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Heinlein outgrown? Out aged?
Sep. 24th, 2007 04:47 am*sigh*
I had an urge to re-read "Stranger in a Strange Land" a day ago so pulled the book down from the shelf.
And found that I disliked big chunks of it. Which bothered me more than the act of dislike did - that awareness that I didn't enjoy the writing, that is. See, Heinlein's fiction has always been social commentary barely disguised as a story. And the society that he was commenting on is now so different from our own, so far away in the past that on this re-reading it took effort to re-connect with the attitude, the persona who could understand the storyteller's voice. How many people nowadays know what a "Winchell" or a "Lippmann" is without needing to look it up, without having to have trained into them the gut-reaction he took for granted in his readers? How many would not be offended by his treatment of his women characters?
I remember when my sons finally watched "Psycho" and my amazement when they complained that it was hackneyed and too predictable... of course it was - it was what all thriller movies evolved from (just about). And now, now, something that was a pivotal genesis of my adulthood has become something that made me irritated enough with the author's assumptions and patronising that it interfered with the story.
I mourn. Intellectually I still honor the writer and I know that other works of his are still 'shiny' in my eyes. But Stranger in a Strange Land was the first Science Fiction book I'd ever knowingly read and a real kick in the gut for its progressiveness at the time. It challenged a lot of what I thought was 'natural' and 'right'.
And now reading it is like doing the laundry and finding that you have to fold granny's bloomers.
*sigh*
I had an urge to re-read "Stranger in a Strange Land" a day ago so pulled the book down from the shelf.
And found that I disliked big chunks of it. Which bothered me more than the act of dislike did - that awareness that I didn't enjoy the writing, that is. See, Heinlein's fiction has always been social commentary barely disguised as a story. And the society that he was commenting on is now so different from our own, so far away in the past that on this re-reading it took effort to re-connect with the attitude, the persona who could understand the storyteller's voice. How many people nowadays know what a "Winchell" or a "Lippmann" is without needing to look it up, without having to have trained into them the gut-reaction he took for granted in his readers? How many would not be offended by his treatment of his women characters?
I remember when my sons finally watched "Psycho" and my amazement when they complained that it was hackneyed and too predictable... of course it was - it was what all thriller movies evolved from (just about). And now, now, something that was a pivotal genesis of my adulthood has become something that made me irritated enough with the author's assumptions and patronising that it interfered with the story.
I mourn. Intellectually I still honor the writer and I know that other works of his are still 'shiny' in my eyes. But Stranger in a Strange Land was the first Science Fiction book I'd ever knowingly read and a real kick in the gut for its progressiveness at the time. It challenged a lot of what I thought was 'natural' and 'right'.
And now reading it is like doing the laundry and finding that you have to fold granny's bloomers.
*sigh*
