Robert Heinlein - Grumbles From the Grave

A young woman who came with him asked me where I had gotten the word grok -- no, she had not read the book, had not been able to lay hands on a copy [my emphasis added]...but that she knew what it meant as "everybody uses it now."

January 26, 1967: Lurton Blassingame to Robert A. Heinlein Checking on Grok magazine.

February 28, 1967: Lurton Blassingame to Robert A. Heinlein

In the 2/19 issue of the New York Times Book Review, there is an article you may want to see -- "Where the Action Is." It mention(s) Stranger and Grok. Reference seems responsible for stirring Hollywood interest. Another call asking if Stranger rights available.

March 14, 1967: Lurton Blassingame to Robert A. Heinlein Have two issues of Grok.

April 28, 1968: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

I enclose a clipping sent to me from Toronto-please return for my Stranger file. "Fair Use" of course-but that book must have made a wide impression if a telephone company in Canada makes this use of a neologism from it. (And when I think how Putnam continues to refuse to reissue a hardcover of it, I get so annoyed I need a Miltown. Damn it, they should at least arrange a Grosset and Dunlap reprint; I get regular inquiries about where to buy it in hardcover. He's missing a lot of library sales, too.)

May 23, 1968: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

Since I sent you that Canadian telephone ad I have run into three more uses of grok-one in a short story in Playboy, simply as a part of dialog with no explanation, same for a poem, and a report of a shop in Florida: "We Grok Bookshop." Oh, well, while it doesn't pay royalties, it does interest me to see this neologism spread. But the darnedest thing so far is an announcement in the UCLA Daily Bruin concerning "Experimental College Classes-Spring 1968" with one course billed as "J. D. Salinger, Robt. Heinlein, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Other Personal Gurus -- "!!! And I'm such a square I don't even know who the third guru is. Nor does Ginny. However, I'm new to the guru business.

January 23, 1967: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

Did I tell you that [Dr.] Jack Williamson is using Stranger as a study text in his class in SF at U of E. New Mexico? Quote: "I'm launching new courses in linguistics and modern grammar and another in the factual literature of science...(in my SF class) and we are now reading Stranger in a Strange Land. I was a little afraid lhat some of my students might not be sufficiently sophisticated for it, but the response so far is good-some class members feel that it is more successful than Huxley's Brave New World, which we have just finished."

Did I mention in some other letter that Stanford now offers a course in SF? Apparently SF is beginning to be accepted as a respectable genre of serious literature. It is u pleasant feeling-but I have to keep reminding myself that seeing my name in print is nothing; it is seeing it on a check that counts. It is still the clown business; the object is to entertain the cash customer-I shall simply have to try harder than ever.

February 3, 1967: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

Did I give you the impression that the principal interest in Stranger was from teenagers? It may be, but I hope not and do not think so. I might be forced to drink hemlock for "teaching that the worse is the better part and corrupting the youth of the land." Stranger is definitely an adult book, and the comments in it on both sex and religion are such that I think it would be imprudent to attempt any sort of publicity which attempts to tie this book with teenagers.

Lurton, I myself am not the least afraid of corrupting the teenagers of this country; it can't be done. They are far more sophisticated, as a group, than are their parents. They take up in junior high school smoking, drinking, fellatio, cunnilingus, and soixante-neuf, and move on to coition, marijuana, and goof balls during senior high school, then get the Pill and join the New Left when they enter college-or at the very least are exposed to these things at these ages and sometimes earlier. Plus LSD and other drugs if they wish. Shock them or corrupt them -- impossible! If they refrain, it is voluntary, not because they haven't been exposed.

But their parents rarely know this-parents are always certain that it is the wild, beat crowd on the other side of town, not their little darlings! So, while I do not think Stranger can corrupt any reader, no matter how young-on the contrary I think it is a highly moral book-I think also that it would be impolitic to exploit it as a book for teenagers.

November 17, 1967: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

I finally heard from the University of Wisconsin...This was the bid I heard about through -- and concerning which I phoned you. I am about to turn it down-regretfully, since Oshkosh is so close by. But what they want me to do is lecture about Stfanger in a Strange Land. I decided years ago never to discuss my own works on a platform...and I think the pragmatic reasons behind this decision apply especially strongly to Stranger. A writer looks pretty durn silly "explaining" his stories. He said what he had to say in the ms. -- or should have. Stranger is a fairy tale; if it amuses the reader, he has received what he paid for. If he gets something more out of it, that's a free bonus. But I'm durned if I'll "explain" it.

(I wonder if John Barth ever "explains" Giles Goat Boy? If he does, I'll bet he has his forked tongue in both cheeks and intentionally leaves the listener more bemused than ever. I was much impressed and enormously amused by Giles, and now I want to obtain and read and keep all his other fictional works-now that I can afford things other than building materials. On the other hand, Earth's fiction is not for Ginny; she lives life in simple declarative sentences with no veiled allusions, and she wants her fiction the same way.)

I am turning down the bid from Cornell; I turned down one yesterday from U of California; and I am turning down as they come in numerous lesser bids mostly from high schools here and there. Quite aside from the nuisance of speaking in public, this is not a year when I want to cope extemporaneously with the questions period which usually follows a platform talk-undeclared wars, race riots, the drop-out generation, etc., are all matters I prefer not to deal with orally and in public; I find these matters extremely complex and am not sure of the wisdom of my opinions.

But I did find it expedient to accept an invitation for March 30 for the Monterey Bay Area Libraries Book Festival; librarians are a special category. I feel that I have lo do it once, for the local libraries-then next time I can point out that I already have, and sorry, but this year I'm tied up. I waived their fee, however, as I prefer doing it free to accepting a small fee ($50) -- so that I can continue lo tell others that sure, I speak in public-but I'm a pro and my fees are horrendously high.

January 7, 1970: Virginia Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

Some weeks ago, a fan letter came in from the jail in Independence, California. In a burst of generosity, Robert tried to do something about this girl who'd written him. It turned out that she was one of the Manson family. So if we're knifed in our beds like Sharon Tate, it's because of three letters from members of the family. Just tell the police. I'm leaving these notices everywhere I can, in hopes of preventing anything from happening.

PLAYBOY INTERVIEW

January 16, 1970: Virginia Heinlein and Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

Will you also please tell Mr. [Hugh] Hefner that the only reason Robert agreed to be interviewed was not publicity for himself, but the offer of a forum to boost the space program. Publication of this interview in an early issue might have helped. As it is, the space program is in ruins, and Hefner is attempting to make something of what might have been by the use of Stranger and the Manson case. We will not go along with this. He has not bought himself a tame rabbit by that contribution to the Ed White Memorial Fund. He can take his [magazine] and stuff it, having first folded it until it is all corners. Under no condition will we make any public statement about the Manson case and Stranger. We consider Mr. Hefner's suggestion very much out of line and an invasion of our privacy. It is not a matter of reluctance to discuss Robert's work, but a downright refusal to do so, which has been a policy of his for a very long time.