Grumbles From the Grave

CHAPTER XIV

•*

STRANGER

June 20, 1952: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

I am writing every day but, frankly, the copy stinks. This novel may involve several rewrites, followed by a decent burial.

EDITOR 's NOTE: In early 1949, Robert was searching for a theme for the short story "Gulf, " which he had promised to John Campbell. During the course of the discussions, I suggested to him that it be a story about a human being raised from infancy to maturity by a race of aliens. This notion arrested him, but he thought it an idea which required more room than a short story afforded. However, he went into his study and wrote for some hours-fourteen single-spaced pages, mostly questions to be answered. That was the beginning of Stranger in a Strange Land.

July 16, 1952: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

Yes, I am still having trouble with that novel. Trouble is all that I am having-with the story itself and trouble with my surroundings. I have lost almost a month to houseguests, Arthur C. Clarke followed by the [George O.] Smiths-and now we are about to spend a week in Yellowstone and Sun Valley, leaving tomorrow. I could cancel this trip, but there are reasons why it is desirable not to cancel it. Furthermore I hope that a few days away from a constantly ringing phone will help me to straighten out this novel in my mind. (Sometimes I think that everyone in the country passes through Colorado Springs in the summer!) When I get back, I expect to have to go to the hospital for another operation. All in all, entirely too many days this year have been eaten by the locusts. My intentions have been good. I have not been idle-far from it! But I haven't accomplished much.

The story itself is giving me real trouble. I believe that I have dreamed up a really new S-F idea, a hard thing to do these days-but I am having trouble coping with it. The gimmick is "The Man from Mars" in a very literal sense. The first expedition to Mars never comes back. The second expedition, twenty years later, finds that all hands of the first expedition died-except one infant, born on Mars and brought up by Martians. They bring this young man back with them.

This creature is half-human, half-Martian, i.e., his heredity is human, his total environment up to the age of Iwcnty is Martian. He is literally not human, for anthropology has made it quite clear that a man is much more ihc product of his culture than he is of his genes-or certainly as much. And this Joe wasn't even raised by unthropoid apes; he was raised by Martians. Among other things, he has never heard of sex, has never seen a woman-Martians don't have sex. He has never felt full earth-normal gravity. Absolutely verything about Earth is strange to him-not just its getfruphy and buildings, but its orientations, motives, Measures, evaluations. On the other hand, he himself has cccivcd the education of a wise and subtle and very adiinced-but completely nonhuman-race.

That's the kickoff. From there anything can happen. I have tried several approaches and several developments, none of which I am satisfied with. The point of view affects such a story greatly, of course -- universal, first person, third person central character, third person secondary character, first person secondary character narrator-all have their advantages and all have decided drawbacks. A strongly controlling factor is the characteristics and culture of the Martian race-I started out using the Martians in Red Planet. I'm not sure that is best, as they tend to make the story static and philosophic. This story runs too much to philosophy at best; if I make the Martians all elder souls it is likely to lie right down and go to sleep. Affecting the story almost as much is the sort of culture Earth has developed by the time the story opens. After all that comes the matter of how to manipulate the selected elements for maximum drama. And I'm not pleased with any plotting I've done so far. I Ve messed up quite a lot of paper, have one long start I'll probably throw away and a stack of notes so high.

If this thing doesn't jell before long I had better abandon it, much as that goes against my personal work rules. I do have about three cops-and-robbers jobs which I can do, one a parallel-worlds yarn and the other two conventional space opera. I don't want to do them; I want to do a big story. But perhaps I should emulate Clarence Bud-dington Kelland and give the customers what they are used to and will buy, rather than try to surprise them.

July 18, 1952: Lurton Blassingame to Robert A. Heinlein

The book idea sounds tremendous, but I can well understand why you would find yourself in difficulties. Put it aside, work on something else, return, and find a new perspective.

June 10, 1953: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

...Unfortunately, I cannot report that I have cracked the novel...

