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Stranger in a Strange Land is a best-selling 1961 Hugo Award-winning science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein. It tells the story of Valentine Michael Smith, a human raised by Martians on the planet Mars, upon his return to Earth in early adulthood. The novel explores his interaction with — and eventual transformation of — Earth culture. The novel's title refers to the Biblical Book of Exodus. According to Heinlein in Grumbles from the Grave, the novel's working title was The Heretic.
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Quotations
Thou art God May you always drink deep May you never be thirsty.
A prude is a person who thinks that his own rules of propriety are natural laws. You are almost entirely free of this prevalent evil. (UC)
I do know that the slickest way to lie is to tell the right amount of truth at the right time — and then shut up. ~ Jubal Harshaw
I have learned two ways to tie my shoes. One way is only good for lying down. The other way is good for walking. (FE/UC)
It would be a waste of breath to tell a man who believes in guns that you've got something better. (FE/UC)
Kiss girls all you want to — it beats the hell out of card games. ~ Jubal Harshaw
Encyclopedia
Stranger in a Strange Land is a best-selling 1961 Hugo Award-winning science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein. It tells the story of Valentine Michael Smith, a human raised by Martians on the planet Mars, upon his return to Earth in early adulthood. The novel explores his interaction with — and eventual transformation of — Earth culture. The novel's title refers to the Biblical Book of Exodus. According to Heinlein in Grumbles from the Grave, the novel's working title was The Heretic. Several later editions of the book have promoted it as "The most famous Science Fiction Novel ever written."
When Heinlein first wrote Stranger in a Strange Land, his editors at Putnam required him to drastically cut its original 220,000-word length, and to remove some scenes that might have been considered too shocking at the time. The resulting edited version was about 160,000 words. In 1962 this version received the Hugo Award for the Best Science Fiction Novel of the Year. After Heinlein's death in 1988, his wife Virginia arranged to have the original uncut version of the manuscript published in 1991 by Ace/Putnam. Critics disagree over whether Heinlein's preferred original manuscript is in fact better than the heavily-edited version originally published. There is similar contention over the two versions of Heinlein's Podkayne of Mars.
While initially a success among science fiction readers, over the next six years word-of-mouth caused sales to build, requiring numerous subsequent printings of the first Putnam edition. The novel has never been out of print. Eventually Stranger in a Strange Land became a cult classic, attracting many readers who would not ordinarily read a work of science fiction. The late-1960s counterculture, popularized by the hippie movement, was influenced by its themes of individual liberty, self-responsibility, sexual freedom and the influence of organized religion on human culture and government, and adopted the book as something of a manifesto.
In 1968Tim Zell (now Oberon Zell-Ravenheart) and others formed a neopagan religious organization called the Church of All Worlds, modeled after the religion founded by the primary characters in the novel, but Heinlein had no other connection to the project.
Plot summary
Valentine Michael Smith is the son of two of the eight astronauts of an ill-fated first human expedition to the planet Mars. Orphaned when the crew died (the full story of how this happened is not portrayed, but his parents were unambiguously murdered by his mother's husband, who later committed suicide), Smith is raised in the culture of the native inhabitants of the planet, beings whose minds live in another world (compare Waldo). The story portrays Valentine Michael Smith's adaptation to, and understanding of, humans and their culture, which is portrayed as an amplified version of consumerist and media-driven 20th-century America.
After the arrival of a second expedition to the planet some twenty years later in the naval ship Champion, Smith is taken "home" to Earth, where he is consigned to (some futuristic evolution of) the Bethesda Naval Hospital by the orders of the Champions ship physician Sven Nelson. However, he is effectively imprisoned in a hospital by the current world government, a successor to the United Nations styled the "Federation of Free States," which wishes Smith to transfer to itself any rights by discovery, under Human law, that he may have to ownership of Mars. Smith is also something of a political pawn in factional struggles within the Federation, and to make matters worse he is heir to the fortunes of the entire exploration party, not just his parents, including several valuable inventions which were not developed commercially until after their deaths. In short, he is a man besieged on all sides by those who wish to use him to further their own ends.
