Why this Book: Selected by my Science Fiction Reading Group.  A couple in the group wanted to read a Heinlein book and though Starship Troopers was the only Heinlein book I’d read, I also wanted to read this, his most famous work. 

Summary in 3 Sentences: An American child who had been raised by Martians on Mars returns to earth with a follow on expedition, and as a young adult is introduced to human values and culture in America.   As he learns the values of earthbound humans he realizes that Martian perspectives, values, and abilities could help humans live better and with greater fulfillment and love.  The novel is about what he learns about  human culture, and the different values and abilities he introduces to humans, the tension between the two, and how he fares in creating a new movement to improve human well being. 

My Impressions: Wow!  I don’t know how over these many years I missed reading this book.  Though I’ve heard about it for decades, I had no idea what it was about.  I would describe it as providing a vision for the counter-culture communal ideal that dominated the sixties and the so-called “hippie movement,” though Heinlein was anything but a hippy.  It is also a critique of American culture written in the 50s, published at the beginning of the 60s, but the critique very much resonates today, 70 years later. 

Though the setting for the book is post WW3 America, and the United Nations has morphed into a world governing federation, the language and the culture in which the story takes place are 1950s America, and as such, are full of quaint, and what today would be considered politically incorrect anachronisms. However, I found this aspect of the book enjoyable and familiar – being a child of the 50s and 60s myself. In particular the male/female roles and relationships are echoes of movies we’ve watched from the 40s and 50s – John Wayne or Cary Grant interacting and Doris Day or even Kathryn Hepburn.  That said, his satires and critiques of wealth, religion, marriage,  politics, government  ineptitude, and more are biting and still relevant.   Stranger in a Strange Land  also makes a strong case for the individualistic and libertarian ideals that initially drove the counter culture movement, before it was hijacked by Maoist and other authoritarian leftist ideals.

Our hero, Valentine Michael Smith or “Mike” is our “stranger in a strange land.”  After  Mike is brought to earth from Mars, and has learned and adapted to the ways of human – specifically American – culture – we see how he reacts to how humans live, how they interact with each other, and what they believe.  We also learn from Mike about Martians, as he explains and teaches the ways of Martians to those who are taking care of him.  Eventually, the superiority of Martian ways to what he was seeing on earth, convinced him and his close friends to start a movement.  We learn about Martian culture, wisdom and advanced insights, which I assume described part of Heinlein’s vision of a possibility for the evolution of human culture.

KEY CHARACTERS 

 Mike Smith was born of human parents on Mars, but his parents perished when their exploratory space ship to Mars encountered difficulties (not described in the book) and all died, except the baby, who was found and  raised by the native Martians,.  The child was taught Martian ways and brought up as one of them and grew up to young adult hood.  A follow on exploratory mission was sent to Mars twenty years later to find out what had happened to the first mission, and after this mission landed, Mike was delivered over to that exploratory team to be returned to his native planet.  The novel begins with Mike  Smith’s return to earth and continues with  how he adapted to and learned about human culture on earth, what he taught the humans he interacted with,  and how scientists, politicians, religious leaders and others responded to him and his teachings. 

Gillian, or Jill Boardman represents a traditional young woman of the 1950s, not highly  educated nor sophisticated, but good-hearted and possessing impressive wisdom and common sense.  We meet her as a nurse in the hospital where Mike was brought after returning to earth.   Ostensibly Mike was there for recovery, but it became apparent that isolating him was actually a political move to control and manage him.  Jill takes a big risk and breaks him out of the hospital, gets him to Jubal Harshaw’s remote home, and Jill becomes Mike’s first caregiver, first Water Brother,  eventually his lover and one of the leaders of his movement.

Jubal Harshaw perhaps the most interesting and enjoyable character in the book.  Jubal was Heinlein’s skeptic – an older experienced man who personified practical wisdom and questioned everything, but with compassion, integrity and an open heart.  When Mike was “kidnapped” from the hospital by Jill, she brought him to Jubal’s remote home – a sort of compound in the Appalachian mountains in New England.  He became Mike’s father figure, advising him, steering him away from the minefields of modern society and those who would manipulate and exploit him.  Jubal was the voice of the skeptical reader, agnostic to Mike’s parapsychological abilities, and paying close attention to how those in power (corporate and government) were responding to Mike’s increasing visibility and popularity.  Some time after Mike had left Jubal’s life and compound, and had gone into the world to learn about earthly culture,  Jubal was called to come give advice when it appeared that Mike’s movement was facing new challenges.   It was indeed amusing to read about this paragon of old-school wisdom engaging with the new-age culture that Mike was creating, having thrown out many of the old-school American cultural paradigms. 

