The Pleasant Profession of Robert A. Heinlein (Review)

The Pleasant Profession of Robert A. Heinlein by Farah Mendlesohn is a crowd-funded review of the life and works of the author Robert A. Heinlein. In full disclosure, I supported the funding effort, and my name appears among the list of backers (p. 477, second column, near the top, if you care to find it).

I can only attribute my finishing this book as an exercise in sheer force of will. I’ve made several attempts to complete it since I received it in 2019. I was determined that, one way or another, my most recent attempt would be the last, if only to justify the nearly $100 I paid almost seven years. You can spare me the sunk cost fallacy lecture; I’m already aware of it.

In earnest, I don’t regret the money I spent on this book, and I regret the time spent on it only moderately. Thereƒ are too few serious attempts to consider (or reconsider) Heinlein’s work and legacy as a body, and I would likely support other similar attempts in the future. Maybe I’ll even attempt one of my own, or at least pick up on my Virginia Edition reviews again.

That said, while The Pleasant Profession of Robert A. Heinlein is notable for its length, its ambition as an analytical work leaves much to be desired. All but the most tortured Heinlein fans and scholars can readily skip it without missing much in the way of useful insights.

Rating: 3.5/10 (rounded up to 2/5 on Goodreads)

Overview

Farah Mendlesohn’s impetus for this book, as noted in the preface, is to flesh out an undergraduate idea they¹ had that of six then-prolific science fiction authors, Heinlein was the only one who exhibited a significant attitude shift in the portrayal of women over the course of their fiction-writing careers. In Pleasant Profession, Farah expands on that idea to look at shifts (or perceived shifts) along various axes, including:

• Narrative arc
• Technique
• Rhetoric
• Civic society
• Revolution
• Racism
• The “right ordering” of self
• Gender

Each of these topics constitutes a chapter, preceded by a nearly 60-page biographic summary, mostly cribbed (as Farah acknowledges) from William H. Patterson, Jr.’s two-volume biography of Heinlein.

As it turns out, the lengthy biographical introduction is a setup for the following topical reviews of Heinlein’s work as a “window and mirror” (as a back-cover blurb from Lois McMaster Bujold puts it) on Heinlein. Throughout Pleasant Profession, Farah repeatedly uses Heinlein’s literary output as a way to comment on — and at times psychologize — the man himself.

And that approach is not terribly compelling.

For one thing, the windows and mirrors are streaked and dirty. Throughout the book, there are a number of misreadings and factual errors — a fault for which Farah criticizes other critics in the introduction — such as the following claim about I Will Fear No Evil:

A little later there is a longer discussion in which Joan seems to be channelling Heinlein’s own thoughts, and here it’s worth remembering that this book was written in 1982, just as Americans were becoming aware of AIDS and before it changed the face of American gay life. (p. 366)

This would be a suitable reminder, perhaps, if I Will Fear No Evil were indeed written in 1982. However, it was written in 1969 and published in 1970, long before almost everyone’s awareness of the disease that would later be called AIDs. Getting a date wrong is forgivable, but insinuating that Heinlein’s attitude in the book was shaped by a zeitgeist that didn’t emerge until thirteen years after the story was written is inexcusable, especially for a critic who laments that they “frequently want critics to have a stronger sense of context” (p. xii). Certainly, one might presume that such desired context should be correct.

Even ignoring the statement’s inaccuracy, Farah never explains why, precisely, the timing might be noteworthy. Throughout the book, Farah suggests similar types of (accurate) historical alignment that do little to provide any actual insight or analysis about either the story or its author. Such alignments are mere insinuations, winks and nods toward some assumed conclusion that the reader suspects they are supposed to make, but which the author never states directly.

And therein lies the ultimate frustration with The Pleasant Profession of Robert A. Heinlein. Even in those chapters (not all of them) where Farah states an explicit argument, there is little, if any, synthesis or conclusion based on the context provided. At the end of the book, the reader is left with nothing more than a sack of references to Heinlein’s life and work, like pieces of Ikea furniture waiting to be put together — and it’s unclear if all the pieces even belong to the same catalog item.

Let me mention a few.