The novel is really giving me a lot of trouble. This is the one that I told you about long ago, I believe-a Man-from-Mars job, infant survivor of first expedition to Mars is fetched back ty second expedition as a young adult, never having seen a human being in his life, most especially never having seen a woman or heard of sex. He has been raised by Martians, is educated and sophisticated by Martian standards, but is totally ignorant of Earth. What impact do Earth culture and conditions have on him? What impact does he have on Earth culture? How can all this be converted into a certain amount of cops-and-robbers and boy-meets-girl without bogging down into nothing but philosophical speculation? Contrariwise, what amount of philosophizing does it need to keep it from being a space opera with cardboard characters?

I got so bogged down on it last week that I had decided to shelve it for a year or so, when Stan Mullen [a science fiction author and personal friend] gave me a fight talk and quite a lot of help. Now I am continuing to try to sweat it through. When I get through I will either have nothing at all, or I'll have a major novel. I rather doubt Ihut I will have a pulp serial; it doesn't seem to be that sort of a story. I will continue to sweat on it and you won't get anything else from me for quite a while.

January 13, 1955: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

I am now on page 68 of the draft of A Martian Named

Smith, which will be book length and adult-i.e., more i-x and profanity than is acceptable in juveniles. I cannot low estimate date of finish-draft as there are some plot

Kinks I am not yet sure about.

February 23, 1955: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

I am sorry to say the novel aborted last week-two months and 54,000 words of ms. wasted. Ginny says that it cannot be salvaged and I necessarily use her as a touchstone. Still worse, I suspect that she is right; I was never truly happy with it, despite a strong and novel theme. I am, of course, rather down about it, but I have started working on another one and hope to begin a draft in a day or two.

March 29, 1960: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

I finished a draft a couple of days ago of the novel I have been writing and I am still groggy. It is very long (800 pages in its uncut form) and about all I can say about it now is that it is not science fiction and is nothing like anything I've turned out before. I intend to work on it all I possibly can until we leave, then have it smooth-typed while we are out of the country.

I am utterly exhausted from sixty-three days chained to this machine, twelve to fourteen hours a day. Now I must rest up in preparation for a physically arduous trip...while accomplishing a month of chores in two weeks, studying Russian history, politics, and geography so that I will understand some of what I see, and doing my damndest to cut about a third out of this new story. In the meantime, Shamrock O'Toole is about to have kittens any moment-the period is 60 to 65 days and today is her 62nd; she looks like a football resting on toothpicks and complains bitterly about the unfairness of it all. I'll send you a kitten by air express timed so that you can't send it back. Maybe four kittens.

October 10, 1960: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

I assume that you have sent The Man from Mars to Putnam, since they are entitled to first look. I have on hand, should we ever need it, a clean, sharp carbon of this ms. on the same heavy white bond. I am aware of the commercial difficulties in this ms., those which you pointed out-but, if it does get published, it might sell lots of copies. (It certainly has no more strikes against its success than did Ulysses, Lady Chatterley's Lover, Elmer Gantry, or Tropic of Cancer-each at the time it was published.)

The Man from Mars is an attempt on my part to break loose from a straitjacket, one of my own devising. I am tired of being known as a "leading writer of children's books" and nothing else. True, those juveniles have paid well-car, house, and chattels all free and clear, much travel, money in the bank and a fairish amount in stocks, plus prospect of future royalties-I certainly shouldn't kick and I am not kicking...but, like the too-successful whore: "Them stairs is killing me!"

I first became aware of just how thoroughly I had boxed myself in when editors of my soi disant adult books slarted asking me to trim them down to suit my juvenile market. At that time I had to comply. But now I would like to find out if I can write about adult matters for adults, and get such writing published.

However, I have no desire to write "mainstream" stories such as The Catcher in the Rye, By Love Possessed, Pryton Place, The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit, Dark-nexx at Noon, or On the Road. Whether these books are good or bad, they each represent a type which has been written more than enough; there is no point in my adding more to such categories-I want to do my own stuif, my own way.