MIKE’S REVOLUTIONARY NEW CULTURE:  Below are some aspects of the culture Heinlein has his characters adopting and internalizing as a result of Mike’s influence and example: :

• Water Brothers.- Water was sacred on Mars where Mike had grown up.  To drink water with someone was a ceremony that made the two people “Water Brothers.” Becoming Water Brothers was a sacred  commitment, meaning that the friendship and commitment  between Water Brothers take precedence over all other considerations. Becoming a Water Brother with a person, makes you a Water Brother with all that person’s Water Brothers, and they are Water Brothers with your Water Brothers. It is a huge deal, and that sense of complete familial commitment solves most interpersonal problems that arise from putting self first – anger, jealousy, possessiveness, greed,  manipulation all go away. 

• Life, Death, and Ghosts. In Martian culture, those alive or still “corporate” live to served those who have physically died.   Those who were once corporate continued to exist in another realm as The Old Ones. Dying was to  “discorporate” – lose one’s corporeal existence and move to another realm – the realm of The Old Ones.   The Old Ones conferred, made decisions and communicated with those physically alive.  In fact, with their perspective and wisdom. The Old Ones were actually the leaders/rulers.  Those still alive, or “corporate” responded to the wisdom and desires of the Old Ones, and served them, and in serving them, served all. .  

•  Patience The Martians are never in a hurry. They always knew they had plenty of time, since after life, they exited for eternity as The Old Ones.  There was always plenty of time.  Those in Mike’s camp used the expression, “Waiting is” to mean, no hurry, we’ll wait and see. 

• Mental powers – On Mars, Mike had  developed what on earth are extraordinary powers,  to include psycho-kinesis, telepathy, and clairvoyance, out of body travel, etc.  The Martian culture had learned to manipulate the laws of physics – and Mike taught his Water Brothers to use mental powers he claimed all of us have, to outflank or override the fundamental laws of physics that we have assumed are immutable.  Mike and his Water Brothers could move physical items with their will, could communicate telepathically, and could even make objects disappear.  They have learned to do what in fact yogis in India and the Himalayas have trained themselves to do over many centuries, which scientists have yet to understand (see my review of The Intention Experiment)   Mikes (and perhaps Heinlein’s)  point – when the mind is freed from the concerns of the ego, and has been taught to truly focus, all these things are possible.  

• Marriage, monogamy, and sexuality – In Mike’s Water Brother-centric  culture, there is no place for the possessiveness and exclusiveness of monogamy and marriage.  In this new culture,  sexuality is primarily a means of developing closeness and pleasure between two people who are committed to each other as Water Brothers – and as such, sexuality is celebrated as a special gift that close and committed friends (Water Brothers) can share – what today we might see as a natural extension of engaged, respectful, and intimate conversation.  The exclusivity of sexual relations inherent in Western customs of marriage and monagamy robs individuals of an effective means of developing closeness with multiple Water Brothers.   Water Brothers are not interested in  “casual recreational” sex with someone with whom they are not committed. And since in Mike’s world, the men and women had multiple Water Brothers of the opposite sex, sex as a means of pleasing and growing closer to other Water Brothers was an attractive option.  “Marriage” still played a role as a partnership in sharing the primary responsibilities of child rearing and managing assets, but as with sex, one could always call on Water Brothers to help with these and other challenges.  Even nudity was encouraged as statement of non-attachment to old shames, jealousies and outmoded paradigms.  

•  Disharmony and jealousy. Mike learned from his Martian mentors to never get angry or to lose his cool.  Part of this grew out of their culture of patience – there was always time to sort things out. Though he would become sad, or confused, he never lost his cool, nor was he ever jealous,  or an angry victim of an ego tirade.  In his team, it wasn’t as if these behaviors were forbidden, they just didn’t come up, once people had learned the skill of patience and had committed to the ideal of being Water Bothers.

