The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress

Cafe Society
1

Should I bother?

When I was a freshman in college, I tried to read TMIAHM, but I only got about a third of the way through it before flinging it across the room and deciding to never read another Heinlein novel again, ever.

That was over ten years ago, and people are still saying that TMIAHM is one of the best books of any genre. So I decided to give it another shot, now that my judgement has matured. The other day I checked it out of the library and read the first couple pages.

<shudder …>

I’m trying. I really am. But:

Why does the whole thing have to be narrated in a Russian accent that makes me imagine Mr. Chekov doing the voice over? Listen: “Proud of my ancestry and while I did business with Warden, would never go on his payroll. Perhaps distinction seems trivial since I was Mike’s valet from day he was unpacked.” If he knows words like “trivial” and “ancestry,” why doesn’t he know words like “am” and “the”? I don’t know about you, tovarishch, but the thought of reading three hundred plus pages like that makes me want to bang my head against my desk.

And everyone makes a big deal about the marriage structures and things Heinlein comes up with, and I’m sure in 1966 it was a big deal. But geez, it’s 2001, I’m not shocked and I’m not all that impressed. It’s cool, but it’s not causing waves to ripple my world, you know?

And: back when I was 19, I remember a scene in which Mike, the self-aware computer, is talking to a woman. Mike talks like an ordinary guy when it’s with the narrator, but with this woman character it goes into some sort of feminine mode, and they’re dishing about boys and makeup and shopping, or something. That was the scene that caused the book-flinging episode I mentioned. I haven’t gotten to that part yet, but if I still find it as sexist and insulting as I did then, I’m going to have a hard time.

I intend to persist. But am I the only one who has problems with this author?

2

There are problems with Heinlein’s politics (which a lot of people misunderstand). But you’re assuming that Heinlein wrote the book in 2001. He didn’t, and it’s narrow-minded not to realize that fact and make allowances, sort of like complaining Shakespeare is a poor writer because he’s not writing in modern idiom.

Heinlein’s books were cutting edge at the time and to complain that they aren’t any more is missing the point.

How can you throw a book across the room for “sexism” when it was written before such a concept was even articulated? That’s just plain ignorance on your part. A smart reader would know enough to take that into consideration.

The same thing goes about the Russian accent. You can make the same complaint about Shakespeare. Ignorant people often do.

I wouldn’t say “Moon” is Heinlein’s best (I prefer “Double Star”), but it was a first-class SF novel and holds up pretty well today.

3

The reason for the accent is to show that those who have lived on the moon for generations have diverged from those living on earth. Same with the marriage conventions. The point is that the moon developed a different culture, which supports the idea of their political independence.

That said, I have had the same experience with Heinlein. Several of his books (most particularly TMIAHM and Stranger in a Strange Land) had a huge effect on some readers. I read them and enjoyed them, but I just don’t get how they’re supposed to change your life.

Even so, these are great SF.

[To sum up, I’m on the fence. Give me a break, I’m a Libra.]

4

I didn’t expect quite so contemptuous a response, but I’ll try to answer your arguments.

I am not complaining that Heinlein wrote in a non-modern way that’s different from mine. I’m complaining that the Russian accent, which obviously belongs to the narrator and not to the author himself, is annoying, unnecessary, and sounds fake.

I understand that it serves a purpose – Saltire’s point is well taken, and the allusion to the Russian Revolution is clear enough – but still I find it a hindrance in getting into the book. That is not at all the same thing as whining about Shakespeare because the language he wrote and thought in was different from my own.

I agree that the social and marriage structures that Heinlein wrote about were cutting-edge at the time. My comment about how they don’t rock my world wasn’t really meant as a criticism of the author - just a description of on my own reaction to a part of the book that isn’t working for me.

As for “sexism” … I’m not sure when the concept was defined, but there are lots of pre-EPA authors out there – Shakespeare among them – who did not portray women as fluffheads interested in nothing but fashion and cute guys.

