bookaneer's review
I only read three chapters which topics to me are more memorable from RAH's books I've read: civic society, civic revolution, and gender.
I know this is more of an academic account on an author, yet having read Gwyneth Jones's [b:Joanna Russ|44803864|Joanna Russ|Gwyneth Jones|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1556682415l/44803864._SY75_.jpg|69488169], I think I prefer the later instead. It is more digestible/accessible. I often got lost when Mendlesohn weaved her narrative from one book/character/story to another.
I also enjoyed [b:Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction|35958896|Astounding John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction|Alec Nevala-Lee|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1529430368l/35958896._SY75_.jpg|57516282] which account on Heinlein was succinct and well thought.
I might return to this book but not in a hurry.
I know this is more of an academic account on an author, yet having read Gwyneth Jones's [b:Joanna Russ|44803864|Joanna Russ|Gwyneth Jones|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1556682415l/44803864._SY75_.jpg|69488169], I think I prefer the later instead. It is more digestible/accessible. I often got lost when Mendlesohn weaved her narrative from one book/character/story to another.
I also enjoyed [b:Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction|35958896|Astounding John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction|Alec Nevala-Lee|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1529430368l/35958896._SY75_.jpg|57516282] which account on Heinlein was succinct and well thought.
I might return to this book but not in a hurry.
oleksandr's review
3.0
This is a non-fic about the works of one of the greatest SF authors, [a:Robert A. Heinlein|205|Robert A. Heinlein|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1192826560p2/205.jpg]. The book gives a short biography and then follows with discussing some aspects and views on the basis of Heinlein’s works. It is recommended to people to have read the master, for while this book gives rather detailed descriptions of the discussed works, the greater context and ‘knowledge of the lore’ is highly desirable.
There are the following chapters:
Chapter 1: Biography. Describes both his life and political views. He was married three times, two in ‘free marriages’, his political views shifted from Democrat to Republican (or more precisely Libertarian with a strong social security net, which sounds surprising), he tried himself in politics.
Chapter 2: Heinlein’s Narrative Arc. A chronological review, from early short stories to rambling later novels, his History of Future – the author insists that works fit there from the start, not attempt to hornshoe them later.
Chapter 3: Technique. His second wife was with Hollywood and his early works have a lot of Cinematic approach in them, as well as some allusions. Unlike most other authors, who write a hero, his protagonist is often a Sidekick, a person who helps the true hero.
Chapter 4: Rhetoric. In many of his works he follows the tradition of the Picaresque novels, where a picaro (rogue) changes the world and lives around him, but doesn’t character progress a lot.
Chapter 5: Heinlein and Civic Society. His view on how the society should be setup, with freedom and duty as paramount issues. He was childless and it seems had a great yearning for the family. Family and Childrearing are things that made people from children to adults and lack of a family means that a person is still unable to bear responsibility.
Chapter 6: Heinlein and the Civic Revolution. He was an active advocate of the 2nd amendment, his phrase ‘an armed society is a polite society’ is often quoted. However, in novel after novel guns fail to be useful: individuals are overpowered when they attempt to defend themselves; attackers (even government attackers) are overwhelmed by the angry and determined unarmed (a position possible to hold in the days before mass shooters went in with AR-15s). so while he was pro-gun, guns never solve a problem in his book, but exaggerate some. Another important issue is Disability: from his earliest stories there are disabled people around, quite ahead of times. His blind poet Rhysling is now the title of SFF Award, he has a person with (what we now describe as) Asperger as a protagonist in the 1940s; there are quite a lot of amputees…
Chapter 7: Racism, Anti-Racism and the Construction of Civic Society. One of the hardest issues. Heinlein himself clearly seen as anti-racist, not only having non-white characters (including Jews) in the 1940s and 50s. it is fascinating that in [b:Tunnel in the Sky|16683|Tunnel in the Sky (Heinlein's Juveniles, #9)|Robert A. Heinlein|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1386922500l/16683._SY75_.jpg|18353] Rod Walker is never described, but it is said that his scars are long and white: more like keloids than the long red scars on white skin; there is a family resemblance: Rod looks like Caroline’s (who is black) little brother. Of course the most controversial is [b:Farnham's Freehold|50840|Farnham's Freehold|Robert A. Heinlein|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1170371993l/50840._SX50_.jpg|2942974], where after the nuclear war people of Africa (who weren’t bombed) form a society with whites as slaves. Moreover, following Swift’s [b:A Modest Proposal|5206937|A Modest Proposal|Jonathan Swift|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348659670l/5206937._SX50_.jpg|6627040] he makes them cannibals, which on a surface may look not like a satire but as a prejudice against ‘black savages’
Chapter 8: The Right Ordering of Self. One of the most important themes are Personal Honour and Sexual Integrity. In order for society to be right-ordered in a Heinlein world, individuals need to be right-ordered. This is a directional relationship: a right-ordered society cannot create right-ordered individuals, since for Heinlein right-ordered individuals must make the right-ordered society. Without a clear sense of oneself as an individuated person, there can be no such thing as honour. Heinlein reserves a special place in his pantheon of evils for sexual hypocrisy. He maybe goes too far for modern sensibility basing personal integrity on sexual one, esp. for women, but if one takes into account that he grew up in the 1920s and the very fact that women can enjoy sex like men was almost a heresy back then.
