Stranger in a Strange Land - Robert A. Heinlein

Finally, it comes to this. It’s quite a feat really, I can’t remember the last time I got so impatient with a book that I just tossed it aside and never looked back. I certainly don’t think I’ve ever tossed a book aside with as much disdain and relief. Hell, I even finished the first Twilight book all the way through. So, unfortunately (or, rather, appropriately) Stranger in a Strange Land will now have this infamy for me: god, I hated this book.

First, a quick background. The book tells the story of Valentine Michael Smith, a human born on Mars during a failed expedition. He is raised by Martians until a second expedition brings him home, sometime during his early adulthood. The book then focuses on Smith’s interactions with Earth’s culture, and basically examines humanity and society from an outsider’s perspective (Smith’s bewilderment when he learns about money, clothes, God, etc, and how he tries to understand such things, or “grok” them). In a nutshell, that’s about it, eventually Smith focuses on religion and begins teaching Earthlings his point of view, which is derived from what he’s learned about Earth religion and combined with his Martian beliefs. I don’t believe the book calls it a cult but, come on. Anyway, I think he royally pisses people off but I didn’t read past the part where his new religion is getting off the ground and gaining a strong following.

The book, published sometime in 1961, became a favorite of the hippie movement, which is no surprise given it’s themes of paganism, sexual freedom, anti-government, individual liberty, so on. It won the Hugo Award for best fiction of the year and, according to Wikipedia anyway, it’s considered one of the most important works of science fiction. I mean, so far all of the books on that 52 books list have been groundbreaking and important in some way. So just because I didn’t like it doesn’t mean it isn’t…I don’t know, I can’t say great because it really wasn’t to me, but I guess I can say that it’s important. There’s even a real life religion (cult?) that exists today that is partly based on the religion created by Smith in the book.

I may really hate the book, but I certainly can admire it for a few reasons: for the time when it was published, it was very radical. A lot of scenes were edited out from the original publishing because they were considered to be too much for audiences (I’m assuming they’re referring to the commune scenes with free love, sexual freedom, multiple partners, what have you). The themes explored in the book were probably considered taboo back then, and probably still are to this day. And it has been embraced by thousands of people, it sparked a real-life religious movement, and it pioneered a real-life social movement as well. I don’t know how many other books out there have done that.

There are also other elements about the book that I will admit I can’t fault it for. Feeling dated, for example. This was written in the 60’s, that’s literally a different world to me. It’s the same thing as looking past Star Trek’s (the original series) miniskirts, beehives, and glossy filters. It was just a different time, it is allowed to feel dated. You can argue that there are plenty of works out there that don’t necessarily feel dated, but I think that’s just a bonus. If it feels dated, oh well.

I also can’t fault it too much for being set in an alternate reality that I didn’t believe in or like. This is science fiction, it’s supposed to be a completely alien environment, and while I completely did not believe in the environment, that’s not the books fault. Finally, I can’t fault it for producing emotional reactions from me that were unpleasant. For instance, I cringed during the scene where two of the main characters started having sex in the middle of the commune. Call me a prude, I probably am, but that was just painful to read. I’m sure I’ve read other books that elicited an unpleasant reaction, its part of the experience.

HOWEVER, I have MANY other issues that I think are completely the book’s fault. The entire book is incredibly preachy. It really feels like it’s just a vehicle for Heinlein to spout out every tiny minutiae of his beliefs. Ultimately, that’s what books are for an author, but dear god, good authors know how to do this without becoming a pain in the butt. It was just too preachy, entire pages of characters not really doing anything expect having a huge back and forth about this one thing or another. They didn’t even sound like real people. That’s the other thing. None of the characters were even remotely interesting, none of them had any unique personality, and at the end of the day I cared absolutely nothing for any of them. The “plot” may sound interesting in a nutshell (an outsider inspecting and dissecting our day to day lives while teaching us new things about ourselves in the process) but it was just drowned in pages and pages of preaching.

The famous parts, the ones about Smith becoming a new-age prophet and leading a new social movement, don’t happen till the last third of the book. Everything before it is legal battles regarding his inheritance (he’s the heir to everyone on the first failed expedition, and all of their estates), then goes on about…god I don’t even remember. The point is, it was all boring. It was a chore to keep flipping pages. There was absolutely no emotional investment required, all the characters were flat and shallow, and the plot happened in between huge segments of preaching about why society is wrong and what beliefs are the truths. A lot of people argue that some people just don’t get the book’s message. That’s crap. I “got” the message, I’m just not buying it.

Finally, I keep having a debate with myself. I found the book extremely hard to relate to. While the point is to hold up our society to a magnifying glass and allow us to examine ourselves as an outsider would, I could not relate to the society depicted in the book.

“But its science fiction, it doesn’t have to even remotely resemble the society you know.”

Yes, ok, but then that kind of misses the point of having the reader reflect about his own society.

“But other science fiction works (let’s take Star Trek again because Rock and I have been on a Star Trek marathon for the past year) present completely different societies and you can still relate to them.”

I don’t know, like I said, I didn’t believe in the environment or the way people acted and reacted, but I can’t necessarily fault the book for that. I feel the same about Klingons, for example…”today is a good day to die?” The. Hell? But if the point of the book is to get us to question ourselves, then shouldn’t it resemble us? Ugh, well, to me it didn’t, so take that as you will. I’m never thinking about that book again.