COMMENTARY: Stranger in a Strange Land (1961)
The following are thoughts and reactions I had while reading Stranger in a Strange Land (1961) by Robert A. Heinlein. They do not reflect my overall post-reading opinion of the work.
⚠️ SPOILER ALERTS AHEAD ⚠️
- my god there is a lot of blatant sexism and mansplaining in the first 10%. Does this get better?
- I’m in the mid-20%s and I am struggling. I’m not compelled to pick up this book. I get that this book was groundbreaking when it first came out. Literally every “tropey alien” now has telekinesis: E.T. (1982), Powder (1995), Eleven from Stranger Things (2016-2025). I get it. And they all act in that weird, not-quite-there distant way. Cool. But it’s just so damn slow watching Mike Valentine do anything interesting.
- 34% - “short words were slippery, unpredictable, changing their meanings without any pattern… Short human words were like trying to lift water with a knife.” Amen
- uh wait. Mike Smith can astral project too now?
- ok ok. It’s like a Netflix action flick now, but at least things are happening and there’s a sense of urgency to everything.
- 42% - “Ordinary politeness. One of my most valued friends believes in astrology; I would never offend her by telling her what I think of it. The capacity of a human mind to believe devoutly in what seems to me to be the highly improbable from table tapping to the superiority of their own children- has never been plumbed. Faith strikes me as intellectual laziness, but I don’t argue with it — especially as I am rarely in a position to prove that it is mistaken. Negative proof is usually impossible.”
- 45% I guess I’m supposed to like Jubal Harshaw for being this legal attack dog for Mike Valentine… and ten years ago, I might’ve been “what a cool guy”… like I found Avasarala from The Expanse a badass… but I find this archetype insufferable here.
- “Well, if you’re going to have a circus, you’ve got to have elephants and there’s no two ways about it.”
- this is a weird bit of prose?? “blew his nose in a prolonged blast, producing a minor chord three octaves below middle C.”
- 49% there’s a linguistic convo and how it maps the mind here… and I’m like… what concept didn’t end up in this book that would be latter derived from, inspired by, or parodied?
- “Consider the black widow spider. It’s a timid little beastie, useful and, for my taste, the prettiest of the arachnids, with its shiny, patent leather finish and its red hourglass trademark. But the poor thing has the fatal misfortune of possessing enormously too much power for its size. So everybody kills it on sight.”
- 50% - oh cute. Mike could be a sleeper agent. Let’s throw yet another concept into an already bloated book.
- 53% - they have zoom but not better porn than pictures? Who collects pictures?
- 54% - paper catalogs? How quaint. I guess everyone just couldn’t predict the internet. Is it because it was such a weird foreign idea or inconceivable or what?
- oh ok. They do have better porn: “Living Aphrodite: A deluxe Album of Feminine Beauty in Gorgeous Stereo-Color”
- is he talking to a fucking cat? Wtf?
- ch. 23 - ugh we’re back to nothing happening again. Mike’s giving presents and going to church. This is really frustrating.
- band name: Heavenly A-Bombs
- 63% is this really happening? WTF? He ran to join the fucking circus?
- And now we have a threesome.
- I really don’t care for this church stuff at all. If this church stuff is going to be crux of the story for the last 30% I’m going to be so mad.
- omg. How much navel gazing is Jill going to do about being ok with her body on display? WTF.
- So Mike chooses the professions of a carney, a gambler and a dealer to learn about being human?
- oh wow. Really. This is in the book: “Nine times out of ten, if a girl gets raped, it’s at least partly her own fault.”
- Texas attempting to pass a law changing pi to 3 period is almost believable in 2024
- Mike getting kicked out of the army is funny
- 76% - ugh. Nothing of stakes is happening anymore. It’s been like this since Mike left the house. And I’m just skimming now.
- this is turning into a stupid male escapist fantasy where Mike sleeps with a bunch of women and has unlimited money. I want to throw this book away.
- 82% - theory. Possibly a stupid theory. But this nudist colony sex cult that Mike’s built is like the Bene Gesserit prepping an unaware nation before the real infiltration and invasion begins.
- 83% or it’s begun already…
- 88% - is this like fight club shit. The pilot knew Jubal and uses the cult words?
- 89% sorry what’s going on? I’ve been skimming so hard I might’ve missed a few things. Are the women giving birth to snakes? What?
- 90% so everybody gets superpowers and become superhuman???
- ch 36 was a good conclusion.