Stranger in a Strange Land

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Stranger in a Strange Land is a 1961 science fiction novel by American author Robert A. Heinlein. It tells the story of Valentine Michael Smith, a man who came to Earth in his early adulthood after being born on Mars and raised by the Martians. This novel explores its interaction with - and the eventual transformation - of Terran culture. In 2012, the US Library of Congress named it one of 88 "American Books".

The title "The Stranger in the Land of Weirdness" is the reference to the phrase in Exodus 2:22. According to Heinlein, the title of the novel is The Heretic .

In 1991, three years after Heinlein's death, his widow, Virginia Heinlein, arranged for the unpublished manuscript to be published. Critics disagree about which version is superior, though Heinlein prefers the original script and describes the widely edited version as "telegraphese".

Video Stranger in a Strange Land

Plot

This story focuses on a man who grew up on Mars and his adaptation to, and understanding of, their human and cultural. This is set in the post-US Third World War, where religions are politically organized. There is a World Free Federation, including the demilitarization of the United States, with a world government supported by Special Forces troops.

The manned expedition was installed to visit Mars, but all contacts disappeared after landing. The second expedition 25 years later found a survivor, Valentine Michael Smith. Smith was born on a spacecraft and fully raised by the Martians. He was ordered by the Martians to accompany the returning expedition.

Because Smith was unfamiliar with the conditions on Earth, he was locked up in Bethesda Hospital, where he never saw a human woman, he was only attended by male staff. Seeing this restriction as a challenge, Nurse Gillian Boardman avoided the guards and went to see Smith. By sharing a glass of water with her, she accidentally became her first female "water brother", considered a deep connection by the Martians.

Gillian told her lover, reporter Ben Caxton, about her experience with Smith. Ben explains that as heir to all the explorers, Smith is very rich, and following the legal precedents set during the colonization of the Moon, he can be considered the owner of Mars himself. His arrival on Earth has driven the struggle for political power that puts his life in danger. Ben persuades him to disrupt Smith's room and then publishes a story to lure the government to release him. Ben was arrested by the government, and Gillian persuaded Smith to leave the hospital with him. When government agents pursue them, Smith makes his agents disappear, then very surprised by Gillian's fearful reaction that he enters the katatonia resemblance. Gillian, recalling Ben's previous suggestion, conveyed Smith to Jubal Harshaw, a famous writer who was also a doctor and lawyer.

Smith continues to demonstrate psychic abilities and super human intelligence, coupled with childish naÃÆ'devet. When Harshaw tried to explain religion to him, Smith understood the concept of God only as a "tinkering man", which included every existing organism. This leads him to express the concept of Martian life as the phrase "Thou God", though he knows this is a bad translation. Many other human concepts such as war, clothing, and jealousy are strange to him, while the idea of ​​life after death is a fact he takes for granted because the Martians are directed by the "Old Man", Martian spirits who have "discorporated". It is also a habit for loved ones and friends to eat the bodies of the dead, in a rite similar to Holy Communion. Finally, Harshaw regulates freedom for Smith and the recognition that the laws of man, which will grant Martian ownership to Smith, have no application to planets already inhabited by intelligent life.

Still very rich, and now free to travel, Smith became a celebrity and worshiped by the Earth elite. He investigates many religions, including the Fosterite Church of the New Revelation, a megachurch populist where sexuality, gambling, alcohol consumption, and similar activities are permitted, even encouraged, and only considered "sinning" when not under the watchful eye of the church. The New Revelation Church is organized in the complexity of the initiation level: the outer circle, open to the public; the usual circle of ordinary members who support the church financially; and the inner circle of "eternally stored" - attractive, sexually attractive men and women, serving as pastors and recruiting new members. The Church has many politicians and has committed acts of violence against those who oppose it. Smith also had a brief career as a magician in a carnival, where he and Gillian made friends with the tattooed lady on the show, an eternally defended "Fosterite" named Patricia Paiwonski.

Finally, Smith started the "All World Church" influenced by Mars that incorporated elements of the Fosterit cult (especially the sexual aspect) with Western esoterism, whose members learned Martian language and thus gained psychokinetic abilities. The Church was ultimately besieged by Fosterites for practicing "blasphemy", and the church building was destroyed; but unknown to the public, Smith's followers teleported to safety. Smith was arrested by the police, but fled and returned to his followers, then explains to Jubal that his enormous wealth has been handed down to the Church. With that wealth and their new abilities, Church members will be able to rearrange human society and culture. Finally, those who can not or will not learn Smith's methods will die, leaving Homo superior . Incidentally, this could save the Earth from the final destruction by the Martians, who were responsible for the destruction of the fifth planet, several years ago.

