would lap that shit right up. But the other, Macy, was smart. She could taste the pills and she'd spit it back all over my shirt.

Friends, we are the horse, Heinlein is me, and Stranger in a Strange Land is drugged applesauce. Don't be Teddy. Be Macy.

I won’t even discuss the fact that women are portrayed as lobotomized inflatable baboons, that’s been done to death in other reviews but I totally agree with them that it brings this book down majorly, preventing me from ever engaging fully with the material. Keith’s review puts it nicely: based on this book, Heinlein is nothing short of “a gender-specific sociopath.”

Heinlein has some interestingly prescient predictions, at least. Like surrogacy being a relatively mainstream thing. Plus there were some interesting scenes, it’s not completely empty of worth, and the plotting isn’t horrible.

Still, easily the best thing about this book is the cover. I wish this cover were on the front of a book worth buying and rereading.

Cada vez me convenço mais que os livros de maior sucesso, que vendem milhões, são livros que as pessoas compram com múltiplos fins, excepto o da sua leitura. “Stranger in a Strange Land” parece-me ser um desses casos. Um livro que se apresenta como de Ficção Científica, mas que de científico tem zero, e que deveria antes apresentar-se nas prateleiras das “Ciências” do Esotérico.

A razão porque vendeu tanto é, em parte, explicável. Saiu em 1961, passou totalmente despercebido. Apesar de receber o prémio Hugo em 1962, as várias análises da época foram bastante destrutivas, e o livro acabou por passar ao esquecimento. Em 1968 com o ressurgimento em força do Programa Apollo da NASA, com o lançamento do primeiro americano no espaço, o livro foi reeditado, mesmo a tempo da loucura que seria o ano 1969 com a chegada à Lua. E é assim que o livro acaba a ser o primeiro livro de FC a entrar na lista do The New York Times Bestsellers, ultrapassando a marca dos 100 mil livros vendidos. Desde então, o facto de ter sido o primeiro livro FC bestseler do NY tem servido fortemente a promoção levando-o a vender mais 5 milhões.

Por mais mal que se diga, se o livro vendeu bem e ainda por cima tem um prémio Hugo, o mais importante da FC, alguma coisa deve existir no livro. Foi isto mesmo que também pensei, contudo, nem sempre os prémios tudo explicam, mais ainda no caso do Hugo que na altura ainda nem 10 anos tinha de existência. Depois, Heinlein na altura era já um grande nome do meio, com uma grande quantidade de contos publicados e alguns livros. Aliás Heinlein costuma surgir ao lado de Isaac Asimov e Arthur C. Clarke como os três grandes da ficção literária de FC. Contudo, só o consigo equiparar em pioneirismo, tudo o resto deixa muito a desejar, basta pensar no livro que precede este, "Starship Troopers" (1959).

Vejamos então ao que vem “Stranger in a Strange Land”. A premissa surgiu de uma ideia da sua esposa, Ginny Heinlein, depois de ler “The Jungle Book” (1894) de Rudyard Kipling. A ideia assentaria numa personagem que em vez de ter sido criada por animais, teria sido criada por marcianos. Uma premissa que se parece estimulante à partida, peca por um problema de base, a ausência de qualquer conhecimento sobre marcianos. Se no Livro da Selva, Kipling procura fusionar as características dos animais com as dos humanos, no caso de Heinlein, não existindo marcianos, resta-lhe fusionar humanos com humanos.

Assim sendo, e de modo a minorar a desconfiança do alcance do seu texto, Heinlein vem dizer que na verdade não tinha feito um livro de ficção científica, mas antes uma “sátira sociopolítica sobre o sexo e a religião na cultura contemporânea”, com o que mais concordo. Na verdade já tivemos algo parecido no passado, naquele que é hoje tido como o primeiro livro de FC, “As Viagens de Gulliver” (1726), e que Heinlein cita a meio do seu livro. Então o que os diferencia? Em essência, a ciência.

Como Heinlein não usa qualquer base científica sobre a potencial vida em Marte, ou qualquer outro planeta, o que nos apresenta limita-se a dois mundos idênticos, com ideologias políticas distintas. Mas percebendo a insuficiência desse embate, e seguindo Swift, que coloca em confronto ideias sociopolíticas, mas a partir de posicionamentos distintos (pessoas muito pequenas, pessoas muito grandes ou pessoas racionalistas), Heinlein vai optar por embarcar no oposto, e gisar os marcianos enquanto pessoas esotéricas, desenhando toda uma sociedade baseada no misticismo, superstição e inexplicável, fazendo mesmo uso da astrologia para conduzir muito do seu enredo.

