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SPOILER FREE MINI REVIEW:
Rambling and disjointed, with a shallow love interest. Not very funny.
MILD SPOILERS FOLLOW:
This is a weird book. The protagonist Alexander Hergensheimer is a born again Christian preacher and conservative lobbyist, from a universe where "liberal" means "believing that Catholics will go to heaven too." Before the book begins he is proud of his work in outlawing or working toward outlawing abortion, contraception, and divorce.
The book doesn't talk about this until about a third of the way through, however. Instead, he is presented as a conservative but good-hearted chap who unexpectedly finds himself bounced into a universe with much looser cultural norms when it comes to sex and nudity. He takes it in stride, and we're supposed to laugh as he gets flustered by his situation, although it didn't strike me as all that funny. His conversations with his plain-spoken and confrontational voice of conscience were mildly amusing, but there's not a lot of genuinely funny things in the first 80% of the book or so.
Alexander also falls in love with Margrethe, a stewardess/maid on the cruise he ends up on. If you've read any Heinlein before, you'll know what to expect here. It's a heavily idealized version of love that springs up out of nothing and immediately becomes an all-consuming purpose of life for both Alexander and Margrethe. As a character, Margrethe is also what you might expect if you're familiar with how Heinlein treats female characters. She has strong opinions when it comes to some things, and she stands up to Alexander when he's explicitly obnoxious, but she's so absurdly devoted to Alexander (even through his more casually sexist moments) that it completely washes out any interesting character traits she might have otherwise developed.
Their relationship, which is the single most important feature of the book feels like it was written by a nineteen-year-old boy, not a man in his 70's. By the way, this book was released in 1984, the last of Heinlein's novels to be published during his life, for what that's worth.
After Alexander and Margrethe have spent enough time together that they've thoroughly fallen in capital-L Love, they are both subjected to the "horrible" trials that the book's title suggests. The couple are frequently dumped into situations which should be awful, but somehow they never actually face the consequences that their circumstances should imply. Heinlein has some very dumb ideas about what life is like for actual poor people, and so despite being repeatedly dropped into worlds with no money whatsoever (and twice without even any clothes), they have no trouble finding jobs (usually dishwashing). Once they end up in debt-induced indentured servitude, and while Alexander is surprised at how long it is taking to work off his debt, they actually *are* working off their debts. The end result is that it's hard to feel *too* bad for them.
Of course, in this part of the story, it’s not at all clear that these are supposed to be trials of hardship. The first half of the book barely mentions religion at all. So it’s more about the differences between the cultures, histories, and technologies of the different worlds that they visit. Which could make for an interesting read, if the book spent more time exploring these worlds. Instead, it comes across as a bit rambling and occasionally mildly amusing.
MODERATE SPOILERS FOLLOW:
And then you get Alexander’s backstory and you realize that his life’s work was collecting money to shore up the patriarchy. At first, I thought this was a clever bait-and-switch maneuver, and that we’d either continue to learn how awful Alexander actually is, or that he would have to learn to come to terms with the fact that the goals he was striving towards were really not good things at all. But that doesn’t happen. He does learn the small lesson that wives do not need to follow their husband’s orders, and he has a major turn around when it comes to having multiple sex partners, but there is no reckoning for all the ugly stuff from his early life. Oh, and I guess he does come to regret telling his employees to never accept collect calls.
At about the halfway point, the book suddenly remembers that it’s supposed to be a story about religion and the characters start discussing things like salvation, the end of the world, and biblical literalism. But the plot is still basically the same: Alexander and Margrethe are dropped penniless into a new world and through the kindness of strangers and a good work ethic, they do just fine.
And then we get to the last few chapters of the book, where it becomes a completely different novel.
MAJOR SPOILERS FOLLOW:
The last portion of the book is a journey through heaven and hell, and the book is clearly trying a lot harder to be funny here. And I guess it is a smidgen funnier, but not greatly so. Even though this is a first-person narrative, you can still see the voice of the author here. It’s really obvious which parts of Christian Fundamentalism Heinlein finds distasteful. And despite more-or-less agreeing with him on most of those topics, it’s not very interesting.
And then there’s the big reveal that Alexander hasn’t really been wandering through different universes, that it was just his immediate environment that was being changed. This has some implications that are not explored at all in the book. Most notably, this implies that Margrethe’s entire universe does not and has never existed. They clearly establish that she is a real “volitional” being, but also that there only ever was the one universe and the one history. If you take these points seriously, that implies that Margrethe’s memories are completely fabricated. Did she have her entire memory of her life altered? Or was she created whole as an adult? Or was she shunted into her own private little Truman Show world, with actors or non-volitional fake people (“golems”) filling out the roles of the other people in her life? None of these really fit well with the way the rest of the story unfolds.
The real answer is probably that Heinlein just didn’t think that hard about Margrethe’s experiences before she met Alexander. To some extend, this is also true about Alexander. Both of them ostensibly had full lives before the book began, but almost all of that is dropped as soon as they declare their love for each other. There are a few bits and pieces of their histories that have small impacts on their lives afterwards (like the desire to return to Kansas, and a brief flirtation with running off to Denmark), but there are no *people* that either Alexander or Margrethe want to see again.
Alexander only exists to have his devotion tested. And Margrethe only exists so that there is something other than God for Alexander to be devoted *to*. And I think that’s why the book doesn’t really work at all. It’s rambling and unfocused for the first two thirds of the story, and while the last third is more focused, it’s not really focused on anything interesting.
Ultimately, everything is tied up in a neat little bow, making for an unearned and unsatisfying ending.
