On a miserably wet Saturday morning in 1982, when I was young and desolate, I went into the library, as I always did, without very much hope. As I reached the New Books section there, entirely unexpectedly, was Friday, a new Heinlein book. It was not just as if the sun had come out, it was as if the sun had come out and it was an F-type star and I was suddenly on a much nicer planet.
Friday is one of Heinlein’s “late period” novels. The general rule if you haven’t read any Heinlein is to start with anything less than an inch thick. But of his later books, I’ve always been fond of Friday. It’s the first person story of Friday Jones, courier and secret agent. She’s a clone (in the terms of her world an “artificial person”) who was brought up in a creche and who is passing as human. It’s a book about passing, about what makes you human. I think it was the first female out-and-out action hero that I read. It’s also a book about being good at some things but with a large hole in your confidence underneath. No wonder I lapped it up when I was seventeen!
What’s good about it now? The whole “passing” bit. The cloning, the attitudes to cloning, the worry about jobs. The economy. It has an interesting future world, with lots of colonized planets, but most of the action taking place on Earth—that’s surprisingly unusual. There’s a Balkanized US and a very Balkanized world come to that, but with huge multinational corporations who have assassination “wars” and civil wars. There’s a proto-net, with search paths, that doesn’t have any junk in it—that’s always the failure mode of imagining the net. It was easy enough to figure out you could sit at home and connect to the Library of Congress, but harder to imagine Wikipedia editing wars and all the baroque weirdness that is the web. Friday’s point of view works for me as someone with severely shaken confidence, and as always with Heinlein it’s immersive. Reading this now I can feel myself sinking right in to Friday without any problem. There’s a complex multi-adult family, not unusual in late Heinlein, but this one disintegrates in a messy divorce, which is unusual and well done as well. And it’s a fun read, even if it’s ultimately unsatisfying.
What’s wrong with it is that it doesn’t have a plot.
Even at seventeen I couldn’t love it uncritically. I can’t think of any book for which I have expended more energy trying to fix the end in my head. It’s practically a hobby. For years I would tell myself I’d re-read it and just stop when the good bit stops and skip the end—though I have to say I’ve never managed it. Heinlein’s ability to write a sentence that makes you want to read the next sentence remains unparalleled. But the book as a whole is almost like Dhalgren. Every sentence and every paragraph and page and chapter lead on to the next, but it’s just one thing after another, there’s no real connection going on. It has no plot, it’s a set of incidents that look as if they’re going somewhere and don’t ever resolve, just stop. It doesn’t work as an emotional plot about Friday growing up, though it’s closer to working as that than as anything else. (Even as that—well, I really have problems with the way she forgives the rapist, if that’s supposed to be maturity.) It really doesn’t work on any of the other levels you can look at it on.
Heinlein wrote about how he wrote in several places—Expanded Universe and some letters in Grumbles From the Grave. From this it’s quite clear that he worked hard on the background and the characters but that he let his backbrain do the plotting. There are comments like “There were Martians in The Door Into Summer for a few pages until I realised they didn’t belong so I took them out.” (Paraphrased from memory.) As he got older, it’s clear that he lost some grip on that ability to tell what didn’t belong. Friday is an example where you can see this in action. It sets things up that it never invokes, most notably Olympia and the connections back to the novella “Gulf.” It starts hares both in the human plot and the wider plot, and loses track of them. You can see how he did it, and you can imagine how he would have pulled it together, and what he might have gone back and fixed.
Even as it is, I love it for its moments of clarity and beauty. I wouldn’t be without it. I taught myself almost all I know about how to plot by lying awake trying to fix the end of Friday in my head.
I have not read Friday, but read – and loved – Job: A Comedy of Justice when I was in high school. For similar reasons I have been wanting to re-read it recently (almost twenty years have passed since I last read it), but I am worried that it won’t hold up. Anyone read it recently and have thoughts on it?
Agreed about Friday. It tends to be overlooked as one of his late novels. (The last time I checked, there were just two academic articles about the book-a lot less than, for instance, is the case with Starship Troopers-and I wrote one of them.)
But the book definitely has those points of interest-the clone issues, the “proto-cyberpunk” economic-tech stuff, etc.. And I think that rather a lot more people than is generally appreciated do look back to it-and try to “fix” it or at least redo it in some way. Charles Stross’s recent Saturn’s Children (which I haven’t got to yet) has been received by a lot of critics as a Friday homage.
On a more personal note, I’ve got an (alas, unpublished) novel of my own that partly grew out of working with the same plot elements.
I’d have used clone to mean genetic duplicate. There is no genetic duplicate for Friday – nor does her child carry any of her own genetic information. See e.g. U.N. Man by Poul Anderson for genetic duplicate and some implications.
[notice that genetic duplicate doesn’t mean duplicate – there have been major differences in the personality of domesticated animals as cloned currently and of course that issue is itself addressed in some very good – Hugo winning – SF much later than U.N. Man)
Friday is enhanced by gene selection – a topic Mr. Heinlein explored as early as Beyond This Horizon with the control natural bartender IIRC. The impact of susceptibility to a cold on the social acceptability of a genetic experiment as embodied in a woman is addressed at some length in that book.
Granted Friday the book doesn’t have a story and not much plot and is largely a travel log – Inside USA from a single view point. That I suggest is in large part the intention. Just as Lazarus Long echoed earlier folks and Loonies in moving on to the new frontier as things got too crowded so too I think Mr. Heinlein believed that the freedoms he valued would exist in our time line’s crowded future only in patchworks of limited time and space in a fractured society.
A fractured society because the global uniform society – the lost Utopian dream of U.N. Man say – would lead to a general, but not necessarily uniform, loss of freedom. Then too big energy is Mr. Heinlein’s proxy for a whole industrial/military concentrated power complex.
That is the world of Friday is one in which General Semantics did not give us the well organized more or less Utopia of Coventry – and never will. The failure of Mr. Heinlein’s own youthful optimism.
For once, and rarely, I think the words of a character can be properly seen as the author’s. Kettle Belly Baldwin I think joins Mr. Heinlein in saying I tried – now the time has come for the best and brightest – the children of spirit if not of body – to get out of Dodge.
On another note I think Mr. Heinlein benefitted from the shorter lengths common in the genre in earlier years – perhaps the magazine serial length influence and so suffered rather than gained when freed to publish at any length. I find no improvement in the current uncut or author’s cut editions. Combining the themes I think Friday would have been a better story (hat tip Teresa story/plot) with most any story at all but the length of the trip makes a better travel log.
I must agree that Friday one of my fave Heinleins.
But then I have to point out that a good portion of that affection comes from reading it when I was seventeen and didn’t care that had no plot and was written by a pervy old man who felt all strong women really wanted children and to be raped and saved by strapping young pilots.
Yech.
But I love the fact he refers to “Hubbardites”, heh….but he was wrong…now we call ’em Scientologists.
So it wasn’t just me.
I found the novels I read as new seemed to just peter out without having any point to them- Friday, The Number of the Beast, The Cat who Walks Through Walls– or just meander the entire length (Time Enough for Love, etc.)
Friday began with a bang, and yes, brought up a lot of cool ideas and plotlines- and then everything was just dropped.
I need to find Gulf somewhere and read it.
sps49: “Gulf” is in Assignment in Eternity. It’s the first story in it and therefore the first Heinlein I read, as he’s one of the authors I read from the library in alphabetical order.
Another of Friday‘s important virtues is that background. What if there were a real breakthrough in batteries/energy storage?
Smonkey @@.-@, Heinlein wasn’t “wrong”; the Church of Scientology has been called that since the early ’50s. And Heinlein would have known that, since he and Hubbard were old friends, or at least associates.
Neil in Chicago (#7): Poul Anderson’s “Snowball” (1955) takes on that question, and was a likely inspiration for that part of Friday.
There’s also Randall Garrett’s “Damned If You Don’t” (which Vernor Vinge paid homage to in “Bookworm, Run!”), though that’s more of a breakthrough in generation instead of storage.
