The Cat Who Walked Through Walls: major spoilers and some "gahuuuh?!?"

Cafe Society
1

I just finished The Cat Who Walked Through Walls about ten minutes ago and it left me mightily confused.

This is the first Heinlein book I’ve ever read. I picked it up because it was free and free is always good. As I kept reading it, the plot got more and more convoluted until I was completely confused and the book ended. That’s about where it left me. 90% of the plot points were unresolved and there were no more pages to turn to.

I went searching through the archives here to see if it had been discussed before and it hasn’t. Lazarus Long has, however. He’s apparently a reaccuring character in Heinlein books, which I never would have picked up on just from this one. It made me wonder how many other character or plot points went completely over my head or Heinlein assumed I would have linked together but obviously couldn’t.
So is he somewhat like Randall Flagg of the Steven King worlds?

As for the book itself, I thought the first half of it was highly entertaining and I didn’t mind at all there there didn’t seem to be a cohesive plot, per se. I was along for the adventure and it sucked me in. But as soon as the time travel twist wrapped itself into the story arc, the novel slowly became a jumbled mess of confusing crap. It was as if Heinlein decided literally halfway through his story that he wanted to take it in a completely different direction but didn’t bother to go back to the first half to change any of that. If this novel had been about time travel from the begining that would have been fine. But it wasn’t and you could tell that.

Let me try to break down just a few of the things that went unresolved:

The killing at the begining. It’s hinted at the end that Richard’s wife is the one who did the killing, which is somewhat what I assumed. But for what purpose? What was her motivation?

They’re BOTH kicked out of their apartments shortly after being married. Why? Who was doing that? For what purpose?

The attack in on Luna as they travel between stations. Was that an attack on them or a coincidental one based upon other passengers who happened to be there? That was never answered.

What purpose did Bill play, the guy Richard and Gwen picked up and took with from Golden Rule to Luna? He started becoming more and more central to the plot when Heinlein effectively said “eh…fuck it, I can’t use Bill anymore. Let’s turn him bad again,” and poof, he was gone from the story.

Did Richard really get infected with all those viruses and did they really have to use a heat bomb to blow up half a hotel before they whisked him away to the future? I only ask this because it this didn’t happen, then someone is lying to Richard. That means we shouldn’t trust one (or more) of the characters. But, again, this wasn’t answered.

Why is a super secret time travel agency bringing along everyone and their moms to the future and inducting them into the corps? “Oh, you’re a legless Rabbi? Why, you’d be PERFECT as an agent. Let’s roll!”

What purpose did Adam Selene serve? Who was firing on the group at the end? Did they live? What? What? What the hell was going on? With ten pages left in the book they having conversations concerning whether Richard should join the time corp. Look Heinlein, if you hadn’t spent paragraph after paragraph finding new ways for Richard to tell Gwen/Hazel/whatever her name was how much he loved her you might have found the time to put this particular plot point in the MIDDLE of the book like it belonged.

Sorry for this long rant, but this entire book left me confused. It started out so great and, like I said, I don’t think ANYTHING got resolved by the end. I did get this book used. Maybe the last 200 pages were ripped out or something…

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The book was one of Heinlein’s later ones, so there are references and characters from his earlier books. I love Heinlein, but that isn’t one of the best books to start with.

3

Heh…you really walked into the briar patch this time, fox. :smiley: This was Heinlein’s second-to-last novel, and one which he was expanding his “World-as-Myth” concept (alternate and roughly parallel universes) by trying together a goodly amount of his previous and factually incompatible stories. As a result, in the second half of the book, he tosses in a lot of characters and storylines rapid-fire without explaining any of it, under the assumption that you are already familiar with his previous body of work. On top of that, as you indicate, it’s a fairly confusing book–one that was written while he was not in the best of health, though far better than he was in the Seventies.

I recommend that you read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Methuselah’s Children and his collection of “Future History” stories (virtually all of which can be found in the compendium The Past Through Tomorrow); these are the most accessiblw and, for the most part, best written of his works, and will give you some of the background if you want to revisit The Cat Who Walked Through Walls. Other major references include Job: A Comedy of Justice, Time Enough For Love, The Rolling Stones (which was his first stab at “World-as-Myth”), and The Number of the Beast, although I’m not particularly enamored with any of these except for the second. Friday is probably the most “traditional” of his post-Sixties writing, and it’s a fairly good yarn though not a classic by any stretch.

In the end, though, Cat is just a mess 'cause…it’s a mess. That this is to some extent deliberate doesn’t make it any less annoying.

Stranger

4

I would have recommended either one of his “juveniles” (Citizen of the Galaxy, Have Spacesuit—Will Travel, etc.) or his shorter, earlier adult novels (Door Into Summer, Puppet Masters) as a good, accessible starting point. The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress is good, but the accessibility suffers from the (deliberately) quirky style/voice in which it’s written.

Heinlein’s most famous novel, Stranger in a Strange Land, is a pretty good sampling of his faults and virtues.