Smith was killed by a mob raised against him by the Foster. From the hereafter, he spoke briefly to the Jubal who mourns, to prevent him from committing suicide. After spending a small part of Smith's remnants according to Martian customs, Jubal and some members of the Church returned to Jubal's home to regroup and prepare for their new evangelical role setting up trials. Meanwhile, Smith reappears in the afterlife to replace the eponymous founder Fosterites, amid clues that Smith is the incarnation of Archangel Michael.

Maps Stranger in a Strange Land

Character

Heinlein named his main character "Smith" because of a speech he made at a science fiction convention on unspeakable names assigned to extraterrestrials. After explaining the importance of building dramatic differences between humans and aliens, Heinlein concluded, "Besides, anyone who has ever heard of a Mars named Smith?" ("A Martian Named Smith" is Heinlein's working title for the book and the name of the scenario started by Harshaw in the end). The title of Stranger in the Strange Land is taken from the King James Version of Exodus 2:22, "And he gave birth to a son, and he called his name Gershom: for he said, I have become a stranger in foreign country ".

In an introduction to an unpublished original version of his book, reissued in 1991, Heinlein, Virginia's widow wrote: "The names given of the main characters are very important to the plot: They are carefully chosen: Jubal means 'father of all,' Michael stands for 'Who is like God? ' ".

• Valentine Michael Smith - known as Michael Smith or "Mike"; "Man from Mars", was resurrected on Mars in the interval between the landing of his parent ship, Envoy , and the arrival of the second expedition, Champion ; was about 20 years old when Champion came and took him to Earth.
• Gillian (Jill) Boardman - a nurse at Bethesda Hospital who sneaks Mike out of government custody; he played a key role in introducing him to human culture and became one of his nearest beliefs and central figure in the All World Church, developed by Mike.
Ben Caxton - Jill's early love interest, and investigative journalist (Jill sees it as "lippmann" or, politically, rather than "winchell", or the trend of celebrity gossip), who masterminded Mike's early freedom from custody; he joins Mike's inner circle but remains somewhat skeptical, at first, from a growing social order.
• Jubal Harshaw - a popular writer, lawyer and doctor, now semi-retired to a house in the Pocono Mountains; as an influential but closed public figure, he provided important support for Mike's independence and a safe place for him; old but in good health, he serves as a father figure for the inner circle while maintaining a suspicious distance from him.
• Anne, Miriam, Dorcas - three Harshaw personal/professional secretaries, living with him and taking turns as his "front", responding to his instructions; Anne is certified as a Fair Witness, empowered to give objective legal testimony about the events she witnessed; the third became Michael's early church counselor.
• Duke, Larry - Handyman who works for Harshaw and lives on his land; they are also the main members of the church.
• Dr. "Stinky" Mahmoud - a semantic and second man (after Mike) to gain knowledge of the Martian language, though he does not "grok" the language; become a member of the church while maintaining its Muslim faith.
• Patty Paiwonski - "tattooed lady" and snake handlers at the circus Mike and Jill join for a while; she has a relationship with Foster's church, which she maintains as a member of Mike's inner circle.
• Joseph Douglas - The Secretary General of the Federation of Free States, which has evolved indirectly from the United Nations into a true world government.
• Alice Douglas - (sometimes called "Agnes"), wife of Joe Douglas. As First Lady, she manipulates her husband, makes economic, political, and staffing decisions. He often consults with astrologer Becky Vesant for big decisions.
• Foster - the founder of the New Revelation Church (Fosterite); now there as an archangel.
• Digby - Foster's successor as head of Fosterit Church; he became an angel under Foster after Mike "decided" him.

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Reception

Heinlein's deliberately provocative book has caused much controversy. The free love and commune aspect of the Church of All Worlds led to the exclusion of books from school reading lists. Once rumored to be associated with Charles Manson, it was removed from the school library as well.

Writing in The New York Times Orville Prescott embraced the novel harshly, describing it as "a dream of science fiction, humor, exaggerated social criticism and cheap eroticism"; he characterizes the Stranger in the Weird Land as "childish and ridiculous," saying "when non-stop parties are combined with a lot of unreasonable chats, it becomes unbearable, an affront to the patience and intelligence of the reader ". Galaxy reviewer Floyd C. Gale rated the novel 3.5 stars out of five, saying "the book's shortcomings lie not so much in emancipation as in the fact that Heinlein has bitten too big a portion of chewing".

