Posted on 11/16/2013 9:33:41 PM PST by narses
William Patterson’s big Heinlein biography isn’t just the life story of one man. It’s a history of United States in the first half of the 20th century. Not a complete history, but in some ways it’s better than complete, because it’s more intimate. Heinlein was like a real-life Forrest Gump, in the middle of many of the trends that shaped America.
Heinlein was born in Kansas, in 1907, the heart of Middle America.
He was a cadet at Annapolis during the years between the great wars. His classmates believed ruefully that they’d be the first academy class that would never see combat. Of course, World War II belied those beliefs. Heinlein’s military experience put him in the middle of the American rise to world power.
Tuberculosis put an end to his naval career, which plunged Heinlein into the middle of the Great Depression. Until Heinlein’s Navy discharge, he was a civil servant who didn’t have to worry about where his next paycheck was coming from. But after the war, he and then-wife Leslyn were on their own with only his small medical pension. Heinlein had to learn to support himself. This wasn’t the first time he was on his own financially—his family growing up was huge, his parents were distant, and they were always broke. Heinlein took a variety of jobs during his adolescence, including work as a math tutor, artist’s model, insurance salesman, and professional soft-shoe or tap dancer in a roadhouse.
Heinlein worked on the 1934 California gubernatorial campaign of socialist Upton Sinclair, whose End Poverty In California (EPIC) party sought drastic remedies to the Great Depression. Later, Heinlein ran for state office himself. This put him in the middle of big-state and even national politics.
Heinlein didn’t serve during World War II because of his health, but he worked at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, recruiting Isaac Asimov, L. Sprague de Camp, and others to build military technology. His co-workers included a young Naval officer named Virginia Gerstenfield, whom he would later marry, spending the last 40 years of his life as her husband. In Philadelphia, Heinlein was in the middle of the war at home.
And of course as the top science fiction writer of his lifetime, Heinlein was in the middle of the growth of that genre, from crazy Buck Rogers stuff for kids and nerds to mainstream pop culture, dominating the Hollywood box office and book bestseller lists.
Patterson’s biography, Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century: Volume 1 (1907-1948): Learning Curve covers that period of his life. It looks pretty intimidating at first—it’s a massive brick of a book and it doesn’t even cover Heinlein’s whole life, just the first half of it—but it’s a fascinating read, not just for Heinlein fans, or science fiction fans, but for anyone curious about life in this great country during a turbulent half-century.
Heinlein didn’t just get himself in the middle of history. He also had a knack for getting into the middle of unlikely situations. If you think you’ve got him pegged as a political conservative and ex-military man, think again.
On the one hand, Heinlein was a hard-headed scientific rationalist. One of my favorite Heinlein quotes:
What are the facts? Again and again and again—what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what “the stars foretell,” avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable “verdict of history”—what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your only clue. Get the facts!
But he was also sympathetic to occult beliefs. His second wife, Leslyn, his partner during his political and early science fiction careers, was a practicing witch, and he believed in life after death. He made a pact with several friends that whichever of them died first would get in touch with the others from beyond.
Heinlein not only espoused free love, but he also practiced it from very early on. Both of his first marriages were open marriages, decades before the free love generation of the 60s.
One of my favorite—and weirdest—passages in Patterson’s biography comes after Heinlein has graduated Annapolis, but before he accepts his military commission on the U.S.S. Lexington. The Lexington was only the second aircraft carrier commissioned and was the biggest ship afloat, with a crew of 3,000 and the most advanced technology available in 1929, including primitive ballistic computers.
There are many things you might imagine a young Navy officer doing in the time between graduation and his first commission. One thing you wouldn’t imagine is what Heinlein actually did: He took an apartment in New York’s Greenwich Village for 11 weeks, immersing himself in the bohemian culture there, sculpting and painting nude women models, playing at sex, becoming an enthusiastic Socialist, and experimenting with mental telepathy.
Then he returned to the Navy. Heinlein apparently saw no contradiction between those lives.
Heinlein was a fascinating individual, and he’s been one of my heroes all my life. I’m glad I had a chance to get to know him better through Patterson’s biography.