I think, in a certain odd way, Friday is a love letter to humanity and the United States. I am thinking about the very specific rejection of “genius separatism” that Baldwin undertakes, and about the genuine affection Heinlein has for some of his “salt of the Earth” characters. (Forgive me, it’s been a while since I read this.) Less obviously, I think the story is about being an intellectual in a profoundly anti-intellectual society, to wit the United States. You can be smarter, and even faster and stronger, and still not be able to make it there, or make it work.
It’s still an interesting read, although I agree that the plot is not exactly the focus of the story. And it’s the main inspiration for one of this year’s Hugo nominees for best novel, Saturn’s Children by Charles Stross.
Regarding various comments about the ending and Heinlein’s endings in general: Even before I started to have problems with Heinlein’s characterizations of women, I noticed he couldn’t seem to write an ending worth a damn. (I just kept reading them anyway.) It’s true I haven’t read many of the juveniles, but of the ones I have read, it always seems to be storystorystorystory inconclusive ending. I was going to list some examples, but I can’t think of any book of his more than an inch thick that doesn’t fit that description. (Thanks, Jo, for the “one-inch” dividing line for Heinlein’s work!)
Aedifica: But if you look at something like Citizen of the Galaxy or Time For The Stars or Starman Jones it looks like episode after episode but when you get to the end, it fits perfectly and reconnects everything that was going along thematically all along, and in retrospect you can see that each episode was illustrating a different aspect of the theme. Let me explain… no, let me sum up… no, let me do a whole post and show you in detail. Hang on.
Jo @@@@@ 13: ooh. A whole post just for me? *grin*
I’ve been thinking it was past time to re-read Citizen, since I can barely remember it. As for the other two, I’m not even certain whether I’ve ever read them–I may have, but if so it would have been very long ago. But that will wait a bit: if I read any Heinlein this week, it will be The Rolling Stones or The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress for their family structures, preparatory to one of the 4th Street panels. (My reading this week is very focused!)
I felt similarly about discovering Friday[i] (1982) – and [i]Number of the Beast (1980) – as a teenager I’d read all the Heinlein I could find and bought a bunch, despite my mother’s disapproval of spending money on books that might be in a library, but I thought of it all as old stuff. Then suddenly there was a new one in the window of the university bookstore, and then another! I didn’t get as far as you did at working out why the endings weren’t as good as the made-up worlds and people, but I read them both enough times to break the spines while trying. I just told my classmates that except for Double Star and possibly Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Heinlein wrote good books but couldn’t write endings.
Repeating my earlier post to correct the italics,
I felt similarly about discovering Friday (1982) – and Number of the Beast (1980) – as a teenager I’d read all the Heinlein I could find and bought a bunch, despite my mother’s disapproval of spending money on books that might be in a library, but I thought of it all as old stuff. Then suddenly there was a new one in the window of the university bookstore, and then another! I didn’t get as far as you did at working out why the endings weren’t as good as the made-up worlds and people, but I read them both enough times to break the spines while trying. I just told my classmates that except for Double Star and possibly Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Heinlein wrote good books but couldn’t write endings.
I recently read Double Star and thought it had a pretty good ending. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and Stranger in a Strange Land are the only other Heinlein I’ve read so far (though I’ve currently got Starship Troopers in my to-be-read pile) and I don’t remember being unsatisfied with the endings in either of those, but maybe I should re-read them with an eye out for it. (I should probably re-read them anyway.)
Nader @2 and Marcus @11 called it right — I did indeed use Friday as a reference point for Saturn’s Children.
I’m not sure I agree with Jo about Friday‘s lack of plot, though. Heinlein was of the opinion that there were only about three basic plots in fiction (“Boy Meets Girl”, “The Brave Little Tailor”, “The Man Who Learned Better”), and I tend to see Friday as an attempt to do “The Man Who Learned Better” (one that ran off the rails due to the author’s declining ability to keep eight flaming cocktail glasses in the air simultaneously while juggling). And Farah Mendlesohn has opined that Friday is an attempt at portraying a child abuse survivor; plausible, but not obvious because that sort of thing just wasn’t talked about in public back in the early 1980s.
If you put it all together: here’s someone who’s been badly damaged in early life, and this is the story of their attempt to rebuild and get back to normal. (Except that it doesn’t quite work in the end; the attempt at delivering a sense of closure is botched.)
I recall a very apt snippet from a review of one of the “late period” Heinlein novels (might well have been “Friday”), I want to say from F&SF. Paraphrasing here, it went: ‘After a while, you realize that Heinlein is writing about what Heinlein thought was interesting that day, which is entertaining if you are fond of him. I am fond of him.’
Will: I am fond of him too.
Charlie: I didn’t know there was any controversy about her being an abuse survivor. The abuse is right there on the page, she just doesn’t understand why it was a problem. That’s one of the things that makes it good. On the plot generally, yes, Heinlein was very good at stories about people growing up. But if this was supposed to be that it went badly wrong, because she doesn’t. She still has all her false confidence and rationalisations at the end.
“And Farah Mendlesohn has opined that Friday is an attempt at portraying a child abuse survivor; plausible, but not obvious because that sort of thing just wasn’t talked about in public back in the early 1980s.”
It wasn’t? I thought it was all over the place by then. In fact I remember numerous books about it in the 1970s, and articles about Freud pointing out that he was told of sexual abuse by patients and ended up not believing them, dismissing their stories as incest fantasies, etc. But maybe my memories are misdated by a few years … it’s happened before.
Jo, for some reason this particular review, and discussion, made me reflect on what a pleasure your reviews have been. I’ve just started The Backroom Boys, and am very happy you recommended it.
As for Friday, I confess that when it came out I was mainly pleased that it wasn’t one of the thicker-than-an-inch books, thought it meandered a bit, and hardly read it at all, since I didn’t think the character was really going to be developed. The book lost me very early on with her dismissal of abuse, which struck me then as Heinlein taking his can-do attitude more than a little too far.
But it sounds much more interesting in light of the current discussion. If Heinlein is showing one of his can-do protagonists as wounded and somewhat dissociated, that’s pretty intriguing stuff, however it emerged in the writing. And, looking at it that way, Friday’s remark that an “ordinary” woman would have been completely traumatized by what she’d just been through (if I remember it correctly) now seems horribly sad.
The idea that Heinlein ever advocated that “every woman wants to be raped” is insane and indefensible.
Friday didn’t want to be raped. However, she was, besides being an artificial person and not typical of all _anybody_ a covert agent, inured to the idea that someone might kill her without any personal animosity. Some people never get over their outrage over that concept. On the other hand, some people do adapt and accept. The ones who adapt and accept probably survive better.
The step from “these people are going to try to kill me but it has little or no emotional significance” to the same sentence with “rape” substituted for “kill” would seem large but not impossibly so.
#19 – true enough. Extending that notion the normal pattern for many of Mr. Heinlein’s books
(The Heretic/Stranger in a Strange Land is an obvious exception – not the only one – but as an exception that illustrates the rule that book was worked hard while being worked then put completely aside more or less)
was to write that day what interested him that day but by the end of the month to wrap it all up so the book had some unity being what interested him that month – followed of course by cutting and working the galleys and such but still a month from start to finish as in Glory Road which goes around then comes around.
#10 – I’ll certainly pay the Oscar Wilde style compliment but I’ll at least think the credit. I think there is indeed an ode to the endless variety of the United States as was in the travel log.
I think too – though in black and white it comes across as stronger than I think the reality is – there is an element of the author’s voice to his spiritual children in Kettle Belly’s hampered by being in jail (writing juveniles and staying solvent) apology to Friday – She doesn’t grow up – which would embrace being at home anyplace she found herself but she does find a place for her in the world.
@23 et.al.-
I took her reaction to her past as a symptom of her self-image as not human; like it was okay if “real” people treated her this way.
Yes, she seems to be okay after her epiphany (someone equates for her that reproductive compatibility w/ humans = human), so on that level it’s okay, but that isn’t the story Friday began as.
