Classic Trash discussion

I am excited to read this one. I've read a lot of Heinlein, but it's been awhile, and I have never read this one. I'm a big fan of things like Invasion of the Body Snatchers and this seems down the same alley.

I always feel a little irked by his politics and philosophy, but Heinlein writes so well and his works never fail to be interesting. And luck: I'm glad one was picked I hadn't read yet.

Chris: What of RAH's "politics and philosophy" do you find irksome? (I mean, is it things RAH says, or things the characters say?) BTW: howyadoon?

Hey Fred! Some conservative views, some a bit sexist, maybe just some a lot dated. Haven't read any in a while to give you examples.

But it is true, it is mostly from his characters mouths and not his. That said, the feeling seems pretty consistent, and so I can't help feel that his own philosophies stand somewhat behind it.

Chris, I will be interested in these as they occur to you--depending upon what you mean by "conservative", it's a fair cop; I'm not sure I buy "sexist" (but it may be wrapped up in "dated"). Of course, last time I read "Puppet Masters" was in 1993, while the movie (very, very bad movie) was being made...

I also have issues with Heinlein and women, but it's been awhile since I've read him. And I'm not sure how the older stuff compares with the more free-lovin later books. I loved him when I was in High School though. Man, I just devoured everything the library had.

Adelaide: I will be interested to hear a woman's take on women's issues in RAH. I'm always willing to have my consciousness raised...(ask Christopher about my rational ultra-feminist wife).
As far as RAH in general--well, I wept when I read the whole collection of his juveniles on the shelf in the Dallas Public Library...and a very kind Librarian took me by the hand and showed me the adult section: Asimov, Anderson, Niven, Laumer, Biggle (Jr.), Pohl, Piper; and a whole raft of big, long books by RAH I had not read. I had had no idea...

Heinlein is a gateway drug, no doubt about it.

I'll be curious what you think as well on a re-reading of it, Fred.

And if anything rubs me the wrong way, I'll make sure to note it. :)

Ok, so I am a few pages in and the women characters are sexy objects who know when to remain quiet. Heinlein's portrayals of women are starting to come back to me. They tend to be a certain kind of man's idealized version of what a woman should be: always willing and never a drag. (While somewhat outdated now, the open sexuality of all the characters was pretty forward for the 50s.) I am amused rather than angered, which is how I am going to approach the rest of the book, unless he gets too out of hand.

I finished it last night, and my thought was that it was a lot like re-reading E.E."Doc" Smith. "Mary" is, admittedly, not one of RAH's strongest females; OTH she is no more broadly drawn or stereotyped than is "Sam" (or for that matter, any one of the soldiers, scientists, or soldier/scientists). I won't say more for fear of spoilers.

Another book club I am in recently read Foundation by Isaac Asimov in which only one woman in the Foundation is briefly mentioned: a telephone operator. (The other woman in the book lives outside the Foundation and is annoying.) So is it better to have no women in space or only super sexy women on Earth? I opt for some women (no matter how unflatteringly or unrealistically portrayed) just for the sake of a moderate amount of realism. While Heinlein's women seem silly to me now, when I was in high school, they were fairly eye-opening characters for me. They were sexual beings who were generally not slut-shamed for their activities. While their sexuality is their defining characteristic, at least they were allowed to be competent and do interesting things.

That's what I meant by my comparison with E.E."Doc" Smith. I try to remember what the world was like in 1967, and see how forward the characters were then.
FWIW, many of RAH's men are not people out with whom I would choose to hang, not up to whom I would chose to look, in retrospect.