I should make something more clear – my “sexism” accusation came when I was much younger than I am now. I have often found that things that offended me then provoke a different reaction in me now. That’s why I’m giving the book a second try – I may not be a smart reader, but I’m smarter than I was as a teenager.

5

What Russian accent? It’s not accent, it’s dialect (how would we recognize accent, anyway?), and it’s not Russian, it’s Loonie. It makes perfect sense to me: If you’ve got a book narrated by a character, then shouldn’t it be written the way that that character would talk? I found that the Loonie dialect seemed comfortable, myself: It’s informal, like he’s talking to a friend, not to “posterity”.

6

Who’s this Heinline guy I keep hearing about? What did he write?

Yes, read TMIAHM. It’s one of his best. Take it from a guy named Grok :slight_smile:

7

Yeah, the dialogue is kinda trippy at the beginning, but by the middle you’re pretty much used to it. What I really like about his books, all politics aside, is that they all or most of them build up entire worlds and universes. You can almost see people walking around in the background.

Having said that, it is kinda hard to get into at first. Maybe if you started with another book, like Starship Troopers havn’t read Double Star, so can’t vouch for it, then you’ll kind of be able to appreciate it more. I dunno.

8

Mannie spoke his own dialect. It wasn’t ‘loonie’ in the sense that everyone on the moon spoke that way. They clearly didn’t. What it was was the gutter argot of a young boy who grew up in a completely different culture. People who were sent to the moon as adults (Prof, Mannie’s senior mom) speak normal english, whereas second-generation loonies like Mannie and to some expent Wyoh speak a dialect.

This is the kind of stuff I love about Heinlein. Rather than bore the reader with page after page of exposition to paint a picture of a culture, Heinlein just drops you in it and immerses you with tiny details that come through the behaviour of the characters rather than having to describe it.

For example, if some writers want to get the point across that guns are commonplace in a society, they’ll just tell you. Or they’ll work in some long clumsy paragraph like, “John strapped on his gun, without thinking anything more about it than buttoning his shirt. Guns had become so commonplace he couldn’t remember what it was like to be without one.” Heinlein, on the other hand, would manage to get that point across without telling you - it would just be obvious by the way the characters behaved. And that takes much more skill to be able to do.

Knowing how much effort Heinlein put into plotting and background research, he probably had complete histories of each character written down, along with comments about how they were raised, major events in their lives, etc. In the case of TMIAHM, he had a consistent, coherent ‘formula’ for how people would talk based on how long they had been on the moon, where they lived, their economic status, etc.

Part of the sociological point to the book was that people are people. Try thinking of the book as a commentary on racism and sexism of the time. Mannie would talk of the ‘old chinee’ on the corner, and say all kinds of words that weren’t politically correct on Earth not because he was a bigot, but because the idea that people were actually different because of race baffled him. And women held all the power in the Moon.

And, on top of it all it’s a great adventure story with parallels to the American Revolution and lots of still-valid social commentary.

9

Only if you want to pretend to literacy in the genre. Otherwise, don’t read anything you don’t want to read.

You are being very dense. “Dinkum” is not Russian, it is Australian, and that is only one example (one of Manny’s favorite words). Heinlein loved America, and one of the things he loved about it was the concept (or myth) of the “melting pot”. TMIAHM makes this live by making the individuals even more different, and showing them fighting together as Loonies. Heinlein went one step further by making the melting pot evident in the (consistent, over a very lengthy novel — a tremendous writing achievement) argot of the narrator, which changes with the subject (as does the vernacular of all of us — I don’t talk the same way in a technical meeting as I do in a bar with a friend).

Again, you are being very dense. Heinlein was being much, much more original and technical than you have realized. Heinlein believed (and it is a part of his political views) that social structures mirror economic reality. The marriage structures and other customs (the reverence for women, the casual “elimination” of men) reflect the economic realities of the Moon: lots of labor, lots of men, more coming via prison transportation, and very few women. Heinlein makes this evident in his conversation with Stu when they first meet.

