Your favorite dated classic

[rachelmanija]

As someone said, the internet's oldest established permanent floating flame war has started up again ("Just like the Greeks thought that they'd successfully put Hector down and that no one would survive to avenge him, so the establishment thought it had successfully put Heinlein down and no one would survive to avenge him,") reminding me of how much I enjoyed Heinlein's juveniles when I was twelve, though even then I had a taste for the odd, the dated, and the, shall we say, differently good.

I vividly recall reading Heinlein's rant in Have Space Suit Will Travel about how anyone who can't use a slide rule is a moron, and having to figure out from context that he was referring to an obsolete calculating device. That was by far the most sf-nal moment for me reading that book - a visceral sense that I was living in someone's future, and things had changed.

I'm now curious to re-read some of what I read when I was twelve and see how it holds up and doesn't.

Note: I refuse to re-read any Heinlein novels not listed, on the grounds that even at twelve, I was unable to read any of the late ones containing orgies, fanfic, grokking, "Sorry about the rape, Friday," etc, and I would probably find them even more unreadable now. I have never read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, but I hear it's more readable than most of his adult novels...?

[Poll #1607634]

Comments

[tool-of-satan.livejournal.com]

The Door Into Summer is loving and tender.

Well... yes. But it does still involve a grown man planning to marry a 12(?)-year old when she grows up.

Of course, since I still like The Witches of Karres, possibly I should shut up now.

Actually, Karres would be a good thing to read, Rachel, if you haven't already. It depends almost entirely on tone, so if you don't like the tone you'll hate it, but you might like it.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

Yes, there are definite Grooming Issues.

I love Karres unreservedly.

[tool-of-satan.livejournal.com]

I was sad when I read some of Schmitz' other books and didn't like them nearly as much. Not even the Telzey Amberdon books. I mean, they're decent, but they didn't seem to have the same spark.

[torrilin.livejournal.com]

I think there's a rather large difference between an adult male deciding to marry a 12 year old girl, and a 12 year old girl deciding she's gonna marry an adult male. They're both ideas people have had and acted on, but the power dynamics are really different.

I still have a really hard time grasping how subversive Schmitz must have been at publication. I cannot remember when princesses didn't have blasters, and I'm not young enough that I could see the Disney version of the Little Mermaid without having feminist rage.

[tool-of-satan.livejournal.com]

I agree that the dynamics are different, but I can still see it bothering some people. (Especially since Goth is actually 10.)

[torrilin.livejournal.com]

I can't remember exactly when Dad made me get it out from the library, but I wasn't all *that* much older than Goth. Just enough older to know that the odds she'd still have the same opinion at age 16 or 18 were about nil. After all, at 12 you're very aware that at 10 you were a flaming idiot.

It also helped a lot that it was obvious they weren't just keeping him around on account of Goth... so all the Karres adults were acting like the adults I knew. Maybe she would stick with it, maybe she won't. And if she did stick it out, it didn't hurt her mom any.

Also helps that my Dad proposed to my Mom the first week they'd met each other. I knew that when I first read the Witches of Karres... and I knew exactly how long the odds were on that happening to me. So I knew just because it had worked out for Goth's mom didn't mean it would work out for her.

As a kid, I was sad there weren't any more stories about Karres. As a grownup, I can see how difficult it would be to write any more in that story without breaking it.

[tool-of-satan.livejournal.com]

That's interesting - thanks. First reading the novelette as a 17-year-old (or so) guy, I didn't have that kind of perspective on it.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

I think there's a rather large difference between an adult male deciding to marry a 12 year old girl, and a 12 year old girl deciding she's gonna marry an adult male. They're both ideas people have had and acted on, but the power dynamics are really different.

This. Unless it's a setting where it's made clear that this sort of thing is totally normal for a particular society, I'd have real issues reading an adult grooming a prepubescent child to grow up into their Perfect Mate...and even in settings where that is something acceptable, there are still a lot of ways it can be presented that will make me run off screaming DO NOT WANT. If it's shown as a very neutral matter-of-fact "this is the way this world/culture/time period is", like the cannibalism in Courtship Rite, I'd probably be OK; if it seems like it's really being played up for shock/titillation value and/or has massive creepy undercurrents of Gee, Wouldn't It Be Cool If You Could Really Do This (Y HALO THAR PIERS ANTHONY, I'M LOOKIN' AT YOU), it'd be Hurl Against Wall time. Stuff like TWOK where it's the kid insisting "I'm gonna marry $ADULT when I grow up!", OTOH, generally just gets an indulgent "kids say the darnedest things" chuckle from me, unless the adults around said child seem to be taking it a little too seriously. TWOK was fine for me on that front -- while the adults never came right out and said they were sure the girl would grow out of this idea, their behavior was consistent with the indulgent, non-belittling way they handled other sorts of childish whims, and her intended didn't seem to me like he eroticized her at all.

I somehow missed that book during my massive classic-SF-binge-reading-phase as a child, which is a damn shame because I'm sure I would have eaten it right up. On chomiji's rec (it's one of her childhood favorites), I recently read it for the first time, along with several other Schmitz novels -- so far I've found them fairly enjoyable, even with coming to them late as a very jaded and critical adult reader, and the number and prominence of competent, well-rounded female characters with agency is remarkable.

[faithhopetricks.livejournal.com]

I....totally wanted to be Rikki when I first read the book. //hangs head

I do still love that book for its portrayal of the cat (altho I have to doubt that an un-neutered tomcat would be that calm and affectionate).

[tool-of-satan.livejournal.com]

Heinlein was always good with cats.