•  Meditation and “withdrawing”  Mike had the capacity to shut himself down physically, to the point that he appeared dead – it was indeed a very deep form of meditation.  He would “withdraw” when the environment became too hectic or when he needed to recover and re-energize himself. When he was withdrawn, his Water Brothers knew only to disturb him in case of dire emergency.   This was an early Sci Fi endorsement of meditation as a powerful self-discipline and tool for mental and phsical recovery and dealign with stress. 

• NOT a Religion – Mike’s philosophy and adherents were accused of being a religion or a cult but he strenuously disagreed.  Like the Unitarians, he had room for people of all religious persuasions and included in his Water Brother disciples a Muslim and a Jew as well as many Christians.  He argued that he lived in the place where all religions overlap – there was no competition, or dogmatic belief in a personal or any other type of God or saviour

.As I’ve thought about this book, I see it as Heinlein’s view of an ideal of what humans could evolve toward, though he has said in his subsequent interviews that he was not prescribing his society as an ideal,  rather posing this alternative  as a challenge to consider – to stimulate thought and discussion. 

A CHRIST-LIKE FIGURE There are many analogies to Christ and Christianigy in this book.  Mike Smith is a Christ-like character from a different realm, who comes to earth representing and offering a different vision of how people should live, relate to each other and perceive their existence.  He draws a small group of dedicated “disciples” who help him spread the word.   Like Christ, Mike and his message were viciously opposed by those with a vested interest and investment in the status quo, and his ideas were regarded as immoral, subversive, and decadent. MIke’s message was that love and becoming committed to each other as Water Brothers was the key to fulfillment; that this life was not to be lived as a prelude to a life after death or in the interest of a supernatural being.   In Mike’s world, people greeted each other with “Thou Art God, “affirming their belief that each of them were an expression of a Transcendent Good. 

Mike also eventually came to realize that when enjoyed as an act of love, sensual pleasure is a gift  – indeed one of our greatest gifts, and in this he deviated from regarding the Martian culture as superior,  The ability of humans to connect spiritually AND physically through sexual and sensual connection was in contrast to and SUPERIOR to interactions in the asexual, detached, and cerebral Martian culture in which he grew up.  This final insight of Mike’s, that sensuality – the source of so much tension and suffering in humans is also the path to the best of what humans can become – and indeed can be a synthesis of the best of Martian and Human culture.

A quote from the book that makes this point:“The joining of bodies with merging of souls in shared ecstasy, giving, receiving, delighting in each other—well, there’s nothing on Mars to touch it, and it’s the source, I grok in fullness, of all that makes this planet so rich and wonderful. And, Jubal, until a person, man or woman, has enjoyed this treasure bathed in the mutual bliss of minds linked as closely as bodies, that person is still as virginal and alone as if he had never copulated.” 

Quotes from Stranger in a Strange Land – there were many great quotes, and I can’t do better than what I found at this website: https://www.readthistwice.com/quotes/book/stranger-in-a-strange-land

My reservations.  It seems to me that acquisitiveness, desire for power, the impulse fo immediate pleasure (sex, drugs, victory, ecstasy), and the competitive instincts we have with our fellow humans are part of our genetic legacy.  Overcoming these to live a better, more cooperative, spiritual and communal life may be the challenge each of us has in our own lives, and that no communal ideal can entirely eliminate these very human tendencies and impulses.  It is hard for me to imagine that even in Mike’s Water Brother culture, over the long run, individuals will not experience or act on being disappointed, or jeolous, or angry,  wanting more than they have, feeling slighted, and will always be able to overcome these un-enlightened but very human tendencies. 

I suspect Heinlein was often confronted with this objection to his Water Brother culture,  and I would imagine him responding: “But shouldn’t we always be striving to overcome these impediments to the best of what life has to offer?  My book was written to challenge you to see beyond what is, and consider what may be….maybe.”

Though as “literature” I’d give Stranger in a Strange Land not particularly high marks – perhaps a 6 on 10 point scale.  But for imagination, and a creative setting and source for the provocative ideas he introduces, especially given the time in which it was written (think McCarthyism) I’d give it a 9.7 (or better.)