@14; I just re-read Citizen a month or two ago because I’d come to it straight off the juveniles when I was about 8 or 9 years old and almost didn’t finish it, certainly didn’t remember it. On the re-read, it was much more enjoyable but seems to end quite abruptly, as if it were the first book in an uncontinued trilogy.
#26 – if you haven’t just/already read Jo Walton on Citizen you might enjoy that discussion – especially her comment #22 in that thread: http://www.tor.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=blog&id=2128
Nice subject and comments, Jo. But you and others are incorrect about Friday not having a plot. It’s not so simply a plot most of us take some time to recognize: It’s a rewrite of Jean Francois Marie Arouet de Voltaire’s masterpiece, Candide. There are other old literary influences reflected in Friday (e.g., DeFoe’s Robinson Crusoe, itself, from whence comes Woman Friday’s name among other things) but so far as plot is concerned, Candide is pretty much it: ” … but we must cultivate our gardens.”
Most of Heinlein’s later works do end in a rather abrupt fashion. I’m just finishing up “The Cat Who Walked Through Walls” now, and more has happened in the last 50 pages than in the whole book. I think that’s just a characteristic of Heinlein’s works. I got through “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” just before this and its the same way. The whole revolution takes place in the last 10% of the book. I think that’s because, for Heinlein, the process of getting there is more important than the end.
re: #23 – I had always taken Friday’s attitude towards her rape as a measure of her own low self-esteem. Only a person with a terribly low self image could approach her rape in that fashion and I’m pretty sure that was Heinlein’s way of showing just how low that self image was. Part of the book is Friday’s attempt to find herself in a world that didn’t want her. It was an idea that appealed to me as a young man and I can’t help but think it would appeal to all young people trying to “find themselves.”
Finally, I love the spoofing of California politics in Friday. I can’t help thinking Heinlein had a crystal ball. Look at California now with a movie-star governor, a legislature completely controlled by special interests, legislation passed only by initiative, and trying to take lottery money from the schools to fund our deficit. Heinlein had an amazing ability to extrapolate future political/cultural climates based on the trends of his time.
Rape used as a tactic to break down a secret agent, male or female – sure, I’ll buy that.
Said secret agent taught to deal with the rape – I’ll buy that, in fiction. Would have been nice if there had been some nod towards after action counselling or therapy.
I remember being disappointed in the ending but wanting more books set in this fictional universe. One of the things I enjoyed most was the richness of the world-building compared to other Heinlein’s.
Oh, and forgiving said rapist? REALLY not buying that.
#28 – unusual take on the man’s name? – and although the comparison is old and a lineage can be shown – might drag in Cabell pronounced to rhyme with rabble one more time see. e.g. Job – Candide doesn’t have a plot either (any more than anybody comes of age or indeed learns much – and the world in Candide is not built but deconstructed e.g. number of quarterings is not an incluing but a jape). Although the bits about killing admirals and the Lisbon earthquake do illustrate a writer dealing with whatever comes to mind that day. I suggest Candide could almost be dropped in unbound proof and reassembled with no one the wiser save perhaps the very beginning and end and even then maybe.
I think the world of Friday is particularly internally fragile that is full of fracture lines fracturing (arguably simply in flux but by that view very ephemeral indeed in line with the events of the book) – defects obscured by an unreliable – by force not intent – narrator. From this it follows that extended reuse of the many settings that make up the worlds would take constant retconning – alternatively it would be pre and post this or that change and so not the same worlds..
And I obviously disagree to the extent that I take the message – and I do think Mr. Heinlein sold his story for a pot of message – to be we must put our garden and our own sheep beyond sight and scent of our neighbor’s chimney smoke – can’t simply can’t stay on or return to the old man’s farm.
I just love your posts! I was thinking about this book yesterday, about how awful it was and my largely uncritical affection for it. I read Heinlein backwards when I was a teenager: later novels first, juveniles after. It gave me a somewhat warped view of his writing. His later endings are entirely frustrating, but I just can’t help liking the books anyway. (Do you think this generation of teens will feel that way about Twilight?)
Nlowery71: Twilight and Harry Potter seem to me more in the way of cultural phenomenon than books, the whole generation, or so it seems, is reading them. I didn’t know anyone else my age who was reading Heinlein when I was growing up. But I bet some of them will feel like that. I’m looking forward to when their kids mock them for having been into *vampires* of all pathetic things.
Clark: Thanks for saying exactly what I would have said about Candide. I actually read it the same year I read Friday and I liked Friday so much better.
As you correctly point out, David (#28), Friday does have a plot. (One that Heinlein “filed the serial numbers off” of before using.) However, just labeling it as “Candide” deflects the criticism but doesn’t negate it entirely. The question is not “Does Friday have a plot?” but, “Is the plot one that resonates with a modern reader?” I think that Heinlein, in reviving the plot of Candide was also trying to revive an older narrative aesthetic; that of the picaresque novel and other forms popular in the 17th and 18th centuries. This type of narrative was eventually replaced by the more organic aesthetic – one that we are more used to today – that emerged in the early 19th century.
By the way, its “We must cultivate our garden.” (singular)
Zeb: Not so by the way, it depends on what edition first comes to hand. Compare, Norton Critical (both 1st and 2d editions) translated and edited by my old UCLA humanities professor Robert M. Adams (singular) and Modern Library 2002 facsimile of the Random House 1929 Rockwell Kent illustrated edition (plural).
Which modern reader? Of what? Which organic aesthetic that emerged in the early 19th century that I’m more used to? I’m serious.
Gothic fiction emerged and became very popular at the beginning of the century. Some of it is pretty grotesque; and it’s still being written and not only by Anne Rice. Should Heinlein have written more “They”s and “Hoag”s?
Both realism and exploration of the individual self began to rear their heads in the beginning of the 19th century. Heinlein, before political correctness, had little good to say about some of it.
“A very large part of what is accepted as ‘serious’ literature today represents nothing more than a cultural lag on the part of many authors, editors and critics–a retreat to the womb in the face of a world too complicated and too frightening for their immature spirits. A sick literature. What do we find so often today? Autobiographical novels centered around neurotics, even around sex maniacs, concerning the degraded, the psychotic, or the ‘po’ white trash’ of back-country farms portrayed as morons or worse, novels about the advertising industry or some other equally narrow area of human experience such as the personal life of a television idol or the experiences of a Park Avenue call girl.
“Ah, but this is ‘realism’! Some of it is, some of it decidedly is not. In any case, is it not odd that the ash-can school of realism, as exemplified by Henry Miller, Jean-Paul Sartre, James Joyce, Françoise Sagan and Alberto Moravia, should be held up to us as ‘high art’ at the very time when all other forms of art are striving to achieve more significant and more interesting forms of expression? Can James Joyce and Henry Miller and their literary sons and grandsons interpret the seething new world of atomic power and antibiotics and interplanetary travel? I say not. In my opinion a very large portion of what is now being offered the public as serious, contemporary-scene fiction is stuff that should not be printed, but told only privately – on a psychiatrist’s couch. The world, the human race, is now faced with very real and pressing problems. They will not be solved by introverted neurotics intent on telling, in a tedious hundred thousand words, they hate their fathers and love their mothers.
“In any case, I, for one, am heartily sick of stories about frustrates, jerks, homosexuals and commuters who are unhappy with their wives – for goodness sake! Let them find other wives, other jobs – and shut up!
“True, some of this sick literature does shine some light into dark corners of the human soul. Even a sordid, narrow novel such as James Jones’ From Here to Eternity can some-times manage that. But is this enough? Does it meet the challenge of our century? At best such a novel shows only one frame of a complex and rapidly moving picture.”
— Science Fiction: Its Nature, Faults and Virtues
By Robert A. Heinlein
Heinlein in his later works seemed to seek out forms other than the early or mid-19th century novel. Friday is picaresque; Time Enough for Love is an anatomy as Northrup Frye styled that type; The Cat Who Walked through Walls is a comedy of manners as the title itself tells us; both Job:ACOJ and Stranger are satires.