Chapter 9: Heinlein’s Gendered Self. Heinlein’s understanding of what a man should be and do emerges is that the concept of the ‘Heinlein hero’ or the ‘competent man’. Note that most male protagonists are sidekicks, not ‘heroes’ or alfas. Where there are male leaders in Heinlein novels they tend to be older men, and they tend to be distanced. Also they are far from physically perfect: they are (if described at all) can be small, bold, pot-bellied, overweight, hairy. They often dress ‘unmanly’: kilts, earrings, make-up, garish colors. One aspect of Heinlein’s work on identity is his use and expression of alternative genders, esp. in ‘“[b:All You Zombies|13030110|All You Zombies|Robert A. Heinlein|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1338513108l/13030110._SX50_.jpg|18193411]’” and [b:I Will Fear No Evil|175325|I Will Fear No Evil|Robert A. Heinlein|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1303411477l/175325._SY75_.jpg|45662].
Overall a very interesting analysis, with which I mostly agree and it made me want to re-read the master
There are the following chapters:
Chapter 1: Biography. Describes both his life and political views. He was married three times, two in ‘free marriages’, his political views shifted from Democrat to Republican (or more precisely Libertarian with a strong social security net, which sounds surprising), he tried himself in politics.
Chapter 2: Heinlein’s Narrative Arc. A chronological review, from early short stories to rambling later novels, his History of Future – the author insists that works fit there from the start, not attempt to hornshoe them later.
Chapter 3: Technique. His second wife was with Hollywood and his early works have a lot of Cinematic approach in them, as well as some allusions. Unlike most other authors, who write a hero, his protagonist is often a Sidekick, a person who helps the true hero.
Chapter 4: Rhetoric. In many of his works he follows the tradition of the Picaresque novels, where a picaro (rogue) changes the world and lives around him, but doesn’t character progress a lot.
Chapter 5: Heinlein and Civic Society. His view on how the society should be setup, with freedom and duty as paramount issues. He was childless and it seems had a great yearning for the family. Family and Childrearing are things that made people from children to adults and lack of a family means that a person is still unable to bear responsibility.
