Heinlein

[womzilla]

Lots of Heinlein discussion going on these days, in no small part triggered by the publication of the first half of Patterson's massive biography Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialog with His Century.

Here's a comment I left in one of the discussions:

Heinlein was a progressive or even radical in many ways by the standards of a man who was born in 1908. However, he did not move forward nearly as quickly as he thought he did, and was outstripped by events, especially on sex and race.

Chip Sullivan had a good paper at this year's ICFA discussing gender in the juvies, and one of the saddest things is the degree to which he obviously believed that women were as smart and capable and admirable as men, but at the same time couldn't really think of them as being as smart and capable and admirable in the same ways as men.

Or, as Farah Mendlesohn said, "he believed in the rights of women, and then managed to get his understanding of what that might look like spectacularly wrong in all sorts of ways".

(More attribution: The first paragraph of my comment was deeply influenced by David Hartwell's letter of comment to NYRSF #263.)

Comments

[washa-way.livejournal.com]

I agree. I still can't figure out how a bright, bold, unique character like Podkayne ends up as a spectator at the end of her own book.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Anything that helps explain how Heinlein could be so boldly feminist and so wretchedly sexist at the same time is greatly helpful.

so boldly feminist and so wretchedly sexist

[fjm.livejournal.com]

Now that is a very neat way of putting it. Might I use it? (a book proposal). With attribution of course.

Re: so boldly feminist and so wretchedly sexist

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

OK. I'm glad this time I managed to say something you found coherent.

[supergee.livejournal.com]

Heinlein sincerely believed an extreme version of something our culture teaches us: that women are Different. He just as sincerely believed that they are not worse.

[uvula-fr-b4.livejournal.com]

I recently read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and, thus far, it's the best of his post-1960s work that I've read, though a lot of it still made me grind my teeth.

I was interested to read, in Jane Mayer's lengthy piece on the Koch brothers in The New Yorker (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer?printable=true), that Charles and David Koch were devotees of Robert LeFevre (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_LeFevre), the self-styled "autarchist," who was supposedly a model, if not the model, for Professor Bernardo de la Paz in TMiaHM.

Off topic, but I saw you over in ratmmjess on the Englehart/Kirby thread, and your LJ looks interesting; mind if I friend you?

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

Go right ahead!