Nurse Gillian Boardman, who regards men as secondary to her work, works at Bethesda. Since Smith is physically weak and oppressed by the comparatively heavy atmosphere and gravity of Earth, he is confined to a "hydraulic bed", and further, since Smith has not yet ever seen a female human (all the crew members of the Champion were male), Nelson has ordered that Smith be attended by male staff only, including nurses. Regarding this as a challenge, Gillian slips past the guards to get a peek at Smith, and in doing so inadvertently becomes his first female "water brother" by sharing a glass of water with him. To him this is a holy relationship based on the customs of arid Mars. Later on when a doctor meets him and attempts to converse, strange effects of custom and mistranslation ensue, including apparently catalepsy. Obviously Smith is not ready for mainstream attention quite yet.
After her watch, Gillian prepares for a date with one of her lovers, investigative journalist Ben Caxton. He sends a robocab to take her to another place, where they catch a second cab and eventually go to his place. Ben informs her that the cloak-and-dagger act is necessary because being associated with him is dangerous.
However, Jill tells Ben about her strange and wonderful experience, and Ben explains to her some of the bizarre interplanetary politics swirling around Smith, and finally she agrees to place a bug to monitor Smith. Later, when she and Ben watch a "stereovision" telecast of the "Man from Mars", she knows instantly that he is a fraud (since the real Smith doesn't really understand English or even more basic human customs). Ben sees the substitution as political and not scientific: he wonders if the real Smith will ever be allowed out into the world. Ben attempts to see and unmask the phony Smith, but disappears. Meanwhile, Gillian tries to persuade Smith to leave the hospital with her. He is willing to go anywhere with a water brother, but they only get as far as Ben's apartment before agents attempt to kidnap them. Smith causes the agents to disappear, and he is so shocked by Gillian's terrified reaction that he enters what seems to be a catatonic state. She has to carry him away in a large suitcase with wheels.
They reach the enclave owned by Ben's friend and fellow gadfly, Jubal Harshaw, an eccentric millionaire writer of fiction, TV scripts, and other kinds of mass-market pablum, who also happens to be a qualified medical doctor, a lawyer, and an advisor to certain public figures. Harshaw's five employees include three beautiful women who act as secretaries, walking dictation machines and cooks, as well as restraints on his excesses, along with technical helpers Duke and Larry. With Gillian, they teach Smith human customs and behavior, including sexual behavior.
Smith demonstrates psychic abilities and superhuman intelligence, which are coupled with a childlike naïveté. When Jubal is trying to explain religion to him, Smith understands the concept of God only as "one who groks", which includes every living person, plant, and animal. This leads him to express the Martian concept of the oneness of Life as the phrase "Thou art God". Due to his education on a different planet, many human concepts—such as war, clothing, and jealousy—are strange to him, while the idea of an afterlife is something he takes as a given because the government on Mars is composed of "Old Ones", the spirits of Martians who have died. It is also customary for loved ones and friends to eat the bodies of the dead, in a spirit of Holy Communion.
Harshaw realizes he cannot keep the young man concealed forever, and after an attempt by Federation police to arrest Gillian and reclaim Smith is frustrated by the young man's Martian-taught abilities, Harshaw brokers a deal under which the Secretary-General, in his individual capacity, will act as trustee for Smith's immense wealth. Harshaw is able to make his implication stick that human law, which would have granted ownership of Mars to Smith, has no applicability to a planet already inhabited by intelligent aliens who do not have the concept of ownership.
Writing in the early 1960s, Heinlein accurately predicted the existence of enormous Evangelical/Fundamentalist megachurches as corporate entities controlling their own television networks and other businesses, similar to the Moral Majority, the Christian Coalition, and other historical entities. The Fosterites train squadrons of teenagers and young adults, the Spirit-in-Action League, to physically attack other religions, newspapers, etc., who fail to respect their version of the truth. Ironically, the Fosterites, along with all other religions, turn out to be true agents of divine forces. During his stay with Harshaw, Smith is taken to a Fosterite service and introduced to Bishop Digby, whom Smith apparently kills for reasons never fully explained (although it is known that Digby rejected Smith's assertion that "Thou art God"). Subsequent to this incident, Smith realizes that he himself is responsible for his own choices, and begins to behave in a more Earthly "humanistic" manner.