Rambling and disjointed, with a shallow love interest. Not very funny.
MILD SPOILERS FOLLOW:
This is a weird book. The protagonist Alexander Hergensheimer is a born again Christian preacher and conservative lobbyist, from a universe where "liberal" means "believing that Catholics will go to heaven too." Before the book begins he is proud of his work in outlawing or working toward outlawing abortion, contraception, and divorce.
The book doesn't talk about this until about a third of the way through, however. Instead, he is presented as a conservative but good-hearted chap who unexpectedly finds himself bounced into a universe with much looser cultural norms when it comes to sex and nudity. He takes it in stride, and we're supposed to laugh as he gets flustered by his situation, although it didn't strike me as all that funny. His conversations with his plain-spoken and confrontational voice of conscience were mildly amusing, but there's not a lot of genuinely funny things in the first 80% of the book or so.
Alexander also falls in love with Margrethe, a stewardess/maid on the cruise he ends up on. If you've read any Heinlein before, you'll know what to expect here. It's a heavily idealized version of love that springs up out of nothing and immediately becomes an all-consuming purpose of life for both Alexander and Margrethe. As a character, Margrethe is also what you might expect if you're familiar with how Heinlein treats female characters. She has strong opinions when it comes to some things, and she stands up to Alexander when he's explicitly obnoxious, but she's so absurdly devoted to Alexander (even through his more casually sexist moments) that it completely washes out any interesting character traits she might have otherwise developed.
Their relationship, which is the single most important feature of the book feels like it was written by a nineteen-year-old boy, not a man in his 70's. By the way, this book was released in 1984, the last of Heinlein's novels to be published during his life, for what that's worth.
After Alexander and Margrethe have spent enough time together that they've thoroughly fallen in capital-L Love, they are both subjected to the "horrible" trials that the book's title suggests. The couple are frequently dumped into situations which should be awful, but somehow they never actually face the consequences that their circumstances should imply. Heinlein has some very dumb ideas about what life is like for actual poor people, and so despite being repeatedly dropped into worlds with no money whatsoever (and twice without even any clothes), they have no trouble finding jobs (usually dishwashing). Once they end up in debt-induced indentured servitude, and while Alexander is surprised at how long it is taking to work off his debt, they actually *are* working off their debts. The end result is that it's hard to feel *too* bad for them.
Of course, in this part of the story, it’s not at all clear that these are supposed to be trials of hardship. The first half of the book barely mentions religion at all. So it’s more about the differences between the cultures, histories, and technologies of the different worlds that they visit. Which could make for an interesting read, if the book spent more time exploring these worlds. Instead, it comes across as a bit rambling and occasionally mildly amusing.
MODERATE SPOILERS FOLLOW:
And then you get Alexander’s backstory and you realize that his life’s work was collecting money to shore up the patriarchy. At first, I thought this was a clever bait-and-switch maneuver, and that we’d either continue to learn how awful Alexander actually is, or that he would have to learn to come to terms with the fact that the goals he was striving towards were really not good things at all. But that doesn’t happen. He does learn the small lesson that wives do not need to follow their husband’s orders, and he has a major turn around when it comes to having multiple sex partners, but there is no reckoning for all the ugly stuff from his early life. Oh, and I guess he does come to regret telling his employees to never accept collect calls.
At about the halfway point, the book suddenly remembers that it’s supposed to be a story about religion and the characters start discussing things like salvation, the end of the world, and biblical literalism. But the plot is still basically the same: Alexander and Margrethe are dropped penniless into a new world and through the kindness of strangers and a good work ethic, they do just fine.
And then we get to the last few chapters of the book, where it becomes a completely different novel.
MAJOR SPOILERS FOLLOW:
The last portion of the book is a journey through heaven and hell, and the book is clearly trying a lot harder to be funny here. And I guess it is a smidgen funnier, but not greatly so. Even though this is a first-person narrative, you can still see the voice of the author here. It’s really obvious which parts of Christian Fundamentalism Heinlein finds distasteful. And despite more-or-less agreeing with him on most of those topics, it’s not very interesting.
And then there’s the big reveal that Alexander hasn’t really been wandering through different universes, that it was just his immediate environment that was being changed. This has some implications that are not explored at all in the book. Most notably, this implies that Margrethe’s entire universe does not and has never existed. They clearly establish that she is a real “volitional” being, but also that there only ever was the one universe and the one history. If you take these points seriously, that implies that Margrethe’s memories are completely fabricated. Did she have her entire memory of her life altered? Or was she created whole as an adult? Or was she shunted into her own private little Truman Show world, with actors or non-volitional fake people (“golems”) filling out the roles of the other people in her life? None of these really fit well with the way the rest of the story unfolds.
The real answer is probably that Heinlein just didn’t think that hard about Margrethe’s experiences before she met Alexander. To some extend, this is also true about Alexander. Both of them ostensibly had full lives before the book began, but almost all of that is dropped as soon as they declare their love for each other. There are a few bits and pieces of their histories that have small impacts on their lives afterwards (like the desire to return to Kansas, and a brief flirtation with running off to Denmark), but there are no *people* that either Alexander or Margrethe want to see again.
Alexander only exists to have his devotion tested. And Margrethe only exists so that there is something other than God for Alexander to be devoted *to*. And I think that’s why the book doesn’t really work at all. It’s rambling and unfocused for the first two thirds of the story, and while the last third is more focused, it’s not really focused on anything interesting.
Ultimately, everything is tied up in a neat little bow, making for an unearned and unsatisfying ending.