No. They were talking about very female things, not feminine things. Part of the economic conditions that Heinlein noted above are those that (he theorized) would tend to keep woman in a protected, encased environment; you protect what is rare. His portrayal of Wyoming fighting against this, using the Loonie preoccupation with sex when it suited her, using the social need for birth mothers to free herself for her real work, and being what she needed to be otherwise was masterful. And if you were a childlike computer, wouldn’t you be interested in the reality behind Cosmopolitan?

Again, read what you like. But there really are reasons why this novel is viewed as a master work, by a master writer. Don’t read it if you don’t want to, but if you close your eyes to the technique and craft involved you miss a lot.

10

So you don’t like the book. Okay. Do you want us to change your mind, or are you just trolling?

The “Russian” to which you seem to object is Mr. Heinlein’s demonstration of how common-use language had changed from that which was familiar to his readers to that of a long-isolated society. Get over it.

You are unimpressed with the Mr. Heinlein’s projection of a set of sexual mores that again, reflect the conditions which are background and part of the story. Doesn’t shock you? Heavens. I’m sure it was meant to.

You see, I don’t believe that you would spend the time to start this thread about a book of which you already have some experience, and ask us if it’s good. I think you just wanted to attack it. I think that’s a petty pursuit, but it’s your time. There are writers whose work I dislike, but I don’t see the value in taking time to discuss them. But I’ll answer your question:

No. Don’t bother. It doesn’t speak to you. It’s a waste of your time. Others have and will continue to get things out of it that you obviously don’t. I’m sure there are authors whose work will please you better.

11

I am about halfway through the book now, and this is the conclusion I’ve come to, as well.

I am getting used to Mannie’s dialect, though there are times when I still find it a bit annoying, especially during long paragraphs of description (like the section of the book when Mannie describes how the yellow-jackets are cracking down on the loonies, for instance). Still, Sam Stone, your analysis of why Heinlein did this makes sense.

I do notice that, when the narrator is recounting the words of someone else, he seems to effortlessly drop into their speech patterns and out of his own. But if that’s a problem at all, it’s one shared by all first-person novels.

I’m enjoying the discussions of “how to set up a revolutionary organization” between Mannie, Wyoh, and the Prof.

I don’t actually want to pretend to anything, dlb. But I do have problems with this author, and I was wondering if anyone else on the board wrestles with similar problems. It seems not.

The scene in which Wyoh and the computer girl-talk didn’t irritate me as much this reading, as I suspected it wouldn’t, but I’m still not crazy about Wyoh’s opinion that the computer has “feminine intuition” – I’m wondering where the author is going with that, if anywhere. I admit, when I attempted TMIAHM as a teenager, I missed the point about the disparity between the numbers of men and women on Luna, and Wyoh struck me as the world’s biggest idiot. (If I am dense, I was denser then.)

But Wyoh doesn’t hit me that way now, and your comments about how she seized control of her own reproductive destiny are interesting.

I seem to have angered people with my OP, which was not my intention; clearly it and especially my “Should I Bother” question was ill-phrased.

I am re-reading the book, and I am enjoying it, even though I had problems with it the first time around. I was wondering if anyone else had the same (or different) problems, or if people who liked the book could illuminate the aspects of the book that bothered me. Several people have responded with comments about the book that I’m finding valuable and illuminating, even though it’s obvious that some of them are exasperated with me.

Not trying to piss anyone off, here. Really.

12

To show what a natural storyteller Heinlien was (along with his contemporaries), I have at home an Asimov essay where he talks about the process of writing. He says that while most texts about writing tell you to rewrite multiple times, he was always so prolific that he never did more than two drafts, rough and final.

Then he talks about mentioning this to Robert A. Heinlein back when they worked together during WWII. Heinlein’s response was, “Why would you write something twice?”