How long must a writer grind out bildungsroman, another form which became popular in the 19th century? Weren’t the eleven or twelve juveniles, depending on which ones you count, enough?
Heinlein preferred to write works of character development, and that can be done with miniscule plots. How long does it take to develop a woman-who-learned-better? After she learns to cultivate her garden(s) what else is there to write?
No one’s required to buy into the message common to both Voltaire and Heinlein’s works under discussion, a rational acquiescence in the conditions of present life and an acceptance of its obligations. Take it or not.
When Friday’s finished running the PTA and the Girl Scout troop on New Toowoomba, she’ll be back to the fast track if she so wishes.
About “forgiving the rapist”:
I have been a soldier in combat and observed soldiers in combat. Animosity toward your opponents is common enough but unproductive. People who achieve detachment live longer and fight more efficiently, in most cases. Battle rage and “They killed Kenny” are, in my opinion, hogwash, especially since throwing hands or fighting with swords is not involved.
I never felt any anger or hatred and don’t think I would have felt anything but pain had I been shot.
I don’t think regarding that rape as the hazard of the job and not taking it personally is a _huge_ step from there.
I can’t help thinking of the first part of the first Jo Walton book I read as I think of this.
Silver- My opinion is that Heinlein’s later works are not as good as his others. This is not because I am not educated enough.
Your post reminds me of apologists and associated creative participants on IMDB who tell us how Brown Bunny isn’t crap, it is just too nuanced for me to understand.
On forgiving I’ll give Corrie Ten Boom the last word.
James Clavell (see e.g. King Rat not the China Miéville of the same name) expressed the same sentiments but for Clavell it took some years to make his decision; for others it takes forever.
On the subject of animosity toward your opponents my own experience and observation is that it varies with and over time (perhaps with age and relative maturity? see e.g. West Side Story) – but again see Corrie Ten Boom quoting her sister on pitying the abuser as much as the victim.
On the “[t]hey killed Kenny” issue I am reminded of “they killed Lattie Tipton” – “(referred to as “Brandon” in Murphy’s book To Hell and Back)” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audie_Murphy – as of current date. Different strokes for different folks.
The fact of rage be it hot or be it cold is amply documented. For some a medal for some a quick death for some both.
Not at all by the way the primary sources on Candide are a trifle hard to even define as an effort was made to get the original out in many editions and many places as nearly simultaneously as the technology of the time permitted. There is IIRC only one prepublication amended (maybe should read corrected I’m not sure?) copy and a multitude of competing first editions.
#35 – I suggest there is a tremendously strong parallel in the quote from Mr. Heinlein to John Wayne and movie westerns.
As you know Bob, John Wayne had a very low opinion of “western” movies such as High Noon and High Plains Drifter (flat rebuffed Clint Eastwood ever after see e.g. Roger Ebert’s current blog) – as westerns. John Wayne/Ford made some “a man and his friends” westerns in direct deliberate response to the solo acts.
It seems to me Wayne was precisely correct in taking High Noon as absurd considered as a “true” tale of the old west. That is The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid which was (more or less) historical (or the opening of The Wild Bunch if you prefer straight fiction) was the usual result when any group tried to tree a town.
That High Noon really is absurd taken as a true tale of the old west says nothing about High Noon (or any of its remakes be they in the mythical west or the mythical future in space) as a good movie on its own terms.
But as Mr. Wayne thought about the purity of his beloved westerns so too I think Mr. Heinlein thought about the purity of his beloved genre and its depiction of his beloved country.
I suggest Mr. Heinlein’s views – as excerpted above – expressed a deep emotional committment to the United States and its future [also I think Mr. Heinlein’s feelings not as excerpted above included a deep emotional committment to the United States and hope for tis future but that exceeds the scope of this post or this thread or this board].
Given that emotional attachment then a portrait warts and all is appropriate but adding extra warts to express some spiritual truth (see e.g. the Ward Churchill controversy) is intolerable.
“Does it meet the challenge of our century? At best such a novel shows only one frame of a complex and rapidly moving picture.”
I suppose Mr. Heinlein sought to “meet the challenge of our century” to show many “frame[s] of a complex and rapidly moving picture” And furthermore did it brilliantly.
“How long must a writer grind out bildungsroman, another form which became popular in the 19th century? Weren’t the eleven or twelve juveniles, depending on which ones you count, enough?”
Of course they weren’t enough or folks would not have been offering for sale works from or based on the archives. Given sales I don’t see anybody boycotting, banning or burning any of Mr. Heinlein’s books of whatever date – or otherwise saying must to anybody.
Just the same ” ….stories about frustrates, jerks, homosexuals….” such as parts of the Small Change series can add a great deal to both pleasure and thought.
Note: I thought I had posted this earlier, but don’t see here it now. If this turns out to be a double post, I apologize.
David – If one is going to quote Jean Francois Marie Arouet de Voltaire, one should return to the original French. You were in safer hands with your UCLA humanities professor who probably spoke some French. In the famous line at the end of Candide “Il faut cultiver notre jardin,” (Literally, “It is necessary to cultivate our garden.”), the possessive adjective “notre” is used to modify the noun “jardin.” “Notre” is the first person plural possessive, however it is in the form used to modify a singular noun. (“Nos” being used for a plural noun.) Therefore, the line should most properly translated as “We must cultivate our garden.” I think the singular form is particularly appropriate to Friday as I don’t think she’ll be leaving “the PTA and the Girl Scout troop on New Toowoomba” anytime soon. She has found her niche, her garden.
(Clark – If you can find an edition using “nos,” I’d like to see it.)
As for the organic aesthetic I refer to . . . First of all, let me clarify that in using the pronoun “we,” I was not referring to you or I, who might be more open to unusual narratives, but a generic contemporary reader. (Seriously, David. Would you consider yourself a typical “modern” reader?)
The concept of organic unity in literature dates back to Aristotle, but experienced a resurgence in Romantic literature of the 19th century. The idea is that the narrative grows from a principal theme that is constantly developed throughout the work. Thus, the work maintains a continuous flow from beginning to end. The theme is a seed out of which the rest of the works grows and yet still reflects the seed.
In general, conforming to a genre is inimical to organic unity as that may stifle or distort the creative flow of the work as it grows. The genre of the picaresque novel, as applied in the 17th and 18th centuries and used by Voltaire in Candide, presented a series of narratives which theoretically could be re-ordered without affecting the flow of the work. Or, as ClarkEMyers rather crudely put it: “Candide could almost be dropped in unbound proof and reassembled with no one the wiser save perhaps the very beginning and end and even then maybe.”
Heinlein, in following this genre, made Friday less accessible to contemporary readers. I’m not criticizing him for that. I like the book. The depth of the works in his post-juvenile periods is profound. However, I understand that the modern reader is unwilling to accept such a format. They would rather have a narrative unified by a common thread that pulls them through their reading. That many people find Friday “plotless” is evidenced by the comments above.
Regarding your extensive Heinlein quote, I’m not sure how it addresses my comments. But, there is a certain circular logic to quoting Heinlein in order to mount a defense of his own style. I think RAH would have appreciated it.
I reread _Friday_ a few years ago after a lapse of many years and discovered something I had never noticed when I read it as a teenager, and few people ever seem to mention in discussion of it: It’s funny.
I live in Santa Cruz, a few miles away from where Heinlein was living when he wrote the book, and the whole section taking place in California is full of sly political references that had me laughing out loud, from the insane direct-democracy of the Bear Republic to the mention of Pajaro Dunes as a major oil-producing port.
Pity it’s such a flawed book in so many other ways though.
Yep, Friday is bad Heinlein. Not as bad as Job. Not as bad as the Number of the Beast. But almost worse because there are the bones and muscle of a real story here–wich Heinlein never managed to put together.
I don’t like Heinlein’s portrayal of sex roles, but that really isn’t the weakness of Friday–the story just doesn’t come off as a story.
On the other hand, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress works as story (although I’m not sure it works well as an economics textbook).