Once accustomed to the human race, Smith moves out with Gillian and joins a traveling circus as a magician. Although his "magic" is real—levitation and teleportation—he is a failure as an entertainer, because of his inability to understand people's need to be deceived. He eventually learns to understand humanity ("Jill, I grok people!") when he comprehends how painful and unjust life is by watching monkeys mistreat each other in a zoo. He also realizes that most humor is based on laughing at distress or indignities suffered by others.
Smith realizes there's no need for so much misery, and asks Jill what he needs to do to be ordained. He then starts a Martian-influenced "Church of All Worlds," which teaches its members how to rise above suffering, such as "pain and sickness and hunger and fighting." However, parts of the religion, such as group sex, communal living, and ritual cannibalism, make Smith's church a target for enemies following more conventional religions.
Smith's church combines elements of the Fosterite service with the ambience of mystery religions and initiation, similar to the Ordo Templi Orientis. Members learn the Martian language, and consequently acquire psychic abilities like Smith's: they become virtually superhuman. The church is eventually besieged by Fosterites for practicing "blasphemy," and the physical building is destroyed. However, at the moment of destruction, Smith teleports the members of the Church and all important materials to a resort hotel he owns in the same city. As this hotel was previously bought through a series of dummy corporations, there is no direct association with Smith for the Fosterite goon squads to immediately follow.
In a last conversation with Harshaw, Smith fears that people will not accept a nonviolent path because humanity must have violence for "weeding out" the unfit; Harshaw tells him that if he has faith in the movement he has started and their ability to show people what is possible through self-discipline, then in all likelihood Smith's following will eventually dominate the world religiously and politically (it appears that they are already well on their way to doing so). A mob gathers while they talk; Smith goes out to address them and is brutally killed, his final words spoken to a grasshopper: "I love you" and "Thou art God". It is obvious that he is letting himself be sacrificed. Harshaw is shocked at how blasé the others are at Mike's death and attempts suicide by swallowing three unidentified pills; Mike returns as a voice in Jubal's head and both helps Harshaw vomit the pills and causes him to realize that Mike's sacrifice was only of the body, not of the soul. Smith is explicitly portrayed as a modern Prometheus, and implicitly as a messianic figure; in the ending of the book, one interpretation is that he is in reality the archangel Michael, who has assumed human form. The book ends with Mike promoted to another plane of existence, similar to Heaven, but a place where work is to be done. The original Rev. Foster appoints Rev. Digby as Mike's assistant.
Characters
Envoy, the first human attempt to travel to Mars. Their ship survives the trip to Mars, but then ceases transmission, and their fate is unknown for the next 20 years.- Mary Jane Lyle Smith — power technician. Before leaving Earth she patents technology, placed in trust, which was subsequently developed into the Lyle Drive, the principal form of spaceship propulsion. Biological mother of Valentine Michael Smith, who legally owns the fortune accrued from the profits on sales of her invention.
- Dr. Ward Smith — ship physician and legal father of Valentine Michael Smith
- Captain Michael Brant — captain and biological father of the baby boy — Valentine Michael Smith
Valentine Michael Smith — known as Michael Smith, or just "Mike", the "Man from Mars", raised on Mars in the interval between the landing of his father's ship, the Envoy, and arrival of the second expedition, the Champion; about 20 years old when the Champion arrives and brings him to EarthOfficers of the Champion. These people became "water brothers" to Mike on Mars or during the trip back, but this information is only revealed to Mike's earthbound human friends when they meet the officers- Captain van Tromp
- Dr. Mahmoud — semanticist, of Arab descent, and a devout Muslim; the second human (after Mike) to gain a working knowledge of the Martian language
- Dr. Sven Nelson — ship's physician and personal physician to Mike at Bethesda Medical Center until he withdraws from the case in a confrontation with the Secretary General (see below)
Government officials — Several government officials have roles at least at the beginning- Secretary-General Joseph Douglas ("Joe Douglas") — the head of the Federation of Free States, which has evolved indirectly from the United Nations into a true world government
- Gil Berquist — assistant to Secretary Douglas. Mike makes him and a policeman disappear during a confrontation with Jill (see below).