Só isto seria suficiente para atirar o livro por terra, mas é todo o restante enredo que é também tão pobre e subdesenvolvido. Temos um adulto de 25 anos que nasceu em Marte, mas filho de humanos que para lá viajaram numa nave. Esta pessoa vai depois apresentar poderes de telepatia e telecinese, apesar de biologicamente ser um simples humano que viveu toda a vida em Marte. Ou seja, Heinlein não consegue delimitar o seu trabalho, passando entre o social, o psicológico e o físico como se tudo fosse igual. Acabamos por perceber porque assim é, o foco do seu interesse nunca foi os marcianos, mas antes e só projetar os seus ideais sociais, defender por meio de uma historieta, uma quantidade de banalidades, pseudo-filosóficas, sobre a religião e o sexo, apresentando assim uma espécie de sociedade pré-New Age.

Para agravar tudo isto, o livro inicial tinha sido fortemente editado e reduzido em mais de 60 mil palavras, mas depois de Heinlein morrer a sua esposa encontrou a versão não editada, e resolveu publicá-la, dizendo que era a versão em que o marido sempre tinha acreditado. Assim, para quem quiser ler hoje estas desventuras, tem de sofrer mais uma centena de páginas em que nada acontece, a não ser montes de diálogos inconsequentes, em que se discutem banalidades do quotidiano, e que podem sim, servir a quem quiser traçar os hábitos à época, anos 1960, apesar do livro supostamente ser passado no futuro.


Publicado em Virtual Illusion (http://virtual-illusion.blogspot.pt/2...).

dnf
Δεν άντεξα παραπάνω από 200 σελίδες. Ανούσιοι χαρακτήρες, κοινότοποι διάλογοι...συγγραφική μετριότητα.
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One of the greatest science fiction novels ever written.

An Evolutionary Concept
9 January 2012

tWhile this book is considered science fiction it is not what I really expected from science fiction because it seems to explore the idea of religion in a universe in which there is intelligent life on other planets. The main reason that I read this book was probably more to do with a song by Iron Maiden (which, by the way, has nothing to do with the book) rather than it being, as is written on the cover of my edition, 'the most famous science fiction novel of all time'. I am glad that they put 'the most famous' as opposed to 'the greatest' because I would be very hesitant to call it 'great' in the sense of a great novel. It is a good book, and a challenging one at that, but I would hardly call it the greatest.

tThe story is about a man named Mike Smith. He was born on Mars after the ship that his parents were in crash landed. It should be noted that this was the first ever voyage to Mars. However the crash meant that he was orphaned, so he grew up under the influence of the inhabitants, but when a second ship arrived and left colonists, they decided to take Mike back to Earth. However, while Mike looked human in all respects, his mind and his culture was not.

tNow, before I go into detail on the ideas behind this novel, I should outline the nature of the Martians. While we don’t meet the Martians in this novel, we do hear a lot about them, mostly from Mike, but also from those on the second ship that. It is very clear that the Martians are a highly advanced and civilised culture, and are clearly not human. When I mention that they are civilised, this is in comparison with that of Earth, who are considered to be barbaric in the eyes of the omniscient story teller. So, the title of the book refers namely to Mike Smith, a human who was not raised by humans but by a race that is far more advanced than humanity is, returning to Earth and attempting to learn about human society.

tIn many ways this book is a criticism of human society. I have already indicated that the omniscient author considers that humans are basically barbarians. This is demonstrated throughout the book in that they are ruled by jealousy, greed, and a misguided sense of morality. Humans, in many cases, are isolationist. They only come together in groups when the mutual interests of everybody in the group are directed towards the same goal, however when the goal is achieved, the group then dissipates into the atypical infighting that defines humanity. This is contrasted with the people of Mars, who for the most part, are not only patient, but have no concept of property or money, and desire to be in communion with each other. However, the Martians are not human, particularly in the sense that there is no concept of gender amongst the Martians.

