But those who try to force Heinlein into an ideological corner are missing half the fun. This is science fiction, after all, and it is supposed to be provocative. Does anyone really think Asimov wanted to live as a citizen on the Foundation planet of Trantor? Was Herbert advocating large sandworms as his preferred form of mass transit? Did Burgess go out tolchocking with his droogs? Hardly! But Heinlein’s narrative voice is so powerful and insinuating, readers are tempted to read his fictions as manifestos for a better way of life.
For those familiar with the work of Rudyard Kipling, the story begins in somewhat familiar fashion, and apparently was inspired by Heinlein's then wife Ginny, who suggested a science fiction twist on the Jungle Book stories. This was in 1949, but it was not actually until 1961 and after a number of false starts that Heinlein was to finish the mowgli-like tale of a human raised by Martians. As the sole unexpected progeny of a first disastrous Martian expedition, Valentine Michael (Mike) Smith is returned to earth 25 years later as a young man with no concept of what it is to be human. Mike is basically Martian, and not only has an entirely Martian philosophy to life, but some seriously superhuman abilities.
Heinlein sets up this portion of the story with considerable style, dropping his neophyte hero into an alien world of politics and business, for by a twist of the law, Mike may just technically own the entire planet Mars, lock stock and barrel. Confronted by those who would attempt to cheat him of this inheritance, he is badly in need of some friends and protectors, and finds these in the shape of several wildly differing characters. Gillian (Jill) Boardman is a nurse at the hospital where Mike is incarcerated, and after a chance meeting with the technically incommunicado man from Mars, becomes increasingly interested in his plight, especially when it becomes clear the authorities are peddling a fake man from mars on the television news.
But Smith is as innocent as a babe in the Martian woods, and only the intervention of a group of new-found friends prevents him from handing over these rights. With the help of journalist Ben Caxton, nurse Gillian Boardman and lawyer Jubal Harshaw, among others, Smith is sprung from his hospital internment and assisted in securing his fabulous wealth. We have seen this plot twist before—for example, in serious fiction such as Dostoevsky’s The Idiot or its popular film equivalent Forrest Gump: the naïve but good-hearted simpleton overcomes the scheming and obstacles of an indifferent or hostile society.
This part of the story might have made for a reasonably interesting novel in its own right. But Heinlein is merely warming up for his main act. Once Valentine Michael Smith is rich and free to reach for all the gusto he can, he sets up a free love organization—sort of a cross between Amway, a swingers party and a UFO cult. I’m not sure what wavelengths Heinlein was tapping into when he wrote this novel in the 1950s and early 1960s—after all Esalen would not be founded until the year after the novel was published, bra-burning wouldn’t kick in for another seven years, and the Summer of Love was not even the glimmer of a wisp of a dream. But our author was clearly wired into the impending social changes that would sweep the country in the aftermath of the Kennedy assassination.
To some degree, Heinlein helped pave the way. And he certainly contributed to the jargon and concepts of the time. He gave us the word “grok” (a Martian term meaning to understand in a deep and thorough way)—a veritable gift to all later Scrabble players and crossword puzzle constructors. He anticipated the water bed, an essential accoutrement for all those under the sway of flower power. He invented the water sharing ritual fifteen years before Perrier opened up its first US office. Yes, he may have been old enough to join AARP, but Heinlein knew more about the essence of the Sixties generation than any of their parents were able to grok.
When Ben Caxton is presented with an opportunity to engage in a tryst with Mike and Jill, he flees in horror and confusion, and again one can't help but think this is mirroring some inner demons at work in the mind of Heinlein. That by the end of the novel, Mike has founded a commune of free thinking and free loving disciples speaks volumes, though if Heinlein manages to throw off most of his shackles, he can't quite divorce himself from one particular prejudice of his times. To his credit, he tries very hard to present his female characters in an enlightened manner, giving them power and intelligence, but beneath the surface lurks an old fashioned male chauvinist and as such he can't seem to help building them up only to knock them down again. He never has his male characters be blatantly unpleasant to the women, but the patronising attitude is often demeaning in the extreme and what is written as jovial banter often reads as a fetish with physical (not violent) domination.
In conclusion, Stranger in a Strange Land is a great flawed American novel. The prose is certainly dated in a rather charming way, and the plot gets lost toward the middle in navel inspecting introspection, but there are moments throughout that will shock and antagonise the reader, which is certainly the mark of a powerful author at work. The ending is a touch bizarre, and the last page in particular should have been ripped out at the editorial stage leaving behind a far more satisfying ending, but this is part and parcel of the passion this novel engenders, and so in a way this flaw, like all the others, can be forgiven and perhaps even groked in the fullness of time.
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