Perhaps I will flop at it. I don't know. But such success u" I have had has come from being original, not from writing "safe" stuff-in pulps, in movies, in slicks, in juveniles. In pulp SF I moved at once to the top of the Held by writing about sociology, sex, politics, and religion at u time (1939) when those subjects were all taboo. l."lcr I cracked the slicks with science fiction when it wns taken for granted that SF was pulp and nothing but pulp. You will recall that my first juvenile was considered an experiment by the publisher-and a rather risky one. I have never written "what was being written" -- nor do I want to do so now. Oh, I suppose that, if it became financially necessary, I could imitate my own earlier work and do it well enough to sell. But I don't want to. I hope this new and different book sells. But, whether it does or not, I want my next book to be still different-neither an imitation of The Man from Mars, nor a careful "mixture as before" in imitation of my juveniles and my quasi-juveniles published as soi disant adult SF books. I've got a lot of things I'd like to write about; none of them fits this pattern.

October 14, 1960: Lurton Blassingame to Robert A. Heinlein

Dear Water-Brother,

I greatly admire your courage and also your intellectual virility that enables you to open up new areas of the literary globe.

October 21, 1960: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

In the first place, I think Putnam's offer is one of the most generous I have ever seen; it is all loaded in my favor. Will you please tell them so?

Cutting can always be done, even though there is al: ways the chance of literary anemia therefrom. But the changes required are another matter-not because I don't wish to make them...but because I don't see how to make them. This story is Cabellesque satire on religion and sex, it is not science fiction by any stretch of the imagination. If I cut out religion and sex, I am very much afraid that I will end with a nonalcoholic martini.

I know the story is shocking-and I know of a dozen places where I could make the sex a little less overt, a bit more offstage, by changing only a few words. (Such as: "Hell, she didn't even have the homegrown fig leaf!") (Slightly less flavor, too; but if we must, we must.)

But I don't see how to take out the sex and religion. If I do, there isn't any story left.

This story is supposed to be a completely free-wheeling look at contemporary human culture from the nonhuman viewpoint of the Man from Mars (in the sense of the philosophical cliche). Under it, I take nothing for granted and am free to lambaste anything from the Girl Scouts and Mother's Apple Pie to the idea of patriotism. No sacred cows of any sort, no bows and graceful compliments to the royal box-that is the whole idea of the framework.

But, in addition to a double dozen of minor satirical slants, the two major things which I am attacking are the two biggest, fattest sacred cows of all, the two that every writer is supposed to give at least lip service to: the implicit assumptions of our Western culture concerning religion and concerning sex.

Concerning religion, our primary Western cultural assumption is the notion of a personal God. You are permitted to argue every aspect of religion but that one. If you do, you are a double-plus ungood crime-thinker.

Concerning sex, our primary cultural assumption is that monogamy is the only acceptable pattern. A writer is permitted to write endlessly about rape, incest, adultery, and major perversion...provided he suggests that all of these things are always sinful or at least a social mistake-and must be paid for, either publicly or in remorse. (The thing the censors had against Lady Chatterley and her lover were not their rather tedious monosyllables, but the fact that they liked adultery-and got away with it -- and lived happily ever after.) The whole deal is something like Communist "criticism"...anything and any comrade may be criticized (at least theoretically) under Communism provided you do not criticize the basic Marxist assumptions.

So...using the freedom of the mythical man from Mure...I have undertaken to criticize and examine disrespectfully the two untouchables: monotheism and monogamy.

My book says: a personal God is unprovable, most unlikely, and all contemporary theology is superstitious twaddle insulting to a mature mind. But atheism and "scientific humanism" are the same sort of piffle in mirror image, and just as repugnant. Agnosticism is intellectually more acceptable but only in that it pleads ignorance, utter intellectual bankruptcy, and gives up. All the other religions, elsewhere and in the past, whether monotheistic, polytheistic, or other, are just as silly, and the very notion of "worship" is intellectually on all fours with a jungle savage's appeasing of Mumbo Jumbo. (In passing, I note that Christianity is a polytheism, not a monotheism as claimed-the rabbis are right on that point-and that its most holy ceremony is ritualistic cannibalism, right straight out of the smoky caves of our dim past. They ought to lynch me.)