5

I just wanted to jump on here and agree in large part with Stranger on a Train before this devolves into the usual “Heinlein was a perverted hack/Heinlein was a genius and you’re an idiot for not getting that” debate.

I love me some Cat. I think I have to get another copy now.

blert

6

Like Enderw24, The Cat who walked through walls was the first(and only) Heinlen I read. I may rectify that when I have more time.

I found it confusing as all get out as well. I also seem to remember a lot of comma splices. I just can’t enjoy a book when the narration is full of “She loaded the gun, shot it.” WTF!? Where’s his editor? Out to lunch? Which would not be free.

7

Of course not. There ain’t such a thing as a free lunch.

8

Another vote here for “Not one of RAH’s best works.”

I don’t really hold it against him, any more than I hold the latter Dune books against Frank Herbert. But if someone asked me to reccomend a book by this Heinlein guy - it would be near the bottom. (Job might be the bottom, or Farnham’s Freehold. Not sure.)

His better works include: Double Star; his future history stories (The collection The Past Through Tomorrow is a good start.); his juveniles, especially Have Spacesuit, Will Travel and Podkayne of Mars; Starship Troopers; and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Don’t read any of his novels from the 70’s on until after reading some of the other books, please.

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:confused:

10

Farnham’s Freehold deserves the label “stinkeroo”.
I get the feeling that *Cat * was written for the fans, either as something he wanted to give the fans, or a way to recapture earlier success. Cat and Sail are pretty mediocre, at least compared to Job and Friday, which were pretty good. RAH got himself a bit too involved in his minature universe with writers creating actual worlds.
I dislike too because it cheapens TMIAHM. Maybe dislike is too strong a word. It’s one of my least favorites.

11

That doesn’t acronymisize :smiley: itself as TANSTAAFL. There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.
[/nitpick]

12

Well, at least now I know that I’m not insane. “Cat” doesn’t seem to be a good book by fan standards and it’s downright confusing for those with no knowledge of the Heinlein universe.

Maybe I will read a few of his other works and I’ll look back on this thread for a few recommendations. But for right now I’m going with the phrase TANSTAAFB: There ain’t no such thing as a free book. This’ll teach me to pick random books up off the book exchange shelf.

13

Yeah – me, too. The Rolling Stones seems as straight-forward a juvenile as you might sample from Heinlein.

14

Though I can’t honestly recommend “Cat,” I would advise reading the following books in this order:

  1. The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress (1966)
  2. The Rolling Stones (1953)
  3. The Cat Who Walks Through Walls (1985?)

Although, as you can see, the order I’ve listed them is not in publication order, they are in sequential order, because

The character of Hazel, aged 12 or so, in “Harsh Mistress,” will grow old and be Grandma Hazel Meade Stone in “The Rolling Stones,” then sometime between then and the events in “Cat,” she will have a high tech facelift/rejuvenation and become the character of Gwen (iirc) in the latter.

Sir Rhosis

15

My mistake; for some reason I was thinking that Stones was published after The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress.

Stranger

16

Come on! Farnham’s Freehold was the first attempt in 20th-Century SF to envision a high-tech slave society! A field that was not mined again, so far as I know, until S.M. Stirling’s Domination of the Draka series.

17

I’d read, long ago, I can’t recall where, that the first half of the book was written in the 40s or 50s, and put in hold for a very long time. The second half was written 20 years later, when he was a bit crazy. That’s why it seems like two entirely different books somehow joined together for no real reason.

My reaction to the book was basically: “Hmm… this is interesting… uh?.. wtf!!!” through the beginning, middle, and end.

18

And you call yourself a Heinlein fan!

Dig up your copy of Heinlein’s earlier Citizen of the Galaxy and reread it. Or his even earlier short “Logic of Empire”.

And if you think no one else touched high-tech slave societies, read Kornbluth and Pohl’s The Space Merchants, or a lot of other works I could name.

19

Adam Selene was there so that fans like me would forgive him for the end of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

20

Not breaking new territory here but as a Major Heinlein fan.

You did start with the wrong book.

His juveniles were excellent and very dated.
“Rolling Stones” might be the best and includes Hazel.
“Red Planet” still reads well.
“Have Space Suit will Travel” is very good.

His best books that don’t get too R rated.
“Moon is a Harsh Mistress” his best but not most famous
“Glory Road” still excellent and did not date as more of a fantasy then his typical Science Fiction.
“Door into Summer” just a great book
“Podkayne of Mars” will help in under standing at least one usernames name.

R-Rated:
“Stranger in a Strange Land”: To Grok Heinlein you must read this book, but read it after a few of the others
“I will fear no Evil”: Excellent book.

He was also a master of Short Stories:
“—All You Zombies—” is the original story of time travel getting a little strange. This created many of the concepts that later writers used.
Jerry Was a Man (1947) was said to have possibly inspired the planet of the Apes and more importantly was a crafty way to talk about and against racial discrimination.
The Man Who Traveled in Elephants (1957) Just a wonderful little story, should have been made into a twilight zone Ep.
All of the above would make an excellent start.