Despite such reviews, Strangers in Strange Land won the 1962 Hugo Award for Best Novel and became the first science fiction novel to enter The New York Times Book Review 'list best selling . In 2012, it is included in the Library of Congress exhibition "Books That Shaped America".

In 2010, fictional science fiction writer Jo Walton condemned the book as sexist, arrogant and plotted weakly, saying he would not recommend anyone else to read the book.

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Development

Heinlein got the idea for a novel when he and his wife Virginia brainstormed one night in 1948. He suggested a new version of Rudyard Kipling's book The Jungle Book (1894), but with a child raised by people- Martians instead. wolf. He decided to go further with the idea and work on it continuously for more than a decade. His editor in Putnam then asked him to cut the length of 220,000 words to 160,067 words before publication. In 1962, he received the Hugo Award for Best Novel.

Strangers in a Strange Land was written in part as a deliberate attempt to challenge social customs. In the course of the story, Heinlein uses Smith's open mind to reevaluate institutions such as religion, money, monogamy, and fear of death. Heinlein finished writing it ten years after he had planned it in detail. He then wrote, "I am in no hurry to finish it, because the story can not be published commercially until the customary public changes, I can see they are changing and I have set the right time."

This book is dedicated to science fiction writer Philip JosÃÆ'Â © Farmer, who has explored the sexual themes in his works such as The Lovers (1952). It was also influenced by the satirical fantasies of James Cabell.

Heinlein is surprised that some readers think this book describes how he believes society should be organized, explains: "I do not give answers, I try to unleash the reader of some preconceptions and persuade him to think, for himself, along the lines new and fresh.Therefore, every reader gets something different from the book because he alone provides the answers... This is an invitation to think - do not believe. "

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Influence

This book significantly influences modern culture in various ways, exemplified below.

Worldwide Church

The main element of the second half of the novel is the religious movement founded by Smith, "The Church of the World", a mystery initiation religion that combines elements of paganism and revivalism, with training and psychic instruction in the language of Mars. In 1968, Oberon Zell-Ravenheart (later Tim Zell) founded the Church of All Worlds, a Neopagan religious organization modeled in many ways after the fictional organization of the novel. This spiritual path includes several ideas from the book, including polyamory, non-mainstream family structure, social libertarianism, water-sharing rituals, acceptance of all religious paths by one tradition, and the use of terms such as "grok," "You Lord," and " Never Haus ". Although Heinlein is not a member or promoter of the Church, it was formed including the frequent correspondence between Zell and Heinlein, and Heinlein is a paid customer to Church magazine Green Egg. This church still exists as a recognized religious organization 501 (c) (3) incorporated in California, with membership worldwide, and remains an active part of today's neopagan community.

Grok

The word "grok", created in a novel, makes its way into English. In the Martian language made by Heinlein, "grok" literally means "to drink" and figuratively means "to understand", "to love", and "to be one with". This word quickly became a common language among science fiction enthusiasts, hippies, and then computer programmers and hackers, and has since entered the Oxford English Dictionary.

Waterbed

Strange Person in the Strange Land contains a preliminary description of a water mattress, an invention that made its world debut in 1968. Charles Hall, who brought the design of a water mattress to the US Patent Office, rejected the patent on the grounds that Heinlein in Foreign in Strange Land and another novel, Double Star (1956), is an earlier art.

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In popular culture

• Novelin Heinlein Lost Legacy (1941) lends his theme, and possibly some characters, to Strangers in Strange Land . In the relevant part of the story, Joan Freeman is described as feeling like "foreigner in a foreign land".
• The Police released Andy Summers's song "Friends", as a B-side for their hit "Do not Stand So Close to Me" (1980), which refers to the novel. Summers claims that it's about eating your friends, or 'grocking' them as [ Strangers in Strange Land ] putting it ".
• Billy Joel's song "We Did not Start the Fire" (1989) mentions the novel.

TV series

In November 2016, Syfy plans to develop a TV series based on a novel with Paramount Television and Universal Cable Productions that produced this series.