But I don't offer a solution because there isn't any, not to an intellectually honest man. That pantheistic, mystical "Thou art God!" chorus that runs through the book is not offered as a creed but as an existentialist assumption of personal responsibility, devoid of all godding. It says, "Don't appeal for mercy to God the Father up in the sky, little man, because he's not at home and never was at home, and couldn't care less. What you do with yourself, whether you are happy or unhappy-live or die-is strictly your business and the universe doesn't care. In fact you may be the universe and the only cause of all your troubles. But, at best, the most you can hope for is comradeship with comrades no more divine (or just as divine) as you are. So quit sniveling and face up to it -- "Thou art God!"

Concerning sex, my book says: sex is a hell of a lot of fun, not shameful in any aspect, and not a bit sacred. Monogamy is merely a social pattern useful to certain structures of society-but it is strictly a pragmatic matter, unconnected with sin...and a myriad other patterns are possible and some of them can be, under appropriate circumstances, both more efficient and more happy-making. In fact, monogamy's sole virtue is that it provides a formula defining who has to support the offspring...and if another formula takes care of that practical aspect, it is seven-to-two that it will probably work better for humans, who usually are unhappy as hell if they try to practice monogamy by the written rules.

The question now is not whether the ideas above are true, or just twaddle-the question is whether or not there will be any book left if I cut them out. I hardly think there will be. Not even the mild thread of action-adventure, because all of the action is instigated by these heretical ideas. All of it.

Mr. Cady's wish that I eliminate the first "miracle," the disappearances on pp. 123-124, causes almost as much literary difficulty. Certainly, I can rewrite that scene, exactly as he suggested...but where does that leave me? That scene establishes all the other miracles in the story, of which there are dozens. Now I will stipulate that "miracles" are bad copy-but if I eliminate them, I must throw away the last 700 pages of the ms. -- i.e., write an entirely different story. Miracles are the "convincer" throughout. Without them the Man from Mars cannot recruit Harshaw, Ben, Patty, Dr. Nelson, BOI even Jill-nobody! No story.

(I thought I had picked a comparatively slide-down-easy miracle, in that I picked one which has a theoretical mathematical inherent possibility and then established its rationale later in Harshaw's study. But I'm afraid this one U like atomic power: no one but professional dreamers could believe in it until it happened. I might add that if I had trapped out that miracle with fake electronic gadg-flry I could have "disappeared" an elephant without a •quawk.)

All I can see to do now is to accept Mr. Cady's most (mile offer to hold off six months while we see if some other publisher will take it without changes, or with changes I think I can make.

But I shan't be surprised if nobody wants it. For the first time in my life I indulged in the luxury of writing without one eye on the taboos, the market, etc, I will be unsurprised and only moderately unhappy if it turns out that the result is unsalable.

If it can't be sold more or less as it is, then I will make a mighty effort to satisfy Mr. Cady's requirements. I don't see how, but I will certainly try. Probably I would then make a trip to New York to have one or several story conferences with him, if he will spare me the time, since he must have some idea of how he thinks this story can be salvaged-and I'm afraid that I don't.

The contract offered is gratifyingly satisfactory. But I want one change. I won't take one-half on signing, one-half on approval of ms.; they must delay the entire advance until I submit an approved manuscript. It is unfair to them to tie up $1,500 in a story which may turn out to be unpublishable. I don't care if this is the practice of the trade and that lots of authors do it; I disagree with the guild on this and think that it is a greedy habit that writers should forgo if they ever expect to be treated like business men and not children.

Please extend my warm thanks to Mr. Cady for his care and thoughtfulness. He must be a number one person -- I look forward to meeting him someday.

October 31, 1960: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

I have thought about your suggested changes in The Man from Mars. I see your point in each case and do not object to making the changes...but it seems to me that I should leave the present form untouched until I start to revise and cut to suit the ideas of some particular publisher. If I do it for Putnam's, then the horrendous job of meeting Mr. Cady's [of Putnam] requirements will automatically include all the changes you mention-in fact, most of the book will be changed beyond recognition.

But I still have a faint hope that some publisher will risk it without such drastic changes and cutting.

