Somebody, and I genuinely don’t know who, hit Uncle Joel’s wishlist and sent me a book I’d never have gotten around to buying for myself. It arrived through the underground railroad yesterday morning, just in time for a totally unforecast thunderstorm that took up the whole afternoon.
So I unplugged the ‘pooter to appease the thunder gods, and then didn’t have to look around for a book I haven’t already read to the point of memorization. Not counting the large appendix, I’m about halfway through and it’s no slog. Generally with biographies that start with “He was born,” the first few chapters at least are either dull recitations of all the ordinary places this kid who’s just like every other kid lived, or some variation on “and then after he took credit for chopping down the cherry tree, he sat among the marveling elders and healed all the sad puppies.” This is pretty much that first thing, especially with several chapters on his apparently very non-miraculous time at Annapolis. But then it got more interesting to me personally.
See, Heinlein is important to me, always was, and I’ve always been interested in what caused a frantically devoted Socialist Democrat, all wrapped up in nonsense like Social Credit and Sinclair Lewis’s latest utopian claptrap, to write the libertarian standard texts he later did – most of which have held up so well. And frankly, how they could be so oddly mixed with … well, a lot of things, like his virulent nationalism, and occasionally interspersed with vile racist hogwash like Sixth Column.
What can I say? Heinlein was basically my only philosophical touchstone when I was very young, and now I’m interested in what influenced him.
So I spent a very pleasant afternoon in spite of the unexpected storm, and I thank whoever sent me the book.
RAH was a god! Not because he was perfect – he definitely had feet of clay, but because he got so many of us to THINK!
gfa
Speaking of the Thunder Gods Joel, and just in case you haven’t checked your long range forecast, don’t bother laying out that cute little sun suit.
It’s that time of year. But the short-range forecast said it was supposed to be fairly dry until Tuesday. Didn’t admit the possibility of yesterday’s all-afternoon rain at all.
Sixth Column was from John Campbell – he gave Heinlein the outline and told RAH to write it. John Campbell was Heinlein’s meal ticket at the time, so Heinlein did what he was told. The attitude was pure Campbell, with added racism thrown in via the Japanese. In 1941, when the original was serialized, the Japanese were behaving horribly (and they’re still racist today, just polite about it).
Yeah, so the book reminded me without giving the fact a lot of emphasis. I recall having heard that somewhere else, but of course I didn’t know it when I first read the book – and I found the book damn near horrifying, coming as it apparently did straight from the forehead of my very favorite SF author, who’d written all those upbuilding Scribners juveniles I grew up on…