Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The greatest dreadful book you'll ever read, 26 Oct 2008
I'm not for a moment going to try to defend the literary merit of Heinlein's work. This is, truly, a dreadfully badly written book, a book which cries out for harsh editing. And yet I felt it necessary to write a review to counterbalance those which precede me here, because, although this is a bad book, it's a truly great bad book. It's a book that anyone interested in twentieth century popular culture should read, and a book which will remain the subject of serious literary debate long after all the Booker Prize winners are forgotten.
The reviewers who say this book is too long are right. The reviewers who say it's badly written are right. The reviewers who say it is sexist are... missing the point. Yes, one of the protagonists, who seems to be Heinlein's alter ego, is astonishingly misogynist.
But that's part of why this novel is interesting. It's a visceral satire on the values and mores of Middle America of its day - and, given that Middle America changes only slowly, it still reads true of Middle America today. Sarah Palin might burn it - and has good reason to fear it.
It's a book stuffed with ideas, many of which are very funny; and it's a book with, despite its surface misogyny, a very interesting exploration of gender relations and gender politics which still bears reading. Overall, I strongly recommend that - if you've any interest in a literature of ideas, in the tradition of satire in English letters - you read this book. It's the very best dreadful book you will ever read.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
its what editors are for..., 29 May 2008
I bought this recently as I remembered that many years ago someone in a pub told me it was a brilliant novel. I'm sure there's a moral in that. I might have hated it less if I'd had the good fortune to read the original heavily edited version. It's an awful, long-winded, self-satisfied book. Page after page of characters waxing lyrical about everything from homosexuality to art, religion and politics - and every syllable of it the most outdated, reactonary guff. How is a contemporary reader supposed to make allowances for a novel when one of its supposedly most sympathetic characters (in this case Jill) says "Nine times out of Ten, if a girl gets raped, its at least partly her own fault". It isn't shocking it's just bad,bad,bad.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Truly a stange land - the 1960s, 4 Jan 2008
I REREAD this novel after perhaps a 20-year gap and was surprised how it had dated.
It is a fantastic idea for a story - the man born and raised by Martians is brought to Earth where he has no preconceptions about human culture. Valentine Michael Smith then proceeds to use his supernatural talents to deconstruct some of society's assumptions and institutions.
It's the things that Valentine attacks - such as attitudes to sexuality - and the things he champions - free love, the power of mind over matter and a pantheistic gnosticism - that date this novel now.
Nonetheless I think it is an interesting read in terms of understanding the 1960s.
This particular editon is the uncut version including some 60,000 or so words not in the 1961 edition. I'm not convinced the extra words do anything for the story - it really does go on a bit too long.
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