One of the things about being a book geek is that, sometimes, you enjoy getting together with other book geeks and, well, geeking out about books. Part of this is that you it makes you feel better to know others enjoy reading a particular type of novel or genre as much as you do and that while most of your friends and family find your zealousness for said books frightening, there are others out there who understand. And another big part is that you get recommendations for new books you might not normally read. Last night, I ventured out to my first meeting of the science-fiction/fantasy discussion group at the Linebaugh library in downtown Murfreesboro. I've known about the existance of the group for a while now, but hadn't been able to make a meeting. I'd read a few of the books they'd selected but somehow life always seemed to interfere with my good intentions of actually getting there.This month's selection was the Robert A. Heinlein novel, Farnham's Freehold. Let me preface this by saying that as a science-fiction reader, I find Heinlein vastly overrated. He may have been great in his day, but I've found the large majority of his work to be vastly inferior to other contemporaries of his day such as Issac Asimov or Arthur C. Clark. I've read a fair number of his bigger works such as Stranger in a Strange Land, just becuase it seems you can't be a sci-fi geek without having plowed through the book. But apart from Starship Troopers and The Puppet Masters, there's not been a lot of Heinlein I've come away really enjoying or thinking I'd actually want to re-read it again someday.Alas, Farnham's Freehold feel in the category of how I feel about the majority of Heinlein's work--vastly overrated.The front cover states this is "science-fiction's most controversial novel." Maybe in 1964, it was but the story is really showing signs of age. The story centers on Hugh Farnham and his family. Hugh has built a nuclear bunker under his house, which comes in handy when the U.S. in nuked by the Russians. Hugh, his family, a friend and their servant all hide out in the bunker, emerging to find that the bombs have somehow shifted them forward in time. The book then becomes a survivalist type of story about forging their way in a new world, until it takes an abrupt left turn about 150 pages into the book. The group is discovered by the new rulers of this world, all of whom are African-American. In a role-reversal of the time it was written, all the white people are treated as slaves, with the men nuetered. Now, all of this may have seemed edgy, contemporary and brilliant social satire in the mid-60s, but today it all seems dated. The story lacks focus and abruptly shifts in tone and focus too much as the story unfolds. Even though the book barely hits the 300 page mark, it feels too padded and long, with Heinlein spendng a lot of time on the initial days in the new world and only hinting at the better novel that could have been in the last two pages. This is a novel that could have been a better novella.But the biggest thing is that in a story about the survival of humanity, there should be at least one person you want to survive. That's not the case here. It's hard to identify with any of them or really care if they make it or not. That said, as much as I didn't enjoy the book, it was interesting to be part of a discussion with people who had different views. One person shared my view on the lack of enjoyment in the book but others did like it and were able to share why. It didn't change my overall feeling on the book, but it was interesting to think about.
I'm giving this two stars because I can't give 1.5 and because even worse books like Glory Road deserve the one--or an explicit zero, which unfortunately is not an option. This, however, is pretty bad. Hugh Farnham, right-thinking patriot, is ready for the bombs when they fall, what with his amazingly well-equipped bomb shelter, so even though for no logical reason whatsoever the bombs throw his shelter (along with his family and a couple more hangers-on) forward in time, he's ready to survive, if only he can get everyone else to follow along after his lead, enforced by a gun yet laughably still called democracy. About the first half of the book tracks their survivalist phase alone in this future world, replete with unbelievable caricatures of Farnham's alcoholic wife, weak-minded commie pinko liberal son, and a daughter who not only accepts that the continuation of the species depends on incest but also eagerly calls dibs on dad, which takes the ick factor to about 11. First of all, that there would be no debate or discussion whatsoever on whether even trying to propagate the species with a gene pool of fewer than ten people is wise seems unlikely. The complete dismissal of the incest taboo is simply beyond unlikely and laughable, except insofar as it serves Heinlein's apparent intent to shock (and apparent thing about incest, since it comes up a lot in his work). And THIS is the good part of the book, relatively speaking!Then, halfway through, the book takes an abrupt turn into social satire (one wishes the first part could be seen as a satire of fascist lunatics, but I doubt that's the case), as we find that there is in fact a future society, governed by blacks who enslave whites, neuter white males, take the women as concubines, and practice cannibalism. Hey, why not? We've already ruled out incest as worth any debate. Farnham manages to get into the ruler's good graces, keep his testicles and ultimately escape, leaving his son and wife to their fates among the cannibals (but taking a hot young tomato with him, natch), managing to return to the "past," albeit now an alternate-world past where the fallout shelter doesn't get thrown into the future but instead stays in a post-apocalyptic America, bravely flying Old Glory over Farnham's Freehold. In short, the book can't make up its mind whether it's a survivalist story, a time travel story, an alternate world story, a post-holocaust story, and/or a social satire. Furthermore, Hugh Farnham is the most loathsome Heinlein protagonist I've encountered, which admittedly isn't saying much, since I don't like most of what I've read by him so have kept my intake down. But, since most of his protagonists (in th ebooks I've read, anyway) are dicks, this is still saying something. This book's hectoring tone is hard to take even by Heinleinian standards, though; Hugh fairly clearly is Heinlein's mouthpiece in the book, and he never frickin' shuts up. I wish I could believe it's supposed to be a deadpan satire, but even if it were, the joke would wear more than thin by the end. Painful.