Guns, Politeness and Courtesy

In an 11-page “aside” about guns, Farah quotes a letter from Heinlein to the editor of his juvenile books, Alice Dalgliesh, indicating his experience with guns (Pleasant Profession 238; see also, Grumbles from the Grave 54-57). Farah then writes:

We tend to focus on the support for guns in this statement. What is rarely noticed is its revelation: Heinlein never fired a shot in combat or was ever shot at in combat. Heinlein’s primary use of armaments would have been the large guns of a ship. His use of firearms was carefully controlled. In this section I intend to argue that Heinlein’s work reflects this, from his use of the code duello, through his restriction of where guns are appropriate, and on to his tendency to undermine, in his narrative trajectories, any rhetoric or argument about guns as a weapon of defence. (238)

Farah goes on to describe how guns are used (or not) in Heinlein’s various juvenile and adult novels. In most self-defense scenarios where a character has a gun, the character either refrains from using it, or they fail to use it due to some mishap (such as dropping it) or inability (such as being overpowered). These moments of ineptitude and incapacity are intended as negative evidence toward the argument that Heinlein’s work reflects his “controlled” use of firearms.

Among the examples provided is a discussion about the famous assertion from Beyond This Horizon that “an armed society is a polite society.” In that discussion, Farah seems to confuse politeness and courtesy by insisting that “the existence of courtesy is often a ritual of violence.” I imagine this to be a very British — or, more broadly, European — take on the idea of courtesy as a derivation of courtly mannerism, fraught with an overtone of aristocratic pecking order. In America, however, politeness is seen as a superficial social ritual which one undertakes so as not to offend or be perceived as offending a (non-noble) peer, while courtesy connotes action based on a deeper, more authentic level of consideration among equals. Heinlein almost certainly was using “polite” in the American sense.

As part of the this commentary, Farah recounts the restaurant scene in Beyond‘s opening chapter, in which Hamilton Felix takes responsibility for his companion’s accidental dropping of a crab leg over the balcony where they sat. The greasy bit of food lands on a woman below and stains her dress, causing two of her male companions to challenge Felix as the responsible party. The older challenger asserts privilege, backing off after Felix apologizes, provides assurance that it was an accident, and offers to pay for the dress. However, a third man, who is inebriated and unassociated with the other two challengers, accuses Felix of being “let off lightly.” Felix and the drunk man proceed to escalate insults, until the drunk man shoots a laser weapon and misses, leaving Felix to kill him with a shot from his Colt 45.

Farah looks at these two challenges only from the perspective of whether or not the society of Beyond can truly be considered a polite. By virtue of a later statement that the “one clear incident” in which guns are used as weapons of defense occurs in Time Enough for Love, it’s clear that Farah does not consider this to be an incident of self defense. The first encounter with the older man who asserts privilege is certainly subject to a set of social rules whose politeness (or courtesy) can be questioned, but it’s notable that when the right overtures are made — apology, assurance, and offer of recompense — the issue is resolved to everyone’s non-violent satisfaction.

The second encounter, however, is decidedly not a matter of politeness, but rather of defense against aggression and the repair of a rift caused by impoliteness. In that encounter, Felix does provoke the drunk man verbally, but only in response to the hostile attacks levied against him. The drunk man begins the firefight, and Felix’s return shot is one of self-defense, rather than one required by the strictures of either politeness or courtesy. In fact, this second encounter is an example of both self-defense and the maintenance (or perhaps restoration) of a polite society by removing from it a person who has proven that he cannot abide by the strictures of politeness.

The juxtaposition of a the first encounter, with its orderly and polite (or courteous) resolution, and the second encounter, with its violent but justifiable self-defense response to aggression, are presented as if to indicate that both responses are correct within the society of Beyond This Horizon. After receiving assurance that no offense was intended, the old man of the first encounter returned to his meal, satisfied that his initial reaction and later restraint were both appropriate. After the dead drunk man of the second encounter was carried out of the restaurant by his embarrassed friends, Felix and the various onlookers who witnessed the encounter likewise returned to their meals, similarly satisfied that the self-defense response was appropriate.

None of this indicates that Heinlein believed either of these encounters were “good” in any moral sense, or that he desired for society to be ordered as illustrated in Beyond. It does, however, show that he did not “undermine…any rhetoric or argument about guns as a weapon of defence.” In fact, when one considers that Felix was covering for his guest, it’s possible to read both encounters — the polite as well as the aggressive — as a form of defense. He undertook responsibility for his companion’s mistake, knowing that doing so could result in his own death, even without being able to predict the aggressive second encounter. This is even more poignant if one argues, as Farah does, that the society of Beyond is not particularly polite. At the very least, it disproves the author’s claim of “a very clear statement about guns, and the role of guns in society” (Pleasant Profession 242) — a statement that, despite being allegedly “very clear,” Farah never actually states.

Ignoring the motivation of defense in Felix’s actions in these encounters to reach a “very clear [but unstated] statement” is typical of the analysis throughout the book.