Rob Preece
Number of the Beast is near to unreadable. I recall both Friday and Job reading like a return to form after the loggorheic mess that was NOB. Because of that I was maybe too lenient with them when first read but even now I like them both. They seemed to me reminiscent of his ’50s stuff; no doubt the Kettle Belly Baldwin inclusion helped that feeling along.
As to no plot, though – I’ve noticed lately that a couple of writers I like (James Lee Burke, Lawrence Block) work in a genre, crime/mystery, that is alleged to be dependent on strong plot but with both of them the books are carried along by the writing and characterization.
More and more I think plot is just a reason to move your characters around. No-one cares who killed the chauffeur
I left out The Cat Who Walks Through Walls … that’s one that just moseys along, taking in the sites and every once in a while taking a 90 mph turn at right angles to no apparent purpose. Suddenly, there’s plot all over the place and it looks like everyone is going to die, even the cat. the End.
Even so, I’ve read the damn thing three times. The first time I was 29, the last 52. I think I liked it about the same every time. To paraphrase someone quoted above, if you’re fond of Heinlein this is close enough that it’ll do.
I’ve always said Job was modeled on Candide. Still didn’t get my wife to read it.
#45 – Maybe. Although its best known phrasing is applied to graphic art I’d say Job is at (least) a third remove from Candide – Voltaire wrote the real world as he saw it, Cabell wrote the world of imagination as Voltaire saw it and Mr. Heinlein wrote the imaginary as Cabell saw Voltaire seeing it.
Doesn’t keep me from liking Job or Friday or almost anything by Mr. Heinlein. I enjoy Number of the Beast from time to time so I must be far enough along some axis away from Neurotypical to fall in some sort of targeted group.
I suppose on story and plot for purposes of this board I tend to use Teresa’s famous phrasing as the default.
I like ’em all, Clark, even the ones I hate. I suspect I’m just not rational about Heinlein.
Clark, John: I also like them all, even the ones I hate, except for To Sail Beyond the Sunset.
Zeb Carter on Heinlein’s crystal ball for California politics: remember that by 1982, when Friday was first published, California had already had a “movie-star governor”, so this wasn’t all that prophetic. As for “special interests,” they’ve always played a major role in US politics. (This reminds me of Chomsky’s quip that “special interests” in mainstream discourse refers to women, ‘racial’ minorities, working people, the elderly — the vast majority of the American population — while “the national interest” refers to corporate elites and their apologists.)
You ever get the feeling that by the time of Sail Beyond the Sunset Heinlein was basically just having fun playing naughty with his characters? He had a fair streak of dirty old man in him, not that that’s a terrible thing. I aim to be one one day.
“More and more I think plot is just a reason to move your characters around. No-one cares who killed the chauffeur ”
For the record, I completely disagree. I very rarely care about the characters one way or another, and just with the author would get on with telling the damn story. From my viewpoint, the main role of the characters is to be pushed around the plot-board to show the story.
I usually really hate it when the author spends 10 pages telling me about how so-and-so does something because of something that happened in his past. I just want him to do it and get on with the damn story.
I REALLY like Number of the Beast. I really do. Sure I can recognize its faults, but I still like it. I’ve re-read it several times. Clark, your comment is excellent. I, too, feel like I’m “far enough along some axis away from Neurotypical to fall in some sort of targeted group.” Hopefully, we won’t be targeted by the men in the white coats.
Promiscuous Reader (#49) – You’re right, it is perhaps not quite as prescient as it might seem. Still, I do believe its a very apt projection of California politics. We (Californians) do seem prone to electing “movie-star governors.” As for the other, I was thinking more of what Chompsky would call “national interests.” I guess I’m not very mainstream.
I’ve just finished Friday for the first time in years – decades, maybe – and enjoyed it immensely, having decided to revisit some of RAH’s later works. I read Methuselah’s Children (as a preface), then TE4L, which I always enjoyed. I struggled a bit through “Number”, quite enjoyed “Cat”, *loved* “To Sail” and then back to Friday. Wonder if I can bring myself to re-read Job (always hated that one for some reason).
One thing I didn’t get about Friday – why did boss tell her to remember Mosby’s name, unless he anticipated her getting the ‘host mother’ assignment? And if he did anticipate that, then he – presumably – anticipated her getting killed? So perhaps not quite the benign father/boss after all. When I neared the end of the book I misremembered the ending & had an idea that Friday was going to *be* the dauphinoise (echoes of ‘Double Star’…?)
I’m reading through old entries, found this one, and realized my comments here don’t make it at all clear that I do enjoy Friday, just no longer as uncomplicatedly as when I first read it in my teens. It’s now firmly in the “guilty pleasure” category for me.
An observation I forgot to make at the time: I still find it immensely amusing that Heinlein, mirroring rather than echoing Twain, not only gives us humble and decent Arkansawyers, but also sends Friday up the river toward freedom.
Just reread both NOTB and Job – Number is much as I remembered it, although I found the convention at the end amusing as hell. But my god, the babbling and the endless sequences of computer commands ….. you’d have though he was still being paid by the word.
Job is funnier every time I read it, and the scenes in Heaven are great stuff.
And Friday I always thought of, in terms of plot, as simply – woman has family, loses family, finds another one, likely better – set in RHA’s familiar “things will get worse before they get better” future. That, and Heinlein’s eternal belief in the frontier and who will set out for it – the best and brightest. The purpose of most folk, RAH seemed to believe, is to make civilization so unbearable that the best breeding stock light out for the territories and spread our seed further and further
Also, no Longs/Howards involved, which was nice for a change
Love Friday. As I’ve said before, teenage girls should not read Heinlien as it gives them ideas. What Friday needed was a sequel.
I disagree whole heartedly with the article.
Perhaps if it was entitled: The Goddess Failure, or maybe The How To Book of Destroying a Goddess Through Early Childhood Trauma.
The book was meant to be a memoire, not a plot drive story. This memoire is of a woman who thinks very little of herself. At every juncture, Friday makes the choice of latching onto anyone who will “Love” her.
Her story is told from her own alienated and ignorant prespective. She doesn’t ‘know’ people, because she has never been one, and thus her ignorance and alienation. She is utterly alone in this world, and though she is superior to ‘humans’ in every way, people, circumstance, her degraded self image, all conspire against her and keep her from every reaching anything near her potential.
The one serious chance at greatness dies with the man resposible for her creation. I’m sorry, but this book was very complete. Right down to the fizzling no where Friday’s life gets to. Of course, that’s if you consider having a family and basking in thier love – a failure.
Heinleins book Friday is poignant, well written, joyously tragic and tragically insightful.
No plot indeed.
Having revisited Friday after 30yrs as i was unable to digest it in full @@@@@ 17yrs of age i’m amazed at the prophetic techno and political style that Heinlein was able to achieve!! Growing up reading Bradbury,Philip k Dick,Huxley and Asimov( whom Heinlein gives a nod to in Friday) always made me belive that one day i would live in a future with cellphones computers and the net. Without wishing to intrude on the world of visonarys such as Gates,Jobs or Zuckerberg I still want to know where my “FUCKING JETPACK” is??? Maybe it’s time to revisit Philip Francis Nowlan.
I don’t agree that there isn’t a plot to Friday, merely that she doesn’t know much about it and that it is all hidden behind a veil of conspiracy. I’m sure I haven’t figured it all out but the plot is as exciting as any James Bond novel and more realistic and complicated.
Our heroine brings to Earth the information that prevents a coup, organised off planet, working. She engages in combats including saving the life of one of the world’s leading politicians & engages in an action that discedits the would be world/universe conqueror that leads directly to his assassination.
The other thing I love about the book is that, with the exception of interstellar travel, the real world has moved towards that future far more than with any other complex story I know.
I love FRIDAY, too. I’ll admit, I largely love it because it came along at the right time; after NUMBER OF THE BEAST I was ready to just give up on him entirely. FRIDAY and JOB gave me new hope. Unfortunately, they were the last good books he had in him… but, still, FRIDAY made me love Heinlein’s work again, and that was no small gift at that time in my life.
