Personally, I loved The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, despite the predictable ending. Robert Heinlein managed something I believe few authors can achieve effectively in not only creating a seamless new world with its own language and customs, but also creating charactres with depth and personality within it. What is at first an awkward sentence structure with strange slang terms slowly becomes familiar. Alongside the reader adjusting to Loonie culture, the charactres grow and change in terms with their volatile situation. The most fascinating of these is the metamorphosis of "Mike" from simply being a highly operational computer to a sentient being and finally to what could nearly be classified as a genuinely feeling human being who also happens to have a few other amazing capabilities. This change is witnessed primarily through demonstrations of how Mike changes his functions and through his conversations with his first and oldest friend, Mannie. This evolution of sentience was the most intriguing element to me, though of course the tale of revolution holds multiple political messages as well.
Being the human side of the plotting of their revolution, Professor de la Paz created the only truly unbelievable element for me. His understanding of human nature and how to manipulate political pressures was too perfect, though it was appropriate that his idea of not having much of a government on Luna fell to pieces following his death. I understand that Mike was supposedly behind all of this, with his analyses of every foreseeable outcome of everything, but somehow the Prof seemed to be at least ninety percent sure of himself throughout every decision involving human nature and revolution. Not only that, but he was always right. I would at least like to think that human behaviors are not so predictable, but that may just be idealistic.
After I finished reading The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, I thought back to our theme for this week -Space as the Final Frontier- and the implications that in this novel the only thing that pushed humans to venture into space was the growing need of somewhere to dump their unwanted, their overcrowded...their jailbirds. Amidst the uplifting themes of freedom and revolution there was a constant undercurrent of rejection from Terra society. As shown through the numerous references to historical events concerning colonies and liberation -such as the "coincidental" declaration of Luna being released on July 4th- man didn't forge ahead to new horizons, he merely repeated history, yet again. Loonies were not adventurous space settlers, they were the citizens that Terra didn't want and could thus exploit.
Heinlein effectively builds empathy for social outcasts such as those in his fictional penal colony on Earth's moon, and consequently his political ideas. It was in this book that the term “rational anarchist” was first used, enforcing the point that Heinlein's political ideology is entrenched in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. However, multiple political viewpoints are represented and Heinlein gives fair play to all of those that assist his cause. The Prof and Mannie's visit to Terra points out the flaws of the standard bureaucracy, while the Prof's ad hoc congress fails to achieve any progress of merit. The rational anarchist himself, the Prof, fails to sway anyone to his particular opinions, but this in itself proves his ideology.
There are of course nearly innumerable examples and ideologies to be found, but throughout The Moon is a Harsh Mistress shines Heinlein's libertarian ideals and passion for good betting odds.
2 comments:
Why does the Prof's failure to persuade anyone prove that he is correct?
It doesn't necessarily prove that his ideology is THE correct one- which is not how I intended that statement to come across, but it might have. I was more aiming to convey how absolutely he adheres to his rational anarchism. He doesn't want to persuade anyone; he is perfectly content in his beliefs in each individual having their own choices and responsibility. Consequently, what other people believe is not a concern of his and he never attempts to sway anyone to his beliefs, summarized quite well in his statement that, "I accept any rules you think you need for yourself. I will continue to live by my own."
However, if he had attempted to persuade others to practice his same beliefs, that would have been hypocritical.
Does it make sense now?
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