tThis is translated differently when it comes to humanity. While the Martian biology enables them to come together as one, the only way that humans can do this is through sex. Now sex plays an incredibly important role in this novel, and I must admit that Heinlein's concept of sex here is very similar to my own. The barbaric nature of humanity defines sex in one of two ways, for the pursuit of pleasure, and to procreate. This outlines the two sides of humanity, as Heinlein describes, being the Apollonian (that is the 'moral' and 'righteous') and the Dionysiac (that is the sensual and debaucherous). However, in the book, sex is a way to get to know a person better (Heinlein uses a word that he created, called 'grok' however, I will get to that a little later). The difference between my Christian upbringing and his outline is that with me, apart from our relationship with God, we only are supposed to (in a perfect world that is) know one other person to that intimate level, however Heinlein suggests that this kind of knowing should be shared throughout the human race. Before I continue, though, I wish to make a quick comment on homosexuality in the book. It is not mentioned, it is implied, but not mentioned, and I suspect that this is because that when the book was written, it was still very much a taboo subject. Remember that this book was written before the sexual revolution went into full swing, and as such many of the concepts were still quite controversial.

tNow, the idea of his religion, if one is to call it that because Mike Smith constantly denies that his idea is either a religion or even a faith, it is more of a knowledge and an understanding. The two ideas are that we are all gods, and it is when we come to that understanding we can then move forward, and that is to evolve. The second concept is that of the community. It is not the ideal of a Christian community, that is unique individuals living together in a community of love, but rather a collection of individuals coming together as a whole. While there is uniqueness, it is suggested that the community comes together so that all of this individuals become a whole. Granted, that is suggestive of Christianity, but I felt that is concept was much more pantheistic (as Christianity has a concept of God that is separate from us and from the world).

tI note that Heinlein borrowed a lot from other religions in developing this book. We have the concept of love and community from Christianity, the idea that it is only by learning Martian that one can truly understand his religion (which is taken from Islam), and the concept that we are all god (from Buddhism). Now, I know that Heinlein emphasises in his book that this is not a religion, but I beg to differ. It is a belief system that tells us where we come from, where we are going, and our purpose for existence. I know others might disagree, but in my mind, this is a religion, and there is no escaping from it. However, it should also be noted that Heinlein did not write this book so as to start a new religion. Somebody did, and Heinlein did keep tabs on it, but he was not, and is not, involved in it.

tI will finish by outlining the concept of grok. Now grok is a word that Heinlein created for the purpose of this book. I guess he used it to demonstrate the inefficiencies of the English language (and there are many). Grok is to know something in its fullness, that is to drink of it. It is not simply to know, but to know, to understand, and to be able to experience (that is drink of) it. The whole book seems to evolve around this concept of grok, as Mike comes to Earth to grok Earth and its inhabitants, but it is much more than to learn and to know, it is to become apart of and to dwell within. In a sense we could easily say that God desires to grok us.

tI wanted to finish there, but I feel that there is another aspect of this book that needs to be brought out, and that is evolution. Now, first of all, Heinlein was not the first to write of Mars as having a highly advanced and civilised race, C.S. Lewis did the same thing in Out of the Silent Planet. Secondly, the question of religion and science fiction was also explored by C.S. Lewis in 'Religion and Rocketships'. However, it is clear that Heinlein is not a Christian, so therefore is unlikely to hold the same views as did Lewis. Now, the idea of evolution among many of us involves physical changes, but as Lewis indicated in his book Mere Christianity that this is a rather narrow view of evolution. It is Lewis' proposition that when Christ came to Earth and founded Christianity, the human race evolved, and it was not a slow movement, but a sudden jump. So to here, Mike Smith comes to Earth (as a Messiah, and dies as a Messiah) and through his interaction with humanity, enables them to once again evolve, not as a slow movement, but as a sudden spurt. This is indicated very clearly at the end where it is said that the Martians decided to be patient with humanity, but in being patient, humanity moves forward to a point where the Martians discovered that they were too late to do anything about it. They may have been advanced and civilised, but they did not hold all wisdom.

Meh.

While I appreciate the idea of, and any attempt at, examination on nature of humanity, it becomes quite irrelevant without a more universally applicable, self-reliant basis. As such, "Stranger in a Strange Land" felt woefully stuck in useless circles inside the most commonly portrayed narrow limits of its specific societal hubris.