What do You think about Farnham's Freehold (2006)?
Nell'immensa produzione Heinleiniana non tutti i romanzi possono essere pietre miliari o veri e propri capolavori.Ci sono anche onesti romanzi che si leggono velocemente, anche con piacere, ma che lasciano in bocca il sapore di qualcosa di non cotto a puntino, come una pizza impastata male o mal lievitata."La fortezza di Farnham", del 1965, rientra (prevedibilmente) in questa categoria.Ambientato in piena guerra fredda, ci racconta di una famiglia che si trova ad affrontare nel proprio bunker personale il bombardamento da parte dei russi.Il patriarca ha previsto tutto.La necessità di scorte di cibo, medicinali e alcoolici, le possibili dinamiche tra le persone in un'area ristretta.Tutto, tranne quel che avrebbero potuto trovarsi di fronte all'uscita dal bunker.Il romanzo gode della capacità narrativa di Heinlein, ma pecca su molti fronti.La carne al fuoco è tanta e le vicende prendono, da metà in poi, una piega piuttosto inaspettata e non totalmente centrata.La volontà dell'autore è evidentemente di raccontare in modo realistico certi lati dell'animale uomo, di denunciare il razzismo in ogni sua forma, di ricordare a cosa si può arrivare se ci si crede "eletti": il problema è che sembra fuori fuoco e l'effetto desiderato si perde.Lo stesso protagonista, ennesimo alter-ego dello scrittore, è meno apprezzabile rispetto ai suoi soliti personaggi e molti dei comprimari sono stranamente bidimensionali e piatti.Si legge bene, si legge volentieri, ma rimane la sensazione di un'occasione persa, uno di quei libri che vanno letti solo se si vuol conoscere ogni opera di un autore, ma che impallidisce rispetto a "La luna è una severa maestra" o a "Universo", usciti all'incirca nello stesso periodo.Una curiosità: alcune scelte (finale incluso) ricordano molto l'Eternauta, capolavoro di fantascienza a fumetti sudamericano.Considerando le date di uscita, il sospetto che il buon Robert si sia in qualche modo ispirato a esso mi rimane.
—Aries
This is brilliantly terrible. I can list many things about it that I hated. Not least the writing of the female characters being one dimensional, flat and grossly unbelievable. Or the 'right-on' attitude of the reactionary old man hero. Or the race relations allegory. Or just the the general unlike-ability of the main character, with his many virtues amplified so often by his own self-belief.Heinlein, I guess, led to a style of US Science-Fiction that I love and loathe. The overly competent, eve
—Chris
As an adventure this is not one of Heinlein's better stories, although enjoyable enough. As a treatise on the cold war, racism, slavery, the feminist movement, and morality it truly earns its billing as "the most controversial book in science fiction." Amazingly this story was published in 1961 at the height of tension between USSR and USA; the whole nation was caught up in visions of an apocalyptic nightmare. There were bomb shelters, many as elaborate as the one that