There are a few things about FRIDAY that I absolutely cannot accept, and the ‘rape is fun when it’s done properly’ subtext that keeps recurring is probably number one with a bullet on that list… but Heinlein always displayed all the weird lizards living in his head when he talked about sex, and FRIDAY is such a good adventure story otherwise that I just kind of have to chalk that off to her being a kinky slut who likes it rough and tell myself not to judge her.
As to the book having no plot, well, Heinlein’s plotting became much more naturalistic as he advanced in age, and in nature — or ‘real life’ — there’s not a great deal of structure. I find this maddening in his World As Myth books, but charming in FRIDAY and JOB. I suspect the differences between the three World As Myth books, which I absolutely abhor, and the duology that is FRIDAY and JOB, are largely comprised of (a) FRIDAY and JOB feature characters I like, and (b) The World As Myth so offensively embodies utterly lazy writing (it’s okay! it doesn’t need to make sense — it’s JUST A STORY!) that it just aggravates me to the point where, even if there WERE likable characters in any of those stories (and there aren’t) I’d still find them annoying.
Also, ridiculously plotted and contrived though it is, I love GULF, so that was a big help to me in enjoying FRIDAY, as well.
My problem with many of Heinlein’s books is he seems to have started out writing one book, and somewhere about halfway through it transmogrofies into another. Particularly “The Number of the Beast” and “The Cat Who Walks Through Walls.” He set them up going in one direction and suddenly we’re back dealing with Lazarus Long again.
“Job” was a fun read, but I haven’t looked at it in a couple of years. Heinlein’s Balkanized U.S. in Friday is surprisingly in touch with what seems to be happening politically now.
Have just reread this yet again and I can’t find much fault with it, other than that of style. If you don’t like the stylistic tics RAH developed as a writer (early on until the end), your enjpyment will be greatly impaired. As with anyone you love, their quirks are forgiven or at worst looked past. (And for things like IWFNE and TNOTB, when you can’t forgive them, you conclude that crotchety old Uncle Robert has lost it and needs to be in a nice, quiet place with friendly nurses.)
I agree with the notion Friday is Candide goen through RAH’s chop shop, witha new coat of paint and the VIN filed down. Seems to me plenty of plot but not of the game board type, eg Start here and clear goal to be attained, like cribbage or Monopoly.
Heinlein rarely started with more than an idea and sometimes an ending, subject to change dependent on what happened along the way. It worked better some times than others, is all. For me, it worked fine here.
No one has mentioned the Public eye and references to govt/authority surveillance. That was prescient, too.
Teh thing that has always really bugged me about htis, is Friday being depicted as a Raquel Welch-ish white woman on the cover when the book makes clear she is dark complected.
Marketing trumps the author’s intent every time
I attempted to read this string but found i had to skim. Did any of you take into account Friday was first published in serial form in the pages of Playboy Magazine? Perhaps more than any of his works it did include encapsilations of moments to fit the way of presentation. Pehaps even “looked good in the moment” was the point as well as deadline requirements. Several authors published works in Playboy at the time.
#28: David: Thank you for that excellent suggestion–that Friday was based on Voltaire’s Candide. I believe you are right and the ending of Friday supports the notion.
“That is well said,” replied Candide, “but we must cultivate our garden.”
Voltaire writes about the human condition, that there is no absolute right or wrong, and at the core of Friday–the book as well as the character–she questions her humanity again and again.
I don’t believe Heinlein was trying to be literary in this sense, or that he was intentionally trying to write an homage, but the theme was on his mind. And, worthy of note–a new edition of CANDIDE was published by Random House in 1975.
I think Jo Walton has missed the point of this book. Friday is the story of a woman’s life and life has no plot. That is exactly what makes this book so wonderful and refreshing. There is no artifical straining to make evrything fit, because in life that never happens. The book flows from one lossly connected adventure to the next, never standing still and ever dependent on the choices of its title character just as our lives do. The only diffeence is that her’s is much more exciting.
Recently, due to current events I have been thinking about Friday and “Heinlein-as-fortune-teller” and stumbled across this article.
I love how you recount your discovery of a new Heinlein! Oh how I can relate!
I remember on my first read when the book was pretty new I was disgusted by the concept of a balkanized United States. “NEVER!” I cried out mentally!
As I look at how polarized we have become as a nation recently and as you look at the red/blue map electoral map and more than once Texas has talked openly of succession I think the old master was once again far ahead of his time. Not only in balkanization itself but in how it would come apart and what the resulting subgroups would look like. How could he do that then?
Another issue, I am private pilot and I have several friends that fly professionally for major airlines. When I was younger there were always three people in the cockpit (as reflected in many pop-culture movies of the era including “airplane”) Automation has been able to reduce that number to two. The rules of aviation has always been redundancy and therefore two pilots has long been seen as the utter minimum. Now there is serious talk automating the airliners entirely and perhaps having a single pilot on board to watch over the systems or perhaps no pilot at all.
I find myself echoing Friday in that I do not want a fully automated aircraft. Regardless of the fact that perhaps a artificial construct could do the job better, I find that having someone up front that *cares* about the humanity packed in the back is a key factor. I personally will never board a robotic (fully automated) airliner. Oddly enough I am looking forward to automated cars.
Go figure. How is that for Jungian duality? J
#59 Chuck Monroe said “I still want to know where my “FUCKING JETPACK” is??? Maybe it’s time to revisit Philip Francis Nowlan.”
Oh thank you sir! I laughed long and loud at that one probably because I can go you one better; In the late 70’s and early 80’s I got my engineering degree and my commercial deep sea diving license as early in life I read in that folks with those qualifications would be the first into space! I still don’t know whether to blame the master for getting my hopes too high or NASA for destroying mankind’s legacy.
I go with the later because it is easier on the soul. I actively despise NASA.
On that note, the following two posts in a rowed made the tears flow. Perhaps I should see a shrink about to figure out why.
JohnArkansawyer
I like ’em all, Clark, even the ones I hate. I suspect I’m just not rational about Heinlein.
bluejo
Clark, John: I also like them all, even the ones I hate, except for To Sail Beyond the Sunset.
Sounds like an accurate representation of a segment of an individual’s life, which is what Friday seems to be meant to be.
I have to disagree with the author of this article on the plot. It did have a plot. The plot was about Friday finding the love within herself to be who she wanted to be. Her mentor and partial genetic father understood that. That’s why he offered her what he did. I often wondered if Friday was not supposed to be a series books, but that it got chopped up and reglued into one. Perhaps it was due to being so late Heinlen’s life. Never-the-less it would make an excellent movie compared to some of the garbage that is on at movie theaters now. I mean like we are on like the jillianth episode of Star Wars. Jupiter Ascending was such a stupid movie I didn’t even know why they put their mark on it. I like Star Trek but I think they ran it into the dirt. They haven’t closed up chapters in the other versions of it such as Deep Space Nine. Literally got lost in Enterprise it just went from okay to what the Hell are bugs and Nazis doing in this. Another good series would be the Skylark series by E.E. Doc Smith but it would have to be revamped to even compared to our modern technology. Movie makers need to go back and look at a lot of old books that would make excellent cinematic productions.
#70 – Strongly agree with Gary that Friday would make a good movie.
Scott Timberg, in his 2007 Los Angeles Times round-up article on Heinlein, “The descent of a sci-fi guru” interviewed a number of modern-day writers (mostly Angelenos, but also Tom Disch and Annalee Newitz) about Robert Heinlein, and the only thing he had to say about Friday was what may have been a paraphrase of his interview with M.G. Lord, “…in which a heroine falls in love with her rapist.”.
I’ll deal with that first, since it’s understandable for non-science fiction readers to consider that a deal-breaker of a plot development. I, personally, am not happy with the way Heinlein had Friday’s rapist explain his actions, but when you think about the context in which the rape and the forgiveness both happened, it’s less bizarre.