Arguably relevant commentary of and within its cultural sphere, perhaps, but most of any profundity or satiric value seems to dwindle, when extended to consciousness outside the parameters of the self-awareless ties to God, church, language, sex and gender. One hardly needs an off-planet protagonist to reveal this well familiar, prevailing cultural tunnel-vision.

Occasional chuckle-worthy remarks aside, tiringly prosaic, ill-focused and unproductively pedantic in the frame of 'humanity to extraterrestrial'.


"Some of it in Martian concepts, more of it in English."


_________
The reading updates.

When you consider we have many other sci-fi writers who are not stuck in their own time and do not write all their male characters as sexist, sex-obsessed or sexy, you can clearly understand the view to give this book a very wide birth. The storyline was actually quite interesting, but I'm sure the is someone out there who had written something similar without the added bollocks "of the time".

Un livre touche-à-tout lu dans une période de doute foncier. Comme toujours chez Heinlein, le livre vaut plus pour les questions qu'il pose que pour les réponses qu'il y apporte.
Les questions portent sur l'humain, le transhumanisme, le sexe, la religion organisée sous forme de secte...
Mike, l'homme né dans l'espace, a une évolution très intéressante dans le cours de l'histoire. Lu dans le texte.

This started out great and turned into total crap.

I read the original, uncut version of this book. It has five parts:
1. His Maculate Origin
2. His Preposterous Heritage
3. His Eccentric Education
4. His Scandalous Career
5. His Happy Destiny
I loved the first two and I was convinced that the rest would be just as awesome and I’ll write a 5 star review and this will forever be one of my favorite sci-fi books. But no, this is simply yet another book with a good first half and a shitty second half.

Here’s what the story is about: people visit Mars for the first time, everybody dies, twenty years later another group of people visit Mars and they discover that a baby from the first group survived and was raised by Martians. His name is Valentine Michael Smith and he comes back to Earth with them. But it’s obvious that, even though he’s human, he doesn't act like humans do and he can do plenty of things that humans can’t.

Once upon a time, when the world was young there was a Martian named Smith.
Mike is a fascinating character. He’s very naive; everything is completely different from his perspective (if you give him water, you become his ‘water brother’), he doesn't know what a woman is. I couldn't imagine him ever getting used to life on Earth. His conversations with Jubal are my favorite parts of the book. They discuss religion and creation a lot, but the concept of religion is so difficult to explain to somebody who has never heard of it before. It’s the same way with many other things that people try to explain to Mike. It’s quite useless, because he doesn't think the same way that humans do. The word ‘grok’ is used a lot, it’s probably the most important word in the book, even though nobody seems to completely understand what it means.

The second half of the book has way too much religion for my taste. Pretty much all of the characters go insane. Mike even starts his own church. There’s a big part of the book where characters just talk about how everyone is a god and having sex is a “great goodness”. I got so sick of reading the words “Thou art God”. There were plenty of WTF moments: there’s a lot of sexism and homophobia; “Nine times out of ten, if a girl gets raped, it’s a least partly her own fault.” ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS. I thought the writing got worse in the second half, too. I understand why the publisher wanted to cut 27% of the book; a lot of it is repetitive, unnecessary and incredibly annoying.

I can’t even express how fucking disappointing this was. How can a book go from being completely awesome to being so horrible and boring. This pisses me of so much. Maybe I should have read the shorter version. I wonder which parts exactly were cut from it. I’ll probably never touch this book again, but at least now I know what people mean when they say ‘grok’.

Heinlein's classic was an interesting read, but also infuriating, frustrating, and a bit too far out. It was interesting because of how it starts out as a sort of kidnapping, XIII or Largo Winch kind of rich-guy- can't-remember-who-he-is story and then goes off into a wild Manson-like dystopian fantasy.

