I don't like most of Robert Heinlein's stories, even though they generally have good plotlines, because of his rampant sexism. But everyone else is ALWAYS telling me, "Heinlein is great, you read the WRONG book, you should read THIS instead." The first book I read was To Sail Beyond the Sunset which seemed to consist entirely of some woman having sex with her relatives and thinking it was liberated. Then someone ELSE told me that Heinlein's writing had gone downhill since his stroke, and I should read something written before that. So I read Friday which seemed to consist entirely of some woman having sex with everyone she met and thinking it was liberated.
Still I was fatally optimistic. I'm always thinking, "Maybe I should give Heinlein a chance, maybe I'll find another story that I haven't read that I will actually like" and I picked up this book I found in one of my husband's boxes, and I took it to work, and there was a Heinlein story in it.
It started out with a fat scholarly guy named Potiphar sitting in a window in the "future", and he looks outside and what does he see but a woman taking off her clothes. This didn't seem promising to me. (In fact, as I read along, it got progressively worse and worse. It got so bad that I was turning each page thinking "It can't get worse, I must finish, oh it DOES AAAaaAaaaA" and being finally grateful that it was only forty pages long.)
The woman is nearly arrested, but Potiphar rescues her, by having a raincoat handy, and convincing her to tell the police and the female lawyer who is there to help her that he knows her and that they are friends. She goes along with him meekly, since she just doesn't know what came over her. It turns out she is the helpless victim of a disease where everything goes crazy in the world, as a result of some statistical trend that Potiphar has been researching brilliantly. Immediately they are on a first name basis, and she's giving him endearing little nicknames, and he makes cute little lecherous comments at her, which she doesn't understand or thinks are adorable. He volunteers to take her home to her landlady and she says "You don't look like a wolf" and then he says "Oh I am" and whistles at her and gnashes his teeth, and then she dimples at him and says "Oh! Well I'd rather wrestle with you than the landlady." She is, of course, single, a self-described "doddering old maid" at the age of twenty-five, who cooks marvelously.
At this point, I was about ready to throw the book across the room. This is what I did when I read Stranger in a Strange Land, when Jill tells Mike not to protect her if he sees someone raping her, because she probably asked for it in the first place.
Anyway, the rest of the story is filled with the guy making brilliant and keen observations predicting the end of the world, and the woman (sorry, girl) saying things like "Huh?" and "Oh!" and "But I just don't understand, Potty. What does it mean? " At one point she finds something to support his ideas, but he derides her and tells her to grow up. He also tells her to shut up a few times, and it's noted that she quiets down and does what she is told a lot, and there's also a memorable occurrence of "Quiet, woman!" Later, they run away from the nuclear holocaust (?!) and move into a cabin together. Potiphar marries them so that they can have sex. ("Now repeat after me." "Yes, Potiphar. I, Meade, take thee, Potiphar...") At one point he volunteers to help do the dishes, and she says, "No, I'll do the women's work, and you do the men's work. That's fair."
Now, admittedly, this story was written in 1952. The collection of stories the book was released in was printed in 1966. The publishers, Funk and Wagnalls, have a little problem with liberation, because on the front cover, it says "Nine superb tales of men caught in extraordinary circumstances..." and on the back "Science Fiction has come a long way since the pulps of the thirties and forties... today's reality... men and women dealing with unusual environments!"
It always seems to me that later on into Heinlein's stories, he tries to be all "liberated" and unsexist in an outrageous way, but it always boils down to "everyone can have sex with everyone else and nobody can get jealous because we're all so liberated here in the future". It reminds me of the time an elderly colleague told me that Gloria Steinem was a beautiful woman and wasn't it amazing how she had actually been in Playboy. Somewhere, they are missing the point. I could blame it on the generation gap, but it makes me mad reading Heinlein, because there's a story there, but all this crap gets in the way.
Prior to seeing Starship Troopers in the theatre, I read the book, with some trepidation. The women in the book were all pilots and were usually never around. I *almost* enjoyed it. I wanted more fighty and less talky, mostly -- the politics made me want to smack him for being so self-centered and self-righteous. It reminded me of arguing with one of my ex-boyfriends. Probably due to my bias, I was also irritated that the only reason I even came close to liking the book was because there were no women in it. But I felt obligated to make a note of my nearly liking it here.
I was creating an Amber poster for my dorm room and I came across your page while looking for a good unicorn picture. I read your little I Hater Heinlein page, and I agree with you on most points. I feel that his contribution to the development of science fiction is vastly overrated. However. Before he got off his libertarian streak with books like "The Number of the Beast", "The Cat who Walks Through Walls", "Stranger in a Strange Land", "Friday", etc., he did write some very good books and short stories. I think that later in life he just became a dirty old man. I would encourage you to read Starship Troopers (do not see the movie if you can help it), The Long Watch, The Green Hills of Earth (I think that is one of his books), The Menace From Earth, Earthmen Come Home, and Have Spacesuit, Will Travel. These are all at least pretty good, and some of them are excellent (Starship Troopers, but I'm a guy so...). Furthermore, none of them have any of his absurd sexual theory in them (I think). He wrote better when he was writing to eat, not to change the world. Oh yeah, also read The Methusela Tree and The Rolling Stones. These have pretty good characters, but they show up in later books with new sexually liberated personalities. Give him one more try.
