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TO_SAIL_BEYOND

                                           Theodore Sturgeon had a similar
                                           approach (he called it "asking
Throughout Heinlein's                      the next question").  Sturgeon
life, questioning taboos                   got to incest first: "If All Men
(asking "Why not?") was                    Were Brothers, Would You Let One
one of his standard                        Marry Your Sister?"
approaches to problems,
in his later (and              _Time Enough for Love_
unfortunately lesser)          (cf. "Da Capo", the
novels he started              concluding
attacking sexual taboos,       time-travel/incest
including incest.              fantasy).

One of the reason these
things seem like such weak
novels to me is that there's
no recognition that such
social experiments can fail.


Heinlein heroes often seem to
be perfect entities who are
almost always in charge of
their emotions: they are never
unreasonably jealous.

However, in _To Sail Beyond
the Sunset_, we're shown the
other side of these things.

Maureen's open relationship
leads to a divorce.                 Her husband decides
                                    he prefers the
Living in a family where            younger woman in        Or... at least
recreational incest is the          the menage et trios.    that's the way
norm leads to a jealous                                     Maureen seems
rivalry between two of her                                  to see it.
sons fighting for the
attentions of a daughter.                               A close reading
                                                        suggests that
                                                        Brian (her
Maureen is left with at least                           husband) has
some doubt about how she's                              some reason on
lived...                                                his side:

                                                        In effect
  Writing your own rules                                Brian is a man
  for living is diving off                              with two
  into an unknown sea where                             wives, one of
  you may win big or lose                               which is past
  horribly.                                             child-bearing
                                                        age.
  Heinlein, at last, seems
  to be dealing with the                                Living in the United
  real issue. Of all the                                States around the
  later works, this one                                 turn-of-the-century,
  seems the strongest.                                  he has a woman in the
                                                        household bearing
  Usually Heinlein's heroes                             children, who is not
  have to contend with                                  legally married to
  Mrs. Grundy's of the                                  any one.  This seems
  world, but here they also                             at best very awkward,
  have to deal with the                                 if not outright
  flaws within themselves.                              dangerous.
                               STRANGER
  It's the difference                                   Note, Maureen
  between writing a novel                               mentions in
  and an advertisement.                                 passing that
                                                        neither of the
                                                        other two
     Had Heinlein lived a little longer,                expected her
     maybe he could've gotten beyond the                to move out:
     level of softcore sexual fantasy,
     and gotten back to the sort of                     In other words, in
     thing he could do best:                            Brian's mind, this
                                                        was just a change
     Imagination tempered by realism.                   in legal
                                                        technicalities.

                                                        If Maureen doesn't
                                                        see it that way,
                                                        maybe Brian just did
                                                        an astoundingly bad
                                                        job of explaining
                                                        the idea --

                                                        Or maybe Maureen
                                                        has done a bad job
                                                        of representing
                                                        his side.

                                                        Heinlein is not
                                                        usually given
                                                        credit for being
                                                        capable of
                                                        subtlety,
                                                        but here's a clear
                                                        counter-example.


                          An even better counter-example
                          might be Algis Budry's reading
                          of the end of "The Moon is a
                          Harsh Mistress".



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