Chapter 6: Heinlein and the Civic Revolution. He was an active advocate of the 2nd amendment, his phrase ‘an armed society is a polite society’ is often quoted. However, in novel after novel guns fail to be useful: individuals are overpowered when they attempt to defend themselves; attackers (even government attackers) are overwhelmed by the angry and determined unarmed (a position possible to hold in the days before mass shooters went in with AR-15s). so while he was pro-gun, guns never solve a problem in his book, but exaggerate some. Another important issue is Disability: from his earliest stories there are disabled people around, quite ahead of times. His blind poet Rhysling is now the title of SFF Award, he has a person with (what we now describe as) Asperger as a protagonist in the 1940s; there are quite a lot of amputees…
Chapter 7: Racism, Anti-Racism and the Construction of Civic Society. One of the hardest issues. Heinlein himself clearly seen as anti-racist, not only having non-white characters (including Jews) in the 1940s and 50s. it is fascinating that in [b:Tunnel in the Sky|16683|Tunnel in the Sky (Heinlein's Juveniles, #9)|Robert A. Heinlein|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1386922500l/16683._SY75_.jpg|18353] Rod Walker is never described, but it is said that his scars are long and white: more like keloids than the long red scars on white skin; there is a family resemblance: Rod looks like Caroline’s (who is black) little brother. Of course the most controversial is [b:Farnham's Freehold|50840|Farnham's Freehold|Robert A. Heinlein|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1170371993l/50840._SX50_.jpg|2942974], where after the nuclear war people of Africa (who weren’t bombed) form a society with whites as slaves. Moreover, following Swift’s [b:A Modest Proposal|5206937|A Modest Proposal|Jonathan Swift|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348659670l/5206937._SX50_.jpg|6627040] he makes them cannibals, which on a surface may look not like a satire but as a prejudice against ‘black savages’
Chapter 8: The Right Ordering of Self. One of the most important themes are Personal Honour and Sexual Integrity. In order for society to be right-ordered in a Heinlein world, individuals need to be right-ordered. This is a directional relationship: a right-ordered society cannot create right-ordered individuals, since for Heinlein right-ordered individuals must make the right-ordered society. Without a clear sense of oneself as an individuated person, there can be no such thing as honour. Heinlein reserves a special place in his pantheon of evils for sexual hypocrisy. He maybe goes too far for modern sensibility basing personal integrity on sexual one, esp. for women, but if one takes into account that he grew up in the 1920s and the very fact that women can enjoy sex like men was almost a heresy back then.
Chapter 9: Heinlein’s Gendered Self. Heinlein’s understanding of what a man should be and do emerges is that the concept of the ‘Heinlein hero’ or the ‘competent man’. Note that most male protagonists are sidekicks, not ‘heroes’ or alfas. Where there are male leaders in Heinlein novels they tend to be older men, and they tend to be distanced. Also they are far from physically perfect: they are (if described at all) can be small, bold, pot-bellied, overweight, hairy. They often dress ‘unmanly’: kilts, earrings, make-up, garish colors. One aspect of Heinlein’s work on identity is his use and expression of alternative genders, esp. in ‘“[b:All You Zombies|13030110|All You Zombies|Robert A. Heinlein|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1338513108l/13030110._SX50_.jpg|18193411]’” and [b:I Will Fear No Evil|175325|I Will Fear No Evil|Robert A. Heinlein|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1303411477l/175325._SY75_.jpg|45662].
Overall a very interesting analysis, with which I mostly agree and it made me want to re-read the master
nwhyte's review
5.0
https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3366809.html
I was a huge fan of Heinlein's writing in my teenage years, but the last awful novels came out just around that time and somewhat tainted the memory of the pleasure I'd had a few years earlier. I have gone back to his work a couple of times in recent years, but bounced off it as often as not.
But here Farah Mendlesohn approaches Heinlein with a redemptive eye. It is an interesting comparison with Roberts' Wells book - it is shorter, because Heinlein didn't write as much despite living a bit longer; it is more consciously fannish; but it's a much deeper analysis of what Heinlein thought he was doing with his writing, grouped more thematically than by time line. Heinlein's politics, for good or ill, had much more influence on later science fiction than Wells'. Possibly Heinlein actually had more to say than Wells, even if Wells said more of it.
I learned a lot from this, including in particular what Heinlein thought he was doing with Farnham's Freehold and how it went so badly wrong.
I was a huge fan of Heinlein's writing in my teenage years, but the last awful novels came out just around that time and somewhat tainted the memory of the pleasure I'd had a few years earlier. I have gone back to his work a couple of times in recent years, but bounced off it as often as not.
But here Farah Mendlesohn approaches Heinlein with a redemptive eye. It is an interesting comparison with Roberts' Wells book - it is shorter, because Heinlein didn't write as much despite living a bit longer; it is more consciously fannish; but it's a much deeper analysis of what Heinlein thought he was doing with his writing, grouped more thematically than by time line. Heinlein's politics, for good or ill, had much more influence on later science fiction than Wells'. Possibly Heinlein actually had more to say than Wells, even if Wells said more of it.