December 4, 1960: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

Lurton, I do not think I have told you what a wonderful job I think you have done in placing this ms. I wrote the thing with my eye intentionally not on the market. For twenty years I have always had one eye on the market with the other on the copy in this mill (yes, even when I disagreed with editors or producers). But I knew that I could never get away from slick hack work, slanted at a market, unless I cut loose and ignored the market...and I did want to write at least one story in which I spoke freely, ignoring the length, taboos, etc.

When I finished it and reread it, I did not see how in hell you could ever sell it, and neither did Ginny. But you did. Thank you.

If this one is successful, I may try to write some more, free-wheeling stories. If it flops, perhaps I will go back to doing the sort of thing I know how to tailor to the market. linuary 27, 1961: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

...I told you about a week ago that I had finished the basic cutting on Man from Mars. In the meantime, I have hud a squad of high school girls count the manuscript, word by word, and totted up the results on an adding machine. The manuscript is now 160,083 words-and I mn tempted to type those excess eighty-three words on a poKicard...

I urn a bit disappointed as my estimates as I went along Imd led me to believe that I would finish up at around 155.000 words and then I could even sweat off most or all of another 5,000 words and turn it over to Putnam's Ml 150.000, which I know would please them better. But

I don't see any possibility of that now; the story is now as tight as a wedge in a green stump and, short of completely recasting it and rewriting it, I can't get it much tighter. I have rewritten and cut drastically in the middle part where Mr. Minton [at Putnam's] felt it was slow, and I have cut every word, every sentence, every paragraph which I felt could be spared in the beginning and the ending. As it is, it is cut too much in parts-the style is rather "telegraphese," somewhat jerky-and I could very handily use a couple of thousand words of "lubrication," words put back in to make the style more graceful and readable.

The truth is that it is the most complex story I have ever written, a full biography from birth to death, with the most complex plot and with the largest number of fully drawn characters. It needs to be told at the length of Anthony Adverse (which ran 575,000 words!): I am surprised that I have managed to sweat it down to 160,000.

My typist is now completing the third quarter of the ms. She is able to work for me only evenings and weekends; if her health holds up, I expect that she will finish about 12 to 15 February. In the meantime, I will work on further cutting and revision and should be able to eliminate a few words-more than a thousand but less than five thousand. If my typist finishes on time I will expect to deliver the manuscript to you by Monday the 20th of February (I doubt if you will want to reread it, but you may want to see how I have revised the sex scene that you were bothered about). That will give Putnam's in excess of three weeks more margin on production time in order to publish on or before the Science Fiction Convention in Seattle 2-4 September 1961. Or they can, if they wish, use the three weeks to read it and bung it back to me for revision of anything they don't like-and still keep their production schedule. I can't do extensive cutting in that time but I can certainly revise a scene or two, if needed.

March 17, 1961: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

I 've just been talking to Mr. Cady at Putnam's. He tells me that Doubleday wants to issue my Sex and Jesus book us a SF book club choice and as an alternate for some other non-SF book club. Little as I like the Doubleday SF book club, I enthusiastically okayed this plan as it makes almost certain that Putnam's will make their nut and a bit of profit even if the trade edition doesn't do very well-which has been my principal worry. However, Mr. Cady seems to think that these book club sales will materially enhance the trade book sales-also, he teems to have great confidence in the book (more than I have) -- I hope he's right.

This change in plans will result, he tells me, in the book being sold by Doubleday as their June offering, with trade book publication as soon as possible, probably early July.

The final title will be set on Monday afternoon (Cady will phone me) and, Lurton, you are invited and urged to suggest titles-direct to him is simplest. (I assume that this letter will reach you in the early Monday mail.) The titles now in the running are: The Heretic

The Sound of His Wings (which has an SF tie-in through my "Future History" chart without being tagged as "science fiction" in the minds of the general public. All of these titles have been picked to permit the book to be sold as a mainstream novel, "Philosophical Fantasy" or some such.) A Sparrow Falls Born Unto Trouble (Job 5:7) That Forbidden Tree (Milton) Of Good and Evil (Genesis 2:17)

EDITOR'S NOTE: At this date, no one recalls just who came up with the Stranger in a Strange Land title.