The book is about a human survivor of a crash on Mars, Valentine Michael Smith ("Mike" to his friends) who comes back to Earth and immediately is a sensation that everyone struggles to control. He is initially taken into custody in an ersatz hospital with a military guard. Gillian Boardman manages to penetrate the security and befriend him. At that point, we started to learn about Martian culture and the concept of "water brother" which is a strong personal bond based on sharing water (water being exceedingly rare on Mars). One thing leads to another, the situation escalates and eventually involves the Secretary General of the Federation (a sort of United Nations in this world) and Mike is moved to the palatial digs of Jubal Harshaw. Jubal has three young, beautiful secretaries (it is left ambiguous whether he is sleeping with them or not) working for him at his beck and call ("Front!") and is one of the first humans to take the time and try to understand Mike. It is during this stay that his awesome, deadly powers are demonstrated (disappearing a police chief and brigade of police officers) and where Mike starts to "grok" his environment. "Grok" is Martian for "to drink" but the concept goes beyond just water to mean in general becoming one with some kind of knowledge ("I grok driving" would mean I feel like a car and I am driving down a road somewhere). The word has actually found itself bound into the English language now, proving the lasting influence of this crazy book. One of Jubal's servants is a Fair Witness, another invention referring to a person with an absolutely objective view of reality unclouded with opinions or interpretations. This was a really fascinating idea and one of the reasons I gave the book 3* instead of 2*.

Heinlein apparently had huge bones to pick with organized religion seeing how he describes in Chapter 3 the Fosterites who had gambling, prostitution, and alcohol during their services (much like one would imagine a church based on the heinous, preposterous Helgard Müller book would look like on a Mar-a-Lago Sunday (complete with a fire sale on nuclear secrets) - and I will not link it because I would not want anyone giving any credence, credibility, or social credit to such a worthless effort). Mike's answer to it (Chapters 4 and 5) is just as hedonistic but with a very Manson-like adulation of Mike at the center ("Thou art God") where all females were expected to "grow closer" to him regardless of age. It is troubling that at one point, the Fosterites accuse Mike's church of child prostitution and child abuse and this isn't even challenged or rebutted by anyone. It was intended as a sort of paradise on earth, but only for women who give their bodies freely to anyone and one where, if sapphic love is allowed (encouraged?), male homosexuality is not accepted. Another alarming moment is when Maryam says that she will sell her daughter in Central American because she wants a son. I mean, ok, it is fiction, but pushed my own sensibilities a bit too far at many points.

The book was infuriating because, like Starship Troopers, it is chock full of misogynistic and racist stereotypes; I think the lowest point might be when the Jill character says that "nine times out of ten, if a girl gets raped, it's partly her fault." (p. 281), the Jewish characters are the ones obsessed with money, the black Dorcas character is only good for sex and motherhood (well, we could say that for all the characters) and there are no black male characters, etc., etc.

It was frustrating because it was held back by its own misogyny and the story dragged at many points. There was potential here that was what made The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress a great book, but here it just slogs along. The Jubal character is such a clownly self-caricature that he inspires more pity than sympathy, Mike's superpowers are bizarre and unpredictable and just wasn't enough differentiation among the female characters. Frustrating too because the concepts of grokking and Fair Witness were really interesting, but drowned in the cacophony of the rest of the narrative. I think this book got progressively more unreadable as it went forward.

It was a bit too far out because, after having landed on Mars in the 60s and knowing there was no life there, it felt a bit too much to suppose that there were Martians and particularly Old Ones living on Mars with superpowers and unfathomable motives. We never see a Martian in the book, we just hear about them from Mike. Mike himself comes off rather stiff, especially at the beginning of the story. He does grow and learn, but in a strange and self-destructive way.

What could have been an interesting take on reimaging sexuality and utopias as Ursula Le Guin did so well in her Hainish Stories, comes off as a masturbatory male fantasy world without limits of morality or conscience. Did anyone else have a similar reaction? Besides its contribution to popular culture with the work "grok", is it still a credible piece of writing in 2022? I am on the fence...For example, eating/drinking/grokking Mike at the end was a somewhat obvious reference to the Eucharist, but make my skin crawl

Three and a half to four stars. The first half of this novel was excellent: completely fascinating and merits five stars. The second half kind of bogged down at times in endless philosophical dialogues, and probably could have been shortened. Also, there were some ignorant and very old-fashioned characterizations of sexuality that clearly reflected the times in which the book was written (1961), and not a supposedly advanced and libertine perspective, which the author clearly intended. The backwards and bigoted attitudes about gays were particularly offensive. I'm sure when it came out this book was considered futuristic. Most of it does not seem plausible to modern readers accustomed to hard science fiction; but I think today's readers can appreciate it for its creativity, character development, and overall clever writing. The long stretches of dialogue, though tedious at times, were genuinely highly intelligent and thought provoking, peppered throughout with themes of libertarianism and anarchy. It's regarded as a classic, and is certainly worth a read.