September 30 1998
Even more email. Anyone who can explain
this one to me wins a prize. All I can say is that apparently
none of the people who *like* Heinlein have any constructive
arguments against what I've written, other than 'this book you
didn't mention is good.' This seems to be telling, somehow.
From: Symon Michael Uhhh, actually, I thought Friday was one of his *best* books. I think it was all the focus on families becoming corporations, which is exactly what is happening. YOW!
February 16 1999
Someone needs to look at the rest of my web site
before they e-mail me, clearly. Either that,
or stop abusing everyone else because they're fat and
they're on a mission.
From: "Neko-chan"
Subject: Heinlein
>It started out with a fat scholarly guy named Potiphar
You know, if you hate Heinlein, fine, but it seems to me at least part of
your objection is that a woman might love a fat, scholarly man.
Hell, I'm fat and scholarly, myself, though female. If you had said that
such a female would be a less than desirable person, you'd sound pretty
sexist. Perhaps it should work both ways.
__________
Noel, Axe of the Babs, Mum to the Genius in the High Chair,
and She who Truly Groks Coffee
January 1999
At least this guy didn't try to force me to read more and more Heinlein until
I agreed with him. Also, he neglects to remember that I wouldn't be judging
the women in the stories as "liberated" if Heinlein hadn't gone out of his
way to repeatedly CALL them "liberated".
From: (walkingshark) That's strange. I didn't get that from his books at all. In fact, I used to get mad at him because it seemed like his men were so submissive to the women in his books all the time. Seemed like a reverse of the more common form of sexism, and naturally just as bad. Its been a while since I read the story you talked about, but I do remember that the female character seemed to mainly be there to give the male character a reason to develop the plot. I don't think there's anything wrong with using a female character this way, in literature anything can and often is used as a plot device, and simply stating that in this case the plot device was a not so smart woman (they exist, as I'm sure you know) RaH is sexist is quite a ill thought out leap of logic. The man wrote quite a few novels, judging him on Friday, To Sail Beyond the Sunset, and that one short story might be a mistake. I personally agree that Friday wasn't that great of a novel. Definitely one of my least favorite from RaH. To Sail Beyond the Sunset was not great, but just because he happened to have a (admittedly VERY) sexually active female lead doesn't make him sexist. I myself have met women like this, they do exist in real life. Depicting one in a novel isn't sexist, its simply taking an aspect of reality, clothing it in fiction, and passing it behind your eyes for a few hours to see what you think. Obviously, from your response, it has fulfilled its purpose. Of course, there are millions of books out there to read, and many SF authors who are still alive and need of patronage. Don't let me give you the impression I think RaH is the only one out there who knows how to write. Ever hear of Larry Niven? :)
March 8 1999
Well-needed, rational comfort from bc. *smooch*
Subject: Heinlein etc. -- you're right, but you will receive lots of flames
From: bill coderre
A long time ago, I got involved designing in a shared virtual reality
game (vaguely like a MUD) because people wanted to make AIs that
pretended to be aliens. You somehow ended up on their planet, and you had
to learn to speak with them, etc. Seemed like a good idea. Could cover up
for some of the AI shortcomings.
Well, after about a year of this, I had a BAD day at the office or
something, and I wrote that I just wish people would cool it with the
Heinlein, and ranted about how Heinlein was entirely mired in the
politics of polyamory, as dressed up in SEX SEX SEX. Drillions of stupid
teenfanboys all over the place were thinking that this whole poly-
business MUST be way cool, because there was so much sex involved, and
because it was based in this super-rational, science fiction, pure reason
universe.
Now, I used to think, a little, that a pure reason universe would be
cool, but it didn't stick in my head, and I grew up and realized that the
idea is bullshit, a memetic virus that causes smart people to be
assholes. ("But I'm being perfectly honest!" "One: No you are not, and
you know it. Two: Being honest is not a god-given right. The only people
who are honest for the single reason that it is their god-given right,
are assholes. Therefore, for the percentage of the time you are being
honest, you are being an asshole, so shut up, fuck off, and die.")
I recently re-read "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress," which was one of my
all-time faves as a junior high schooler. The entire thing about an AI
was really exciting and fun. I bought a used new copy recently, and
re-read it, and dented the wall throwing it across the room.
Heinlein is constantly talking about line marriages and how, because of
the 100:1 M/F ratio on the Moon, men are perfectly happy to beat each
other into a jellylike paste if any women acts like it might make her
feel better. THIS is feminist liberation?
As for the AI: I am ashamed that I did not know the phrase "deus ex
machina" then. They summarize all that you need to know about the AI in
the book. Not Interesting.
As for "Friday" -- the reason it's the "Best" Heinlein book is because
it's recent and because of the cover portrait. A female friend pointed
out that the main character ends up marrying the guy that brutally raped
her. "But it was just his job!" say the whiny Heinlein guys. "Read that
part again. He WAS enjoying it, ESPECIALLY the brutality. Heart of Gold
-- hah! -- head of shit is more like it!"
Anyway, there's the heinlein usenet newsgroups, and people sometimes try
to "prove mathematically" that Heinlein is the Best Possible Writer.
Ugggh..... I think this is a reason that I never went into any of the
books newsgroups. Maurading geeks, aiiieee!