For those who haven’t yet read the novel, Friday Baldwin and her rapist were both recombinant-DNA derived human beings, legally known as “Artificial Persons”. They had no legal rights in most jurisdictions on Earth, and most “natural” humans viewed them with emotions ranging from distaste to outright, homicidal hatred. The rape itself happened during Friday’s interrogation by a team of covert operatives which included that other Artificial Person, whom Friday meets later while trying to escape a starship bringing her to what she strongly suspect will be her own last assignment – where she will be killed to preserve an explosive political secret.
The context of the rape and Friday’s forgiveness of it is the obscenity of creating a class of humans who can be legally exploited as tools, with no more rights than a hammer, who are brought up with no moral grounding beyond “do as your owner tells you” and despised by most other humans without a second thought.
If Friday’s rapist had, during that interrogation, made a valiant stand and defied the other members of the interrogation team, it might have been a “feel good” moment for the reader but a logical and literary failure. And I’m not so sure my literary judgment in disliking the way this guy explains his actions to Friday (without as much in the way of remorse as any of us would expect in real life) is all that sound. In Friday, early on, an obscene situation produced obscene results. Heinlein had a good case for presenting it as he did, and for having Friday (who had all the self-assurance you’d expect in a futuristic slave) forgive a crime we here-and-now correctly consider unforgivable.
The ending of Friday? Yes, that was tossed off, a summary of what the ending ought to have been (two chapters’ worth, at least). But Heinlein isn’t alone at wrapping up evocative stories with five-and-dime-store endings, either. Stephen King did it in The Stand, even the expanded version of the novel released in the late 1980s, in which he ends a very long novel with a very short chapter that left most of his fans wondering what happened to the characters he made them love.
But Friday had a plot. Just not the plot many of us would have written. But it was arguably one of Heinlein’s better novels, better than Stranger in a Strange Land, and had what I consider his best-drawn woman character. Your mileage probably differs.
@72 Well written. Well thought out. Thank you
Life has no plot, why must a novel need one? …. Does Stranger have a plot? Citizen does …. I guess. Double Star ….hmmmmmm. I loved Friday and consider Heinlein and Twain the height of American culture [as far as literature]. But … what do I know I read scientific journals …
Her forgiving the rapist kind of bugged me for a bit too until I realized she (Friday) doesn’t see sex the same as most people today do. To her sex is a recreational activity and unless she undergoes a medical procedure, that’s all it can be as she’s sterile reversible. To her, sex doesn’t contain the emotional overtone it does for people today and of the generation in which it was written. She enjoys it but isn’t consumed by it.
Therefore, for her, forgiving the rapist for the actual rape is in character because, as she said, “they were under orders to do that”. Slapping a woman you are copulating with, though? She doesn’t forgive that, nor should she. That’s just plain rude.
I don’t think the old Heinlein lost control of how to devise a plot with Friday. He was going beyond what writers dream of doing – depicting life. Life even today, early 21st century is a blur of events. When has there ever been any precursor to the current events in Washington D.C.? I speak from experience. My second career was a “grab the tiger by the ruff of the neck and hang on.” I recently retired. Seriously friends, things happen, and Emerson was/is right. Get yourself a better mousetrap, and try not to be trampled in the rush. That is what Heinlein depicted when writing “Friday”.
I love the book Friday. I see strong parallels between this book and Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World”. It still resonates today as we’re on the cusp of modified humans what with CRISPR/Cas9 and other gene modifications out there.
Other of Heinlein’s work I love “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress”, “To Sail Beyond the Sunset” , “The Cat Who Walks Through Walls” and of course “The Number of the Beast”
@72,
There have been human beings with no legal rights in many jurisdictions in the past and with limited legal rights in many, even the US, until quite recently.
There’s also something — which is quite real — called “Stockholm syndrome.”
——————————–
I found Friday tolerable, unlike just about everything he wrote after The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. He pretty much demonstrated that he needed to have a tougher editor, more than anything else.
I think of child abuse really hitting the public consciousness in 1988, when <i>The Courage to Heal</i> came out.
As I recall, Friday did heal to some extent– she’s got a good life, but she’s also got her old obsessions. I find this plausible.
The story is about Friday growing up, but I believe the real theme is Friday finding a home. One possible home after another is yanked away from her. The big turning point is when she tells off Alice(?) (the head of the poly family) off for prejudice and figures out that she’s been scammed financially. This is a degree of maturity she didn’t have before. I should reread with an eye to whether Friday is showing signs of getting her feet under her before that.
I could make a case that the incident presages anti-racism. Bigotry and being opposed to bigotry makes a difference in private life in a way that wasn’t common in fiction.
I find it remarkable that a poly family breaks up over bigotry, money, and lack of ethics rather than, as usual thinking would have it, anything having to do with sexual jealousy.
Friday and Job both lack the desire for children which was common in late Heinlein.
I think of the book as saying that being an action hero isn’t enough for a human being.
I recognize the complete and utter nerdiness of this, but one thing that bothers me about Friday is the return to horse-and-buggy transportation. We’re told they have “Shipstones,” basically super batteries that hold a lot of juice and last a long, long time. Presumably they fill the Shipstones with electricity from nuclear plants or solar power satellites or some such.
So why don’t they have a lot of nice clean electric cars? What technological or economic or social development resulted in widespread abandonment of personal vehicles, except for a few that are authorized. That always stuck in my craw.
Also, I kind of was always disappointed that her sterility couldn’t be reversed.
OhmyGod!!!! So I read this pearl when it was new and fell majically in love with it! Then today, when hubby & I drop into the Book Nook, a first edition Pennsylvania copy drops into my lap when I asked about the anthology including And He Built a Crooked House. How Heinleinian is THAT?!?
So I adored the book then. I didn’t find any faults with it back then. I guess I simply accepted it as written, and realized that it’s a lot like life inasmuch as life doesn’t (usually) have neat & tidy endings to things, and not everything wraps back around and explains itself. Mysterious enigma, life.
So now I get to re-read it. Oh boy oh boy oh boy!
Friday was a find for me at 17 in the library. Blew me away from the start.
Can’t believe it has never been made into a movie. Seriously it’s a great start for at least two movies.
Don’t agree that it is w/o a plot. I think it’s written in a way to let Friday’s struggle to find herself and “belong” although a bit tedious.
Agree that it becomes too involved. Especially towards the end with the space travel part with given technical breakdown of it all.
I would skip/skim through this part when I was younger but made through it as I turned 40. I keep a few copies and read it every so often if I haven’t given away all my copies.
Early Heinlein with juvenile shorts are some of my favorites. Can’t remember the title of the one where the kids ice skate everywhere and befriend the alien baby, but good times. Couldn’t ever make it through The Cat Who Walks Through Walls, or anything else after Friday. Couldn’t really enjoy or finish Stranger in a Strange Land. Friday is different. Something about her jumping around place to place is fine with me.
For whatever reason I was hooked on Friday and couldn’t put it down. Even with the space flight that felt like 800 pages of nothing. All the other stories in Friday were fun. Enjoyed his humor. Reminded me of LR Hubbard with the humor. Loved the way he could predict the future. Wait until we start genetically altering people.
#63 “is Friday being depicted as a Raquel Welch-ish white woman on the cover when the book makes clear she is dark complected.”
Where is this, in the text? She passes enough as white to be able to join a racist polyfamily. Who looks white enough that she has to be informed that “Tongans are not like us. They aren’t white people; they are barbarians.” (pg.53). It does not appear to be a case of white-washing.
~e, I’d missed that detail– I thought they were just prejudiced against Tongans. So I checked for details, and it’s a bit more complex. Definitely white racist, but especially opposed to Tongans. Friday is brown-skinned.
Arguably this passage is also about the perils of tolerating racists who don’t seem to be that bad.
http://newspaperrock.bluecorncomics.com/2010/02/racism-in-heinleins-friday.htm
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“Vickie, what is this about Ellen’s husband? Does he have two heads or what?”
“Uh, he’s a Tongan. Or did you know?”
“Certainly I knew. But ‘Tongan’ is not a disease. And it’s Ellen’s business. Her problem, if it is one. I can’t see that it is.”