Publishing history

Two major versions of this book exist:

• The 1961 version which, at the publisher's request, Heinlein cuts up to 25% in length. Around 60,000 words have been removed from the original script, including some sharp criticism of America's attitude toward sex and religion. The book is marketed to the main reader, and is the first science fiction novel listed on the New York Times Best Seller's list for fiction. In 1997, more than 100,000 copies of the hardback edition had been sold along with nearly five million copies of the novel. None of his novels will ever match this level of success.
• The 1991 version, taken from Heinlein's archives at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Department of Special Collections by Heinlein, Virginia, and published posthumously, reproduces the original manuscript and returns all the pieces. That was because in 1989 Virginia renewed copyright for Alien and renounced its existing publication contract pursuant to the Copyright Act of 1976. Both Heinlein's agent and its publisher (who has a new senior editor) agreed that the version has not been cut better: readers are accustomed to longer books, and what is considered inappropriate in 1961 is no longer 30 years later. Many preferred the uncut version, but the minority preferred the shorter and tighter version issued in 1961, which is only available from used bookstores and online sellers.

Heinlein himself remarked in a letter he wrote to Oberon Zell-Ravenheart in 1972 that he thought his edited version was better edited. He wrote, "SISL is never censored by anyone in any way.The first design is almost twice as long as the published version I cut it myself to make it a commercial length, but I do not leave anything important. exaggerated rambling Perhaps you have noticed that it reads "fast" despite its length, which is why... The original version, the longest SISL... is really not worth your trouble, because it's the same story throughout - just not told well.With it is a brushpenned version that shows what's being cut - not worth reading, I learned to write for a slurry magazine, where one was paid by the page not by the package; it was not until I started writing for the Saturday Evening Post that I learned the short virtue. "

In addition, since Heinlein added some material (which many readers deemed important) when he edited the script for a commercial release, the 1991 edition taken directly from the original manuscript did not have some material in the novel at the time. first published.

Banyak edisi ada:

• 1 Juni 1961, Putnam Publishing Group, hardcover, ISBNÂ 0-399-10772-X
• Avon, NY, edisi paperback 1, 1962.
• 1965, New English Library Ltd, (London).
• Maret 1968, Berkley Medallion. paperback, ISBNÂ 0-425-04688-5
• Juli 1970, New English Library Ltd, (London). 400 halaman, paperback. (Edisi ketiga 'baru', Agustus 1971 cetak ulang, NEL 2844.)
• 1972, Capricorn Books, 408 halaman, ISBNÂ 0-399-50268-8
• Oktober 1975, Berkley Publishing Group, paperback, ISBNÂ 0-425-03067-9
• November 1977, Berkley Publishing Group, paperback, ISBNÂ 0-425-03782-7
• Juli 1979, Berkley Publishing Group, paperback, ISBNÂ 0-425-04377-0
• September 1980, Berkley Publishing Group, paperback, ISBNÂ 0-425-04688-5
• Juli 1982, Berkley Publishing Group, paperback, ISBNÂ 0-425-05833-6
• Juli 1983, Penguin Putnam, paperback, ISBNÂ 0-425-06490-5
• Januari 1984, Berkley Publishing Group, paperback, ISBNÂ 0-425-07142-1
• 1 Mei 1984, Berkley Publishing Group, paperback, ISBNÂ 0-425-05216-8
• Desember 1984, Berkley Publishing Group, ISBN 0-425-08094-3
• November 1986, Berkley Publishing Group, paperback, ISBNÂ 0-425-10147-9
• Januari 1991, edisi tidak dipotong, Ace/Putnam, hardcover, ISBNÂ 0-399-13586-3
• 3 Mei 1992, edisi asli uncut, Hodder and Stoughton, mass market paperback, 655 halaman, ISBNÂ 0-450-54742-6
• 1995, Easton Press (MBI, Inc.), edisi tidak dipotong, hardcover yang terikat dengan kulit, 525 halaman
• 1 Agustus 1995, ACE Charter, paperback, 438 halaman, ISBNÂ 0-441-79034-8
• 1 April 1996, Blackstone Audio, audiobook kaset, ISBN 0-7861-0952-1
• 1 Oktober 1999, Sagebrush, pustaka mengikat, ISBNÂ 0-8085-2087-3
• 1 Juni 2002, Blackstone Audio, audiobook kaset, ISBNÂ 0-7861-2229-3
• Januari 2003, Turtleback Books Didistribusikan oleh Demco Media, hardcover, ISBNÂ 0-606-25126-X
• 1 November 2003, Blackstone Audio, CD audiobook, ISBNÂ 0-7861-8848-0
• 14 Maret 2005, Hodder dan Stoughton, novel, 655 halaman, ISBNÂ 0-340-83795-0

Referensi

Sumber

Tautan eksternal

• Asing di Tanah Aneh daftar judul di Internet Fiksi Spekulatif Internet
• Orang Asing di Tanah Aneh di Open Library di Internet Archive

Source of the article : Wikipedia