Tala Bar writes about...

The Heinlein Review

Clyde Andrews’ review of Robert A. Heinlein’s The Cat Who Walked Through Walls appeared in issue 204.

I’ve found this particular novel of Heinlein’s and the whole series to which it belongs, pure fun. In some ways, his attitude toward women and other creatures is reactionary, and in others it is highly advanced. I put his political views aside, whatever they are, and let myself be entertained, as I feel that’s the purpose of his novels (even if he thought differently), in which he succeeds marvelously (I’ve read this particular series at least five times).

Tala Bar

Thank you for the response, Tala. I take it at face value as a recommendation of something I might want to try reading, myself. Personally, I’m a fan of Terry Pratchett’s “Diskworld” novels, as Jerry Wright is. But when I recommend them to others, people tend to look at me funny! Perhaps Pratchett is an acquired taste for the select, like Heinlein, Asimov and so many others.

But you raise a an interesting question about “entertainment” or the enjoyment of literature. What is it? No story is simply pure entertainment. Why, then, does one person enjoy Heinlein’s novels so much while many others can say the same about very different works, as well; and still others will have very different reactions to the same things, all for the same reasons?

Remember Stendhal’s words: “A novel is a mirror traveling down a road.” The quality of writing aside, some stories leave us indifferent; they simply don’t tell us much about ourselves. In those we deem favorites, we see ourselves partly reflected. And in stories to which we take an aversion, we often see a negative reflection, something we reject or fear in ourselves or others. And all those stories can come from any time or place.

When a student once asked an English instructor what the meaning of Shakespeare’s Hamlet was, the instructor replied, “Try to relate to it.” One has to laugh in despair: how can anyone “relate” to Hamlet? And yet the story — like that of Sophocles’ Oedipus — persists because we know it tells us something important, even if we can’t always say what it is, exactly. But we must try: saying “this story is good (or bad)” tells us a little — very little — about the reader and nothing about the story.

In this issue, some readers will love Mary B. McArdle’s “Late-Blooming Artist”; others will think only “that’s nice, I suppose.” The same or other readers will love — in a different way, of course — John Stocks’ “In the Blue Moon. Thursday,” while others will be repelled.

Well, I happen to like both, for different reasons; if asked, I could tell you why. But the important thing is: How do you feel about them — and why? What do you see in them that evokes admiration, compassion — or fear?

Other Heinlein reviews (in chronological order):
: Mark Koerner, Starman Jones; Jerry Wright, For Us the Living; Mark Koerner, For Us the Living: the Last Piece of the Heinlein Puzzle

Don