Robert A. Heinlein portrait by Donato Giancola
Mitch Wagner is a fan, freelance technology journalist and social media strategist, who blogs about technology on the Computerworld Tool Talk Blog. Follow him on Twitter: @MitchWagner. He’s looking for a publisher for his first science fiction novel, and hard at work on his second.
I can certainly understand that, Gaffer. He was hard to put your finger on, IMO.
I have often wondered if he wasn’t simply a gadfly, trying to illicit a response from his readers, especially regarding the incestuous aspects of some of his characters.
I wish I had been old enough to have the nerve to ask him about it on the occasion of our meeting (I was only about 19 and in utter awe of him), but I was too shy to do so.
BTW, your favorites are some of mine, as well: “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” is required reading in my house, and “Time Enough for Love” has been re-read by me at least 100 times.
Still, there is no doubt that RAH was the most influential author in my life. I don’t think there’s anything by him that I haven’t read. (If you haven’t read “Tramp Royale”, may I suggest you do so if you can find a copy? Very interesting non-fiction.)
Regards,
Nope. One of RAH's colleagues begged him to have himself cryogenically preserved at death. He refused. His comment...."might that not interfere with rebirth".
I believe I read that commentary amongst the various tributes by Spider Robinson to RAH.
As with many, RAH got me started into serious SF and helped get me started in science.
During that period, he was suffering from restricted blood flow to the brain. Surgery to remove blockages in (I think) the carotids got him "back to normal".
I believe this refers to Heinlein's propensity for finding himself at or near the center of formative historical events without seeking to be so, and not his intellectual capabilities.
I garnered this info from the Amazon reviews. “Avoid the Kindle edition...the paper edition includes a large center section of photographs which the Kindle version omits.”
Well, no. Born in Butler, MO. Grew up in and around Kansas City, MO.
Admittedly these are both right up against the KS line, but that doesn't make them in KS.
At the time there was, and still is to some extent, a HUGE cultural difference between MO and KS, descended from Civil War days Great bitterness and antagonism. Worst atrocities of the entire War were in this area.
Aware of this because I'm from a mixed marriage. Dad was KS, mom was MO.
LOL
Absolutely. Most especially during the Col War era when the "better Red than dead" meme spread among literary types.
In Heinlein's mind, "better dead than Red" was a better slogan.
Was a big supporter of Upton Sinclair in the early 30s, who was in favor of a bigger New Deal, but I suspect in later life he recognized this was a mistake. In any case, it's obvious from his writings that he was an extreme free market type. Among other things, invented the most profound slogan of libertarianism: There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch, tanstaafl.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End_Poverty_in_California_movement
It took me a long time to track all the books down, but I believe I’ve read every one of them.
Pretty much correct, except for the retarded thing.
Ditto.
he made me blush by talking about my red hair. And not a word... 
about your snow cone, eh?
Just like Bob... 
he always had to flirt with a pretty gal--
I've often wondered... 
just what that little girl with the snow come grew up to be--
Was she a Fringe type... 
action loving... 
kinda gal?
Or did she... 
become an unforgettable type... 
action loving lady?
In any event, Bob and Lazarus Long would agree as I certainly admire your beauty... 
and marksmanship!
And your message... 
is?????
Ooops....
The picture of the auburn haired beauty is Friday, from the cover of the Heinlein book Friday
from the cover of the Heinlein book Friday I see... 
but do not forget Momma... 
Maureen or Pookayne... 
of Mars.
I... 
haven't--
There is a book, rather an anthology, titled “The Wisdom of Lazarus Long” or maybe the sayings. It’s a compilation of all of Long’s short sayings from all the books. It’s well worth the read.
I’m on the verge of a Heinlein revival after maybe a 30 year hiatus.
Thanks for the suggestion, I’ll look it up
Incest was a continuing theme for LL (RAH alter-ego). Recommend you do as I have done and leave this author 30-years in the past. Heinlein is a good historical study and this book would probably interest me. But I’d stay away from Heinlein’s kind of thinking as long and as far as possible. Just a suggestion.