- Alice Douglas — (sometimes called "Agnes"), wife of Joe Douglas, not a government official but, as a First Lady, orders her husband and his staff around. She frequently consults an astrologer for major decisions. It is implied that she is an agent of the same afterlife that Foster, Digby, and later Mike find themselves and that her true name there is Agnes.
- Jim Sanforth — Douglas' press secretary
- Assemblyman Kung — de facto head of the Eastern Coalition, a political bloc opposed to Douglas in the Federation
- Senator Tom Boone — besides being a politician, he is a senior member of the Church of the New Revelation(Fosterite), and wants both Mike's wealth and prestige to accrue to the faith.
Becky Vesey (stage name Madame Alexandra Vesant) — Mrs Douglas' astrologer, and later a member of Mike's Church of All Worlds. When Harshaw (see below) has a sudden urgent need to contact Douglas, Vesant provides the way when all official roads are blocked.Gillian (Jill) Boardman — nurse at Bethesda, the first person on Earth to become a "water brother" to MikeBen Caxton — investigative journalistic and boyfriend of Jill. He makes her aware of Mike's legal significance (potential ownership both of enormous amounts of Earthly wealth and the planet Mars itself, at least according to Federation law), and persuades her to bug Smith's hospital suite, revealing an attempt by Douglas to defraud Smith of this wealth and power.James Cavendish — a Fair Witness employed by Ben in an attempt to expose a fake Man from Mars shown on stereovision. Fair Witnesses are a legal institution created to provide impartial and accurate observation of potentially contentious legal situations. Apart from Cavendish, Anne (see below) is also a Fair Witness.Jubal Harshaw — popular writer, lawyer, doctor, now semi-retired to a house in the Poconos northwest of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Harshaw's age is never given but is probably at least 80 by indirect indications. When Ben Caxton disappears, Jill takes Mike to Harshaw to defend his rights, but finds Harshaw not eager to defend Mike's right to unearned wealth. However, when the authorities get rough he changes his mind.Anne — (no last name given) oldest and tallest of three female secretaries to Harshaw. Has total recall and Fair Witness standing (see Cavendish above)Miriam — another female secretary to Harshaw, red-headedDorcas — third female secretary. Dark-haired. There is some suggestion of Islamic background during a conversation with Dr. Mahmoud.Larry and Duke — two men that Harshaw employs to keep the high-tech part of his isolated and private household running so he doesn't need external, expensive, and disruptive repairmen.Patricia Paiwonski ("Pat") — circus performer that Mike and Jill meet while Mike poses as a magician in a small travelling circus. Loves snakes, especially pythons. Her body is completely covered with tattoos.Angels — provide some commentary and act quite apart from the humans. A third angel is introduced at the end of the book.- Foster — The founder of the Church of the New Revelation (Fosterite) upon death becomes an angel
- Digby — Supreme Bishop Digby, Foster's successor as head of the Church of the New Revelation, also becomes an angel when he dies.
In the preface for the re-issued book, Virginia Heinlein writes
The given names of the chief characters have great importance to the plot. They were carefully selected: Jubal means "the father of all," Michael stands for "Who is like God"
Fair Witness
Fair Witness is a fictional profession invented for the novel. A Fair Witness is an individual trained to observe events and report exactly what he or she sees and hears, making no extrapolations or assumptions. An eidetic memory is a prerequisite for the job, although this may be attainable with suitable training.
In Heinlein's society, a Fair Witness is a highly reputable source of information. By custom, a Fair Witness acting professionally, generally wearing distinctive robes, is never addressed directly, and all present are supposed to avoid acknowledging the presence of the Witness in any way.
The character Jubal Harshaw employs a Fair Witness, Anne, as one of his secretaries. Unlike the other secretaries, she does not use dictation equipment when Jubal speaks. She can even keep track of several works at once, despite Harshaw's frequent switching between them.
Unlike the superficially similar profession of Mentat in Frank Herbert's Dune, Fair Witnesses are prohibited from drawing conclusions about what they observe. As a demonstration, Harshaw asks Anne to describe the color of a house in the distance. She responds, "It's white on this side". Harshaw explains that she would not assume knowledge of the color of the other sides of the house without being able to see them. Furthermore, after observing another side of the house would not then assume that any previously seen side was still the same color as last reported, even if only minutes before.
