I just noticed that it was exactly five years ago that I blogged about a NYT Sunday Book Review article on John Scalzi that ends up being 50 percent about Heinlein.

The NYT article: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/24/books/review/Itzkoff.t.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=1&adxnnlx=1325019892-2rdArK5n1X/GBRv7RDK6DA

Full text of post below, original with all links at http://illuminationinc.blogspot.com/2006/12/heinlein-defenders-hit-back.html

Heinlein Defenders Hit Back

It was intriguing to see how one book review in the New York Times prompted a flurry of activity in the blogosphere in defense of Robert A. Heinlein and his ideas—the irony being that the review wasn’t directly of Heinlein's work, but of John Scalzi’s The Ghost Brigades. The prompt and forceful reaction is mainly attributable to the reviewer's use of the tired old canard that Heinlein was an "endorse[er] of fascism” because of his glorification of the military in Starship Troopers.

Instapundit was good enough to link to a 1980 piece by Spider Robinson that hilariously punctures that particular piece of stupidity, as well as a lot of others that certain fans, critics and the media have brought up in relation to Heinlein and his work over the years. Robinson also makes a more universal and interesting point—that we shouldn’t try to judge an author’s philosophy and politics through his fiction, much less start throwing around labels like “fascist,” which as I pointed to recently, isn't just a generic term of derogation; worse, it's usually inaccurate.

The point, Heinlein himself said, was that his work wasn't about telling us the answers, it was about raising the questions. The hard truth of the world is that we have to figure out the answers for ourselves, if they're to be worth a damn. The answers we get predigested from our teachers, professors and politicians as we grow up are their answers. Adult human beings decide the answers for themselves. To me, that's what Heinlein's writing has been about since I was 12 years old and read Tunnel in the Sky for the first time. Life is about finding out how to be a good and great human being, what you owe yourself, your family and your society. That's why Robert Heinlein was a great thinker, and author. That's why I saved my Heinlein collection for many years--so that my son, now aged two, can start reading it ASAP.

Addendum: Prof Reynolds also points us to this 1997 article by Will Collier that refers to Roger Ebert (the movie critic) calling Heinlein a "right-wing saber-rattler" (amongst other stupidities) in relation to the excreable film version of Starship Troopers. Later, I read that the punk who directed it, Paul Verhoeven, stated that he deliberately set out to make the ideas presented in the book look ridiculous in his film.

A true Heinlein hero would just laugh at the little creep, but being an all-too-human man in the real world I'll admit that I'd at least like to swat him across the shins with a cricket bat for that particular effort to drag us all down.

Okay, and then just once in the short ribs...

Do you have a reference? I believe you, I would find the reference useful.

Peter,

Since I didn't link to whatever it was I was thinking of five years ago I've been looking around for the exact quote. I remember reading it in an interview with Verhoeven.

The passage below sounds almost like what I remember from the time but somehow I don't think it's the exact one: Ihttp://www.industrycentral.net/directo ... s/PV01.HTM

Normally with a Hollywood film the audience wants to root for the young heroes. Here it's disturbing because they're part of a fascist war machine and it creates a strange feeling in the audience. How much of that did you intend as satirical?

I tried to indicate that without making it into the essence of the movie. Because I think the essence of the movie is really young kids fighting giant bugs. And of course, [the fascist nature of the society] was indicated in Heinlein's book even more than we did it. On the other hand, I think a lot of elements in the film put question marks around that. That was my intention. Young kids starting at three already using guns--is that really what you want?

Somehow that doesn't seem exactly like what I had in mind. The 1997 Will Collier article from one of those 1997 ISP pages is now long gone, and I'm not sure if I got a link from there. I'll keep digging when I have some time.

We may not have long to wait. Verhoeven has shown up in more than one episode of the "Prophets of Science Fiction" series. When we get to the Heinlein episode (mid-February 2012, I gather), I'll be surprised if he doesn't weigh in with his "I grew up under fascism, and Starship Troopers is a fascist novel" rant.

This quote sets some kind of record for the sheer density of errors, misunderstandings, stupidities, and WTFs. I think there is more than one per sentence. How did our Bob rack up such bad karma to have this guy direct one of his seminal works? Sob.

I also had heard before and was reminded when searching around yesterday that PV didn't actually finish ST--tried to read it and was bored...I guess that explains something. Verhoeven has a very limited range, anyway. Sex, violence and irony. He managed to make an R-rated film out of ST, which is barely a PG-13 rated book. I used to lament that more RAH films hadn't been made while Phil Dick suddenly became trendy and cool in the movie biz. Looking back, perhaps we who admire Heinlein are fortunate...