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What once was strange Stranger in a Strange Land may be an old favourite of mine, but I'm tempted to drop it from the list of greatest novels. It has certainly lost the cult status it once had as the official book of the counterculture. Its ideas now seem dated and simplistic. And it is certainly not as wildly popular now as when it moved from the counterculture into the mainstream in the late 1960s—though that peak of popularity might be impossible for any novel to maintain over four decades. But what is most making me doubt the long-term value of Heinlein's most acclaimed work is that I just read the longer version, the 1990 edition that restored most of the cuts he had made to get it published in 1961. This presumably is the novel as the author himself envisioned it. It has accordingly been praised as superior to the originally published version. But for me it points up every weakness in the work. It's very long-winded for one thing. This may not be a bad quality in itself, but here it certainly is. I can't recall another novel that is so composed of characters' speeches. Not dialogue—speeches. Speeches that could have been cut in half and would have lost little. The worst offender is Jubal Harshaw, a earth lawyer hired to protect a mystically powered but wide-eyed Martian, a Christ-figure come to earth. Harshaw is an obvious stand-in for the author and is constantly spouting aphorisms and pronouncing on the natures of society, people, religion, politics, you name it. Some of this is pointedly clever in a cranky Mark Twain kind of way. (See the "Favourites Lines"). But it gets tiring after a while. And then there's the alien, Valentine Michael Smith, providing a New Age philosophy (everyone is God, live in the present, love is free) for the narrow-minded, uptight, over-regimented earthlings. One wonders now how one could ever have thought this stuff was profound. There are some striking narrative moments in the novel and some good irreverent cosmic twists that would do Douglas Adams proud. But they're buried in the verbal poses, in the rambling doctrine Heinlein wants to disseminate. Yet I still have some affection for Stranger in a Strange Land. In part, admittedly, because it affected me at a certain time in my and my generation's life. But also because it's heartening to see a modern writer, even in the science fiction genre, directly addressing the big issues of life. I can excuse some clumsiness in return for such daring. But this does not make it a great book. I predict Stranger in a Strange Land will continue to decline in our assessment, becoming an historic curiosity as its ideas recede in relevance. But if our society takes a turn backwards to become narrow-minded, uptight and over-regimented once again, as it occasionally threatens to, Stranger in a Strange Land could regain a cachet among the rebellious. It could return to shake us up again. We need this kind of book when we need it and when we don't we don't. — Eric
© Copyright 2004 Eric McMillan. All rights reserved.
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