I learned a lot from this, including in particular what Heinlein thought he was doing with Farnham's Freehold and how it went so badly wrong.
sara_gabai's review
5.0
Very interesting. Sent me to read some of his short stories I had never read, and to reread some of the novels . A shame that there were a few typos. And that the book suddenly ends without a conclusion. But all in all, well written and interesting!
anna_hepworth's review
5.0
A fascinating exploration of the themes in the works of Robert Heinlein, the way that they repeat, and the way that they change over time. Mendlesohn does a fabulous job of articulating the reasons that Heinlein is problematic, as well as highlighting the reasons that I loved many of Heinlein's work (except Job, which I remember as baffling and unreadable).
aditurbo's review
2.0
DNF. As a teenager Heinlein was my idol. I have read and re-read his later novels dozens of times, enjoying the humor, his ideas of freedom of all kinds (world as myth - anything you can think of exists - yay!). I knew there were problematic areas in his work, but I enjoyed the other parts so much that I just ignored these. I was very happy to discover this biography/literary analysis of Heinlein's work now, thirty years later. I was hoping to get insights on what made Heinlein's work so appealing and unique back then. Maybe I was also hoping to experience the thrill again. This did not happen.
The book certainly has its merits. The author clearly knows Heinlein's work inside and out. She has done her research, and has the theoretical background to support her conclusions. But it feels like she is trying very hard to turn Heinlein into a "serious" or "literary" author, one who deserves the critical appreciation she bestows on him. It seems that she skips unpleasant issues, only mentioning them in passing, and shies away from problems of quality of writing and attitudes that are obscene to modern eyes. To make sure my feelings had a basis, I started reading a few stories and a novel by Heinlein and knew that I was right. Heinlein's work may have had some interesting philosophical ideas in it and was much fun to read for teenagers, but he was no literary genius, and some of his writing is simply apalling to read today. Some parts are almost impossible to read, others make you want to go wash yourself to get rid of the disgust. I don't want to get myself into an internet war over general or sexual politics, so I would just say that the work does not measure to any modern standards. It's true that at least he was relatively open-minded about different kinds of sexuality, but it must be remembered that this included sexual relations between father and daughter, for example.
Since I'm finding it hard to agree with the direction Mendlesohn has taken in this book, I cannot go on reading it.
The book certainly has its merits. The author clearly knows Heinlein's work inside and out. She has done her research, and has the theoretical background to support her conclusions. But it feels like she is trying very hard to turn Heinlein into a "serious" or "literary" author, one who deserves the critical appreciation she bestows on him. It seems that she skips unpleasant issues, only mentioning them in passing, and shies away from problems of quality of writing and attitudes that are obscene to modern eyes. To make sure my feelings had a basis, I started reading a few stories and a novel by Heinlein and knew that I was right. Heinlein's work may have had some interesting philosophical ideas in it and was much fun to read for teenagers, but he was no literary genius, and some of his writing is simply apalling to read today. Some parts are almost impossible to read, others make you want to go wash yourself to get rid of the disgust. I don't want to get myself into an internet war over general or sexual politics, so I would just say that the work does not measure to any modern standards. It's true that at least he was relatively open-minded about different kinds of sexuality, but it must be remembered that this included sexual relations between father and daughter, for example.
Since I'm finding it hard to agree with the direction Mendlesohn has taken in this book, I cannot go on reading it.
triscuit807's review
4 stars. This is a dissertation on the life and works of RAH - it contains masses of material and analysis - and as such, it isn't especially readable. In addition to his life and bibliography (divided into short stories, juveniles, and adult novels), Mendlesohn covers technique (cinematic, the use of a sidekick, "oh wow" engineering, and time tales), rhetoric (what emotions he was trying to evoke), society and how humans should fit into it, civic revolution/social justice (guns, disability, racism, feminism, sex and sexuality), and the use of a cat to denote individual worth. I read this for my 2020 Reading Challenge (Reading Women "by female historian") and the 2020 Hugo nominations (Best Related Work).
sarzwix's review
4.0
Excellent, in-depth, close reading of Heinlein's massive body of work. And while Farah Mendlesohn is every inch the academic, this book is not pitched over the head of people who are not. For anyone with an interest in Heinlein and/or the history of SF, highly recommended.
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