Arguing About Heinlein (A Library Tale)

Originally published on Green Man Review.

Ahhhh, you found the Green Man Pub, where the whisky is always single malt, the music is neverending, and the company superb, except for The Irish Gentry (or Hard Men as they are oft times called) in the corner — they are not to be trifled with!

Now listen — a story is being told. . . . So do stop what you are doing, as we should listen to what this particular teller of tales wants to share with us.

Of course, tales come in many forms — be it one on one with a good series, such as Robert Holdstock’s Ryhope Wood series; or a circle of friends around the communal fire late at night as our resident Seannachie holds back the dark just a little longer with his telling of Beowulf based on a superb version which isn’t this one; or mayhap a really good television series, such as Farscape; or even as we listen to a singer-songwriter tell a story in both music and words, as Casey Neill does in his ‘Riffraff’ story off his Memory Against Forgetting album.

Which, as you could guess without me telling you, means that everything we review ‘ere are stories being told, and of course, our reviews are stories as well. Indeed, you in turn will tell your own story of what you read.

But first, do listen in as the staff discusses the work and philosophy of a well-known writer. . . . Or, as our narrator puts it: Is Robert Anson Heinlein a jerk or not?

So, we review books here, of course. Mostly we’re busy reading them — but there’s plenty of discussion, argument and plain old feuding that goes on around here in the process. And that’s just between Staff members; the comments we get from authors are another kettle of live eels entirely. . . .

Maybe you have an image of the Library as being full of studious reviewers at rows of roll-top desks, poring over faintly glowing manuscripts. Or a sort of Platonic study hall out in the gardens, with gracefully reclining readers in tea-gowns and smoking jackets passing leather-bound volumes back and forth under the oaks. Well, all I can say is, you must have skipped reading these stories. And you’ve never frequented the Halls of Academe. . . . The reason we talk so much about the Pub and the Kitchen and the Great Hall is because that’s where the staff spends most of their time. And they rarely take books into the gardens, because MacKenzie gets homicidal if the books come back with green skirts.

Sitting at various angles in the Pub the other night, several Staffers were discussing literary giants in different genres. The subject veered fairly naturally from fantasy into science fiction — SF basically being fantasy all tarted up modern, with BEMs instead of elves — and before long the room was seething with one of the Great Questions of Classic Science Fiction — was Robert Anson Heinlein a jerk or not?

The argument was divided predictably along gender and age lines — that is, most of the ladies said yes. And most of the under-50 crowd said yes. So the Heinlein admirers were mostly grey-haired and male, though a couple of the feistier older ladies maintained a fondness for his work.

‘The juveniles deserve another look, folks,′ said one of these. ‘There is some awfully good stuff in there, even in Podkayne of Mars.’

‘No, I wanted to gang-slap the heroine for most of that book,” maintained one of the Several Annies from the Library. ‘His female characters are either spinelessly adoring the menfolk or they’re on their backs all the time!’

Tim, from the Spine Repair crew, grinned like an idiot and opened his mouth for a comment that would have gotten him thumped. I averted disaster by tossing a biscuit in his gob, undoubtedly saving him from needing his own spine repaired.

‘The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress is one of the all-time best AI stories ever,’ I commented diplomatically.

‘It’s also an unashamed tear-jerker through the last hundred pages; I cry every time I read it. I thought Glory Road was a grand lark, too and terribly romantic in a masculine way,’ said Corinne from Gardening.

We then stared at one another in total mutual lack of comprehension.

A younger reader thought Stranger In A Strange Land was a tired old hippie apologia. Someone else said, no, it was a prediction of a future American dystopia. And someone else again insisted it was a pastiche on religious crackpots, citing Baker and Hubbard for proof.

‘Heinlein was an engineer,’ said Elliott-the-Truck hotly. ‘He didn’t commit pastiches!’

‘Starship Troopers sucked!’

‘That was the movie, you idiot!’

‘His poetry was bloody awful!’

‘He was a jingo-spouting chauvinist pig!’

‘Not writing that soppy sentimental verse!’

‘He wrote poetry?’

See? All the depth and patience of an argument in the undergraduates’ lounge. When things got down to one-word philosophical exchanges (Elitist! Ignoramus!), Jack finally intervened, demanding silence. It looked like beer was going to start flying, and this is always Going Too Far.

Mackenzie was over in the far corner with Jack, where they’d been playing mumblety-peg with the steel-nibbed pens. Now he looked up and said: ’As the Bard observes — Aye, my lords, but he’s dead. It’s been decades and no one’s ever managed to get farther than agreeing to disagree — the man was both old-fashioned and far out there on the fringe by our standards now. And you call yourselves researchers! Take it in context — he’s a voice from another world.

‘But he also personally hand-crafted a great deal of the modern SF universe. His are the giant shoulders later men talk about standing on. Stop quibbling about whether or not you liked his shirt.’

It got pretty quiet then. When I left, though, there was a furious debate going on sotto voce over by the skittles table — Was Tom Bombadil funny? Or just annoying?