As I continue going through our many bookshelves, deciding what to donate to our library book sale, sometimes I just have to re-read a book before consigning it to the pile of donations.
I have a bunch of Robert Heinlein's novels--mainly well-worn paperbacks but a few hardcovers. I think I started reading him in junior high. I was a big fan of YA sci-fi. Heinlein could tell a good story and imagine so many futures. I was hooked. Farmer in the Sky, The Rolling Stones, Citizen of the Galaxy, Double Star, Time for the Stars, Starship Troopers, and many others are still quite enjoyable to me.
Stranger in a Strange Land came along when I was an adult--and I loved it. But at some point Heinlein's adult fiction took a turn. Still interesting plots, for sure, but the main characters began to seem all alike. Alpha males and perky yet submissive females. Lots of casual nudity, a touch of incest . . .oh, nothing truly awful, but kinda annoying. (If the male protagonist threatens to spank his girlfriend one more time . . .)
I found on rereading these two that my reaction was much the same that caused me to toss my James Bond books. I'd really enjoyed those stories fifty years ago but time, social mores, and I have moved on.
These two will go to the library sale. Job has an interesting, if confusing, premise, but it revisits so many old Heinlein tropes that it had me groaning. It does, however, have an fun take on the Rapture, Heaven, Hell, and various gods. (Who knew that Jehovah had a Jewish accent?)
The Door into Summer was written earlier, before Heinlein got so repetitive. (He wrote 32 novels and 59 short stories so one sees how this might happen.) It has a great twisty plot with corporate theft, the "long sleep" (suspended animation to allow the sleeper to skip thirty years,) and time travel which allows for the righting of wrongs. It was a quick fun re-read, but I don't foresee wanting to read it yet again. Into the library pile with it.
You can see why this de-accessioning is taking a while.
3 comments:
I've never read any of those but I know what you mean about revisiting old titles. Even if you loved them at one time, life moves on, especially in sci-fi and 'romantic' fiction.
I agree totally. I was thinking of Stranger in a Strange Land the other day, and the term "grok" if that's the correct spelling. It was such fun back in the 50s and 60s...before Roddenberry came along with Star Trek, and Spielberg...when imaginary things were thrown onto big and small screens! Same sense of having outgrown those early steps!
Stranger in a Strange Land was all the rage when I was in college. A few months back, I snagged a cheap copy for the Kindle (BookBub is a dangerous service, I tell ya), and was so disappointed. I can see, remembering the times, why it would have been an exciting read full of daring new ideas, and I still use the word "grok" from time to time, but ... Well, Heinlein's time has been and gone, alas. Some books can and do hold up well and are much as one remembers them (or, occasionally, even better with the insights of age and experience) -- Wind n the Willows immediately comes to mind, as does Lord of the Rings. Others, though, fare better as fond memory.
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