13

I haven’t read the book in a very long time, although I remember enjoying it. Especially the low-tech but highly effective warfare waged by the Loonies against Earth, which I never would have thought of myself. Ingenious.

I also would like to note that there’s nothing combative or trollish in the OP, and most of you responding to Jekeira have been a bunch of jerks.

14

Wy Knott?

Sorry, had to do it.

To answer seriously, yes, keep it in perspective, and try to finish.

Sir Rhosis

15

Yes, finish the book.

I don’t understand whether RH was being serious or poking fun at women with his characterizations. All his females, in almost any role, are strong-willed and sexually active (if not promiscuous.) Cites- Jillian and the rest of Jubal’s harem from Stranger in a Strange Land, Friday from the book of that name, Lazarus Long’s conquests, etc…

I’ve read Mistress many times, and I find something new every time. You can appreciate it on so many levels- as a story about an AI, the revolt story, life on Luna, commentary on politics, culture-shock and conflict- the only area he doesn’t get into here is religion. You need Stranger to appreciate that.

It was hard to read at first, but you get used to the speech. Reminds me of Anthony Burgess in A Clockwork Orange.

16

A hack like myself really shouldn’t critize a writer like Heinlein, but his story telling abilities were a bit erratic at times. Some of his later works aren’t that great (To Sail Beyond the Sunset) IMHO, but others (The Cat Who Walks Through Walls) are as good as his early works. He is a bit of an aquired taste, and his books tend to get addicting.

I have also met women (alas, too few, and for too short a time) who were born in the 1980’s who were very much like the women Heinlein writes about (i.e. very intelligent, and self-assured, but enjoyed feeling “feminine” from time to time), so to say that its sexist isn’t really accurate.

Still, keep at it. One of the thing’s I very much like about Heinlein is that the things he talks about (for the most part) work! His description of the lunar catapult is spot on as to how a real one would work. IIRC when Heinlein died he was credited with helping to design spacesuits and the waterbed.

I’m glad to see that you’re starting to enjoy the book. More people need to read Heinlein.

17

Yes, I struggle with Heinlein’s portrayals of women. He did show many incredibly strong and smart women, but he tended to heavily sexualize his female characters. On one hand, we should give him credit for his strong females, but I don’t think we should hail him as some kind of proto-feminist.

That said, I absolutely loved TMIAHM.

18

I also enjoyed TMIAHM. I have read it at least twice, but not for some time now. I was impressed with Heinlein’s ability to be able to predict what a computer would eventually be able to do. Instead of just being some sort of imagined superbeing, he had the computer doing things that are just now becoming possible. I am thinking specifically when the computer took on a human persona by creating a voice and re-arranging the pixels of a TV screen to create a moving image. This was imagined 20 years before the personal computer, and long before anyone was linking digital images to computers.

19

I haven’t read the book in a long time either, but I must have liked it…I named my first car Mycroft, after the computer in TMIAHM. It took me two tries to get all the way through Stranger in a Strange Land, though. I kept getting bogged down at the part where Jubal hangs out in the pool with his Charlie’s Angels. (Another Heinlein prediction–he foresaw Charlie’s Angels! Cosmic!) However, once the story picked up again, I wasn’t sorry I finished it. Bottom line–get past the slow parts, and you won’t regret it. Yes, you should bother.

Slight hijack: a college friend of mine knew Heinlein personally- he was an old friend of her family. She once had an assignment in a Science Fiction as Literature class in which she was to discuss “why Heinlein wrote Stranger in a Strange Land.” She decided to call him up and ask him. His answer: “For money, of course! Why does anyone write anything?”
(/slight hijack)

20

Quoth Steelerphan:

But then again, so are all of his males.

Actually, not all of his characters are promiscuous. There’s essentially no sex in Double Star, Podkayne of Mars, Farmer in the Sky… Heck, in any of his juveniles-- And that goes for the men and the women.