When Ben Caxton decides to do something that might result in litigation—namely accusing a government official of substituting an actor for Valentine Michael Smith in a televised interview—he hires a highly respected Witness, James Oliver Cavendish, to record everything he sees, and to ensure that Ben isn't accused of slander. They visit the alleged Man From Mars in his hospital suite in the hope of determining whether he is actually Smith or the actor who had apparently impersonated him the night before. Because of Cavendish's professional ethics, he is unable to suggest when on duty that they look for telltale calluses on the supposed Smith's feet; by the time he is off duty and make this obvious suggestion, it is no longer possible to get back into the hospital suite again and Smith and Caxton are both in danger of foul play.
Literary significance and criticism
Like many influential works of literature, Stranger made a contribution to the language: specifically, the word "grok." In Heinlein's invented Martian language, "grok" literally means "to drink" and figuratively means "to understand," "to love," and "to be one with.". One dictionary description was "To understand thoroughly through having empathy with". This word rapidly became common parlance among science fiction fans, hippies, and computer hackers, and has since entered the Oxford English Dictionary among others. Heinlein wrote most of the novel completely in dialogue, containing often long monologues; there are only a few pages of narration that depict the state of the world during the ensuing plot.
A central element of the second half of the novel is the religious movement founded by Smith, the "Church of All Worlds." This church is an initiatory mystery religion, blending elements of paganism and revivalism with psychic training and instruction in the Martian language. In 1968, Oberon Zell-Ravenheart (then Tim Zell) founded the Church of All Worlds, a Neopagan religious organization modeled in many ways after the fictional organization in the novel Stranger in a Strange Land. This spiritual path included several ideas from the book, including polyamory, non-mainstream family structures, social libertarianism, water-sharing rituals, an acceptance of all religious paths by a single tradition, and the use of several terms such as "grok", "Thou art God", and "Never Thirst". Though Heinlein was neither a member nor a promoter of the Church, it was done with frequent correspondence between Zell and Heinlein, and he was a paid subscriber to their magazine Green Egg. This Church still exists as a 501(c)(3) recognized religious organization incorporated in California, with membership worldwide, and it remains an active part of the neopagan community today.
Stranger was written in part as a deliberate attempt to challenge social mores. In the course of the story, Heinlein uses Smith's open-mindedness to reevaluate such institutions as religion, money, monogamy, and the fear of death. Heinlein completed writing it ten years after he had (uncharacteristically) plotted it out in detail. He later wrote, "I had been in no hurry to finish it, as that story could not be published commercially until the public mores changed. I could see them changing and it turned out that I had timed it right."
Stranger contains an early description of the waterbed, an invention which made its real-world debut a few years later in 1968. Charles Hall, who brought a waterbed design to the United States Patent Office, was refused a patent on the grounds that Heinlein's descriptions in Stranger and another novel, Double Star, constituted prior art.
Heinlein reportedly named his main character "Smith" because of a speech he made at a science fiction convention regarding the unpronounceable names assigned to extraterrestrials. After describing the importance of establishing a dramatic difference between humans and aliens, Heinlein concluded, "Besides, whoever heard of a Martian named Smith?" ("A Martian Named Smith" was both Heinlein's working title for the book and the name of the screenplay being started by Harshaw at the end.)
Homosexuality and gender roles
To some readers, several statements in the book convey a sense of religious bigotry, misogyny, and homophobia. For example:
...[Jill] had explained homosexuality, after Mike had read about it and failed to grok — and had given him rules for avoiding passes; she knew that Mike, pretty as he was, would attract such. He had followed her advice and had made his face more masculine, instead of the androgynous beauty he had had. But Jill was not sure that Mike would refuse a pass, say, from Duke — fortunately Mike's male water brothers were decidedly masculine, just as his others were very female women. Jill suspected that Mike would grok a 'wrongness' in the poor in-betweeners anyhow — they would never be offered water.
