Leonard Gaya's Reviews > Stranger in a Strange Land

Stranger in a Strange Land could have been titled more straightforwardly Jesus Christ in pre-hippie America. This hefty book is, in a nutshell, about a Man from Mars (that is: a Man from Heaven), who lands somewhere in the USA, doesn’t “grok” (that is: understand) much about human culture, but starts getting some attention, performs a couple of miracles (telekinesis, telepathy), and gathers a few followers around him. As time goes on, this small group of fans becomes a cult; the general hoi polloi gets angry at the Man from Mars because of his blasphemous Peace-and-Love doctrine and end up bumping him off; the end. Read the Gospel instead: it’s the same plot, only much shorter.

The novel is a bit surprising, coming from the author of Starship Troopers, where he displayed many militaristic right-wing opinions about society and politics. In this book, written only two years later, Heinlein seems to have shifted his stance entirely, advocating “water-sharing”, “growing closer”, “grokking in fullness”, in plain language: libertarianism, universal brotherhood and free sex. The structure of the novel, however, is very similar to that of Starship Troopers: most of it is long-winded, mushy conversations, maundering about religion, sexuality, money, art and whatever else, from one chapter to the next, with a few exciting or funny wisecracks here and there. The character of Valentine Michael Smith (aka the Man from Mars) is bland and, for all his superior powers, sounds like a half-wit. His disciples, most of them sweet bimbo-dumbo tarts (Jill, Dorcas and al.), don’t add up much colour either. Jubal Harshaw, the old loudmouthed alpha macho (possibly the author’s alter ego, just like Colonel Dubois in Starship Troopers) is a bit irritating at length, but the only one who kind of plays his cards right throughout.

In the end, and while I grok this is a much-revered landmark of classic SF, it all feels like a tedious, over-extended and over-discursive piece of narrative. Due to its subversive, satirical undertones, the book might have had some appeal to the hipster counterculture of the 1960s but has practically lost its sharpness and edge over the years. The Penguin Galaxy hardcover edition I have been reading is the revised version published originally; from what I’ve seen, the uncut version published after Heinlein’s death is longer but slightly better.