Stranger in a Strange Land in The Complete Idiots Guide to the Ultimate Reading List

Oct 23, 2022 Christian Dibblee rated it liked it

Shelves: science-fiction

You ever feel like someone tells you a punch line and it just passes over your head? That was my reading experience here. It's clear based on the imagery and discussion that Heinlein is trying to say some important things about how we as humans live. I think I missed most of his finer points, though, because the story is just very weird.

To be fair, it starts off pretty well and from the compelling perspective of a Martian forced to learn about Earth's culture. That's the first half of the book o You ever feel like someone tells you a punch line and it just passes over your head? That was my reading experience here. It's clear based on the imagery and discussion that Heinlein is trying to say some important things about how we as humans live. I think I missed most of his finer points, though, because the story is just very weird.

To be fair, it starts off pretty well and from the compelling perspective of a Martian forced to learn about Earth's culture. That's the first half of the book or so, and I liked Smith's gradual comprehension about human emotions and practices. That is frankly a very effective way to make the reader consider some of the finer cultural points (e.g. why have property). But the second half failed to hold my interest. Suddenly, the Martian is leading some kind of sex cult and is moving things with his mind chanting "Thou Art God" at everybody. I grant that Heinlein might be using these oddities to make statements about cultural practices. What statements exactly? Not much idea beyond that we take sex too seriously (not exactly a novel thought, but perhaps it was in 1961).
Put simply, I failed to "grok" most of what the second half tried to do or say. It went on so long and was so tough to decipher that I would normally give two stars and move one.

But I gave an added star for Heinlein's writing. On the broader spectrum, his use of science fiction to challenge our own cultural norms is quite the accomplishment, even if I found it tough to follow. But he also has some fabulous sentences and phrases. I include some below:

"[S]training at gnats and swallowing camels is a required course in law schools."
On watching news - "[M]ost neuroses can be traced to the unhealthy habit of wallowing in the troubles of five billion strangers."
"Kissing girls is a goodness. It beats the hell out of card games."
"Analogy is even slipperier than logic."

That last sentence might be the clincher for me. I am not a good analogical thinker. And this book, whatever its merits or demerits, uses an unconventional genre to make what seem to be decent points about aspects of human life. Kinda like an analogy. The problem is that those points are lost in the tapestry of weirdness. In that sense, I think this would have been better a short story - something narratively less complicated and more easily able to make the author's points. Then again, I've written zero books, wo what do I know? ...more

1 like · Like · see review