Another passage concerns the mail that the man from Mars receives:
After looking over a bushel or so of Mike's first class mail Jubal set up a list of categories: ... G. Proposals of marriage and propositions not quite so formal ... Jill brought a letter, category "G," to Jubal. More than half of the ladies and other females (plus misguided males) who supplied this category included pictures alleged to be of themselves; some left little to the imagination, as did the letters themselves in many cases. This letter [from a woman] enclosed a picture which managed not only to leave nothing to the imagination, but started over by stimulating fresh imaginings.
One critic writes:
These days the "heresy" is centered more on the characters' provincial attitudes towards gay men ("poor in-betweeners" whose "wrongness" denies them water-kinship) and all women ("Nine times out of ten, if a girl gets raped, it's at least partly her own fault," Jill says to Michael, when instructing him not to defend her too strenuously against such an assault). (Tasha Robinson, "Humanity, through a glass brightly")
However, these passages both convey the attitudes of the prudish character Jill, who is used as a dramatic foil for Mike and Jubal's less parochial views.
A more general discussion of Heinlein's attitudes on sexuality, homosexuality, gender roles, and sexual freedom is given in the article on Heinlein himself.
Editions
Two major versions of this book exist:
- The 1961 version, which was cut about 25% from Heinlein's original manuscript. The publisher disliked the original length and wanted to excise some objectionable material.
- The 1991 version, which reproduces the original manuscript and restores all cuts. Heinlein's widow retrieved the manuscript from Heinlein's archives in the University of California, Santa Cruz special collections department, and published it after his death. Both Heinlein's agent and his publisher, which had new senior editors, agreed that the uncut version was better. (What was objectionable in 1961 was no longer so thirty years later.)
Several printed editions exist:
- June 1, 1961, Putnam Publishing Group, hardcover, ISBN 0-399-10772-X
- Avon, NY, 1st paperback edition, 1961.
- 1965, New English Library Ltd, (London).
- March 1968, Berkley Medallion. paperback, ISBN 425-04688-5 or ISBN 0-425-04688-5
- July 1970, New English Library Ltd, (London). 400 pages, paperback. (3rd 'new edition', August 1971 reprint, is NEL 2844, no ISBN quoted.)
- 1972, Capricorn Books, 408 pages, ISBN 0-399-50268-8
- October 1975, Berkley Publishing Group, paperback, ISBN 0-425-03067-9
- November 1977, Berkley Publishing Group, paperback, ISBN 0-425-03782-7
- July 1979, Berkley Publishing Group, paperback, ISBN 0-425-04377-0
- September 1980, Berkley Publishing Group, paperback, ISBN 0-425-04688-5
- July 1982, Berkley Publishing Group, paperback, ISBN 0-425-05833-6
- July 1983, Penguin Putnam, paperback, ISBN 0-425-06490-5
- January 1984, Berkley Publishing Group, paperback, ISBN 0-425-07142-1
- May 1, 1984, Berkley Publishing Group, paperback, ISBN 0-425-05216-8
- December 1984, Berkley Publishing Group, ISBN 0-425-08094-3
- November 1986, Berkley Publishing Group, paperback, ISBN 0-425-10147-9
- January 1991, uncut edition, Ace/Putnam, hardcover, ISBN 0-399-13586-3
- May 3 1992, original uncut edition, Hodder and Stoughton, mass market paperback, 655 pages, ISBN 0-450-54742-6
- October 1, 1991, uncut edition, Ace Books, paperback, 528 pages, ISBN 0-441-78838-6
- August 1, 1995, ACE Charter, paperback, 438 pages, ISBN 0-441-79034-8
- April 1, 1996, Blackstone Audiobooks, cassette audiobook, ISBN 0-7861-0952-1
- October 1, 1999, Sagebrush, library binding, ISBN 0-8085-2087-3
- June 1, 2002, Blackstone Audiobooks, cassette audiobook, ISBN 0-7861-2229-3
- January 2003, Turtleback Books Distributed by Demco Media, hardcover, ISBN 0-606-25126-X
- November 1, 2003, Blackstone Audiobooks, CD audiobook, ISBN 0-7861-8848-0
- March 14,2005, Hodder and Stoughton, paperback, 655 pages, ISBN 0-340-83795-0
Bibliography
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