Robert Heinlein - Grumbles From the Grave

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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