Gender Wish-Fulfillment

The final and second-longest chapter (after the opening biographical sketch) is on Heinlein’s use of gender. It’s split into four sections: three on Heinlein’s presumed selves (masculine, female, and “interstitial”), and one on his supposed craving for family. There’s plenty that could be said across all four sections, but I’ll focus primarily on the one covering Heinlein’s “Female Self” with the understanding that similar issues could be found in the others.

The first item of note is the disparity between the section titles of “Heinlein’s Masculine Self” and “Heinlein’s Female Self.” The word “masculine” suggests social gender norms, while “female” suggests biology. It’s unclear why Farah chose to employ these disparate connotations, given that both sections deal primarily with gender. Furthermore, in the chapter introduction, Farah uses the term “femininity,” not femaleness, when describing the chapter flow: “I want to think about the consequences [of Heinlein’s construction of gendered societies] for the individual, beginning with masculinity, femininity, intersex and transgender and moving on to…the growing craving for both biological and constructed or fictive family” (357). The disparity in terminology, along with the inaccurate description of the chapter’s flow (the section on the feminine or female self follows, not precedes, the section on the “interstitial” — i.e., intersex and transgender — self) may indicate nothing more than the need for an independent editor.² Nonetheless, the book is rife with this sort of inattention to detail and consistency that often leads to a lack of clarity about the focus of the discussion.

The thrust of Farah’s assertion in relation to femininity (or femaleness) is that Heinlein yearned “to get a real feeling for what women think, feel and want” (384). As evidence, the author presents Heinlein’s ten stories narrated or partially narrated by women or girls, including four shorts and six novels. Fleshing out the assertion, Farah contends that “in those texts in which women have narrative and focalised agency, Heinlein made a conscious effort to think about what women were like, and how they thought about themselves” (386).

The second half of this assertion could be turned into an interesting argument, especially if contrasted with other character treatments:

• Did Heinlein treat other non-narrator women and girls differently?
• Is there a distinction between how Heinlein treats women characters and male characters?
• Is it notable if disparate treatment between characters of different genders does not exist?
• How does this treatment differ from Heinlein’s sci-fi contemporaries and predecessors? (Especially in light of Farah’s frequent insistence about understanding everything in historical context.)

Unfortunately, the entire discussion about Heinlein’s female narrator characters serves only one purpose: as evidence for the alleged yearning Heinlein felt to be a woman. And sadly, the evidence barely goes beyond mentioning connections between the characters and Heinlein’s biographical circumstance.

The best example of this superficiality is the comparison of Maureen Johnson Smith Long, the narrator of To Sail Beyond the Sunset, and Heinlein in the final paragraph of the section. Farah lays out three “reversals” that “could be understood as Heinlein writing himself as a woman” (404):

• Heinlein gave Virginia a cat when she moved in with him, just like Maureen gives her partner Briney a cat.
• Heinlein felt himself to be the least favorite male child (presumably of his family, though Farah does not specify), whereas Lazarus Long is “repressed” for being the favorite.
• Maureen mentions an old schoolmate named “Helen Beck,” which is also the name of one of Heinlein’s old schoolmates.

To point out the most obvious problem first, the middle example tying Heinlein to Lazarus Long has no relevance to his supposed intent of “writing himself as a woman” in To Sail Beyond the Sunset — or if it is relevant, then the relevance is hidden under the same layers of assumption and insinuation that cover the entire book. Secondly, the remaining two items are not reversals but parallels, if we are to consider Maureen as a self-insert character. Even so, these examples makes extremely thin evidence for the “yearning” that Farah sees in Heinlein’s depictions of women.

At the end of the section, and indeed the entire chapter, the reader is left with the question of what to do with any of the arguments made. A gracious reading makes it possible to accept that, for example, “Heinlein made a conscious effort to think about what women were like” while writing his stories, but the impetus to turn that thin revelation (after all, every good writer makes a conscious effort to think about what their characters are like) into a vicarious psychological diagnosis undercuts any possibility for substantive analysis or insight.

Conclusion

I said above that I do not regret supporting this book, and I stand by that statement, even after pointing out its many flaws and deficiencies. If nothing more, I hope it does the job of spurring other in-depth looks at Heinlein’s work.

Notes

1. In this review, I follow Farah Mendlesohn’s stated preference of using their first or full name wherever possible, or they (along with them and their) “if the sentence gets too unwieldy.” ↩︎
2. The book was edited by Farah’s husband and fellow historian, Edward James. ↩︎