From http://iheartquotes.com/tags/lazarus_long
You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once.
— Lazarus Long
Never try to outstubborn a cat.
— Lazarus Long, “Time Enough for Love”
Little girls, like butterflies, need no excuse.
— Lazarus Long
Sin lies only in hurting other people unnecessarily. All other “sins” are
invented nonsense. (Hurting yourself is not sinful — just stupid).
— Lazarus Long
Don't try to have the last word — you might get it.
— Lazarus Long
A committee is a life form with six or more legs and no brain.
— Lazarus Long, “Time Enough For Love”
Animals can be driven crazy by putting too many in too small a pen.
Homo sapiens is the only animal that voluntarily does this to himself.
— Lazarus Long
A committee is a life form with six or more legs and no brain.
— Lazarus Long, “Time Enough For Love”
To stay young requires unceasing cultivation of the ability to unlearn
old falsehoods.
— Lazarus Long, “Time Enough For Love”
Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he
is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe and not
make messes in the house.
— Lazarus Long, “Time Enough for Love”
The correct way to punctuate a sentence that starts: “Of course it is none
of my business, but —” is to place a period after the word “but.” Don't use
excessive force in supplying such a moron with a period. Cutting his throat
is only a momentary pleasure and is bound to get you talked about.
— Lazarus Long, “Time Enough for Love”
This sad little lizard told me that he was a brontosaurus on his mother's
side. I did not laugh; people who boast of ancestry often have little
else to sustain them. Humoring them costs nothing and adds happiness in
a world in which happiness is always in short supply.
— Lazarus Long
Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig.
— Lazarus Long, “Time Enough for Love”
Maybe Jesus was right when he said that the meek shall inherit the
earth — but they inherit very small plots, about six feet by three.
— Lazarus Long
This sad little lizard told me that he was a brontosaurus on his mother's
side. I did not laugh; people who boast of ancestry often have little
else to sustain them. Humoring them costs nothing and adds happiness in
a world in which happiness is always in short supply.
— Lazarus Long
Never appeal to a man's “better nature.” He may not have one.
Invoking his self-interest gives you more leverage.
— Lazarus Long
The correct way to punctuate a sentence that starts: “Of course it is none
of my business, but —” is to place a period after the word “but.” Don't use
excessive force in supplying such a moron with a period. Cutting his throat
is only a momentary pleasure and is bound to get you talked about.
— Lazarus Long, “Time Enough for Love”
Take care of the luxuries and the necessities will take care of themselves.
— Lazarus Long
$100 invested at 7% interest for 100 years will become $100,000, at
which time it will be worth absolutely nothing.
— Lazarus Long, “Time Enough for Love”
It may be better to be a live jackal than a dead lion, but it is better
still to be a live lion. And usually easier.
— Lazarus Long
$100 invested at 7% interest for 100 years will become $100,000, at
which time it will be worth absolutely nothing.
— Lazarus Long, “Time Enough for Love”
Animals can be driven crazy by putting too many in too small a pen.
Homo sapiens is the only animal that voluntarily does this to himself.
— Lazarus Long
Money is truthful. If a man speaks of his honor, make him pay cash.
— Lazarus Long
A “practical joker” deserves applause for his wit according to its quality.
Bastinado is about right. For exceptional wit one might grant keelhauling.
But staking him out on an anthill should be reserved for the very wittiest.
— Lazarus Long
Don't try to have the last word — you might get it.
— Lazarus Long
To stay young requires unceasing cultivation of the ability to unlearn
old falsehoods.
— Lazarus Long, “Time Enough For Love”
Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he
is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe and not
make messes in the house.
— Lazarus Long, “Time Enough for Love”
It has long been known that one horse can run faster than another —
but which one? Differences are crucial.
— Lazarus Long
Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human.
At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear
shoes, bathe and not make messes in the house.
— Lazarus Long, “Time Enough for Love”
Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors and miss.
— Lazarus Long, “Time Enough for Love”
Gadzooks! If this is not enough... 
there is another page at the website--
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