“Uh, Anita has handled it badly. Once it’s done, the only thing to do is to put the best face on it possible. But a mixed marriage is always unfortunate, I think—especially if the girl is the one marrying below herself, as in Ellen’s case.”
“‘Below herself!’ All I’ve been told is that he’s a Tongan. Tongans are tall, handsome, hospitable, and about as brown as I am. In appearance they can’t be distinguished from Maori. What if this young man had been Maori . . . of good family, from an early canoe . . . and lots of land?”
“Truly, I don’t think Anita would have liked it, Marj—but she would have gone to the wedding and given the reception. Intermarriage with Maori has long precedent behind it; one must accept it. But one need not like it. Mixing the races is always a bad idea.”
(Vickie, Vickie, do you know of a better idea for getting the world out of the mess it is in?) “So? Vickie, this built-in suntan of mine—you know where I got it?”
“Certainly, you told us. Amerindian. Uh, Cherokee, you said. Marj! Did I hurt your feelings? Oh, dear! It’s not like that at all! Everybody knows that Amerindians are— Well, just like white people. Every bit as good.”
There’s a proto-net, with search paths, that doesn’t have any junk in it—that’s always the failure mode of imagining the net. It was easy enough to figure out you could sit at home and connect to the Library of Congress, but harder to imagine Wikipedia editing wars and all the baroque weirdness that is the web.
This is not how I recall it. The book was very clear that this was not any kind of open network. It was an extremely expensive professional database that no ordinary person could ever afford to even see, much less contribute to.
Like many authors, Heinlein missed how cheap Internet access would be, and how everyone would be able to publish on it.
And of course, it could have gone that way, if ISPs were liable for everything anyone says through their wires.
“Friday is brown-skinned.”
Again, where in the text does it say that? Granted ‘built-in suntan’, but I doubt anyone would confuse a suntanned blonde with a POC.
Also, it’s amusing that the woman depicted in the artwork is said to be as ‘white’ as Raquel Welch, who is half-latina. So as that’s the case, I’d claim Friday could be whiter than her cover picture, since I figure she could be lighter than a half-latina :)
What is more disconcerting about the cover art is that they made her pretty. She doesn’t have the face of a horse, but she has specifically said she wasn’t beautiful. Of course, from a marketing pov, ugly women don’t sell books (esp. as sex symbols). Ugly men, conceivably might (I can’t think of any off-hand, maybe The Mule?).
pg. 252 has some of the DNA inputs: Finnish, Polynesian, Amerindian, Innuit, Danish, red Irish, Swazi, Korean, German, Hindu, English. Although no percentages, and doesn’t include Dr. Baldwin’s ancestry (admittedly minor), nor the putative mother and father (Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Green), of whom most of her genetic makeup was taken (although not near 100%, as she wouldn’t have been viable – so how much of that is open to question).
Sorry, posted hastily; she’s 1/4 to 1/8th, of whatever ethnicity the Greens were.
Looked at the webpage Nancy cited, that author claims the DNA listings are ‘top sources’ (which I guess is his terminology for ‘biggest contribution in descending order’) then says 2 of first 4 are Native, and another Polynesian (ignoring the other 7), then draws a conclusion from that. Which is not supported by the text. It could just as easily be an unstructured listing of the sources that Dr. Baldwin recalls, from many years ago (possibly incomplete) – and I’d argue the text leans more that way.
And even with sources, she was *designed* to be an elegant package. Nobody says skin tone is an important part of an ethnic/gene complex. It’s merely how racists identify people. Her skin tone and Aryan features could have been picked as white, even if she were 99% Zulu – (only need a few pigments deselected: 3 of 11 (12?) to be really white, vs. 10-12 of 12), smaller nose, maybe lips, and some hair features (straight, lighter).
Also, that author describes her cover picture as blonde. I don’t know why people think light brown is blonde. Auburn, maybe (does it have red in it?). Honey brown (vs. honey blonde). But blonde has yellow to white, and that is not, IMHO.
Also, re: internet – I don’t know that that’s what she was feeding Elephant’s Child with. She was accessing her Boss’s library, as well as other academic resources. I too, feel like Friday – most of the good stuff on today’s internet is $75 per paper, unless you’ve got the right access. The rest is cheap talk, fake news, poorly sourced conjecture, and questionable forums (like this). And yeah, in the text the crazy CL ads are available for free: ‘Do you have a PROBLEM’ pg162, ‘God is waiting for you’ pg129. So I don’t know that Heinlein missed that the internet would be full of trash – just that competent people wouldn’t waste their time with that (ie: hero material).
@87/~e: I’d call that hair colour blonde, too. I wouldn’t call it “light brown” because it isn’t, well, brown. Apparently terminology varies.
Does this count as blonde?
1) https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D8Qz7OhVUAE6uYv?format=jpg
2) https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D5mHt8hXoAAcgle?format=jpg
What about these?
3) https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D5cJy14VUAAcXqj?format=jpg (woman in purple)
4) https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D4ww2wuW4AAqysv?format=jpg
5) https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D4ogECRU8AEEiyp?format=jpg
6) https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D2p5TpgU0AMqDEc?format=jpg (the one objectifying her ass, without tail)
7) https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D2c0rbtUwAAVNxz?format=jpg
8) https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D2Anur-UYAAzp4x?format=jpg (topmost, in tiara)
9) https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D1u7-8lVAAAFxmH?format=jpg
And, I guess I have a different idea of the color brown.
What do all you aliens consider brunette?
@89/~e: 1, 2, 9: blonde.
3, 5-8: not blonde. (Surely there are pictures of Laureline where she isn’t “objectifying her ass”?)
4: no idea, wears helmet.
An alien like me wrote the Wikipedia entry on blond hair and included various subcategories.
The cover illustration is what I would refer to as a dirty blonde but depending on the light, I could see it going either way.
I grew up reading the Heinlein juveniles and was hooked for life. I bought Friday when I saw it in the book store partly out of a sense of obligation, resigned it would be disappointing, but it was a new Helnlein and I would get through it.
I loved the book. Have given multiple copies to friends who loved the book, who had never read science fiction.
I miss the author, he inspired me to dream more than I might have otherwise, and I suspect he did so for at least two generations of younger Americans in the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s, and maybe the 80’s.
I think the reality of the difficulties in space travel have been a bummer for all those Heinlein fans, but I still like betting on the human race, and hopefully we will continue to progress toward a better future.
Now to find someplace to get a Covid vaccination :-)
To me, the plot of “Friday” is the “Life of Friday”. The book simply follows her long life. The prequel novella to “Friday”, “Gulf” in “Assignment To Eternity”, follows the too brief life of her parents.
Hmmmm….. I’m not going to look into the timelines right now, but I’m wondering if this was written when he was ill (something heart related? Stint installed? Went before Congress to testify on….health care?)
IIRC, maybe it was in a Spider Robinson essay, the before operation-after operation split was in the middle of “-Number of the Beast”.
Anyway, something to chew on, do more research, and possibly explain the lack of plot in Friday.
Many of the holes in Friday were lovingly addressed in an homage to Friday by Stross, “Saturns Children.” The attitude towards rape, the lack of a plot, integrating Olympia… I really enjoyed watching him rescue the novel.
It’s been too long since the last time I read Friday. I need to read it again.
I originally read it when it first came out in paperback. I recognized right away that it was structured somewhat differently from most of the other Heinlein books I’d read. I didn’t see that as a bad thing. I don’t really agree that it doesn’t have a plot. Maybe not in the traditional sense. It’s more of a series of smaller vignettes rather than one big story. Like episodes of a TV show run together without the credits or commercials that normally separate everything. They transition from one to the next, each one revealing something about Friday and the world in which she lives.
It’s not the first time Heinlein did something like this. Time Enough For Love has a similar structure in many ways,
Interesting take on _Friday_. I think the lack of plot was an effective, if unintended demonstration of how even highly capable people have limited control over their lives. I think the messy divorce segment was part of Heinlein’s campaign against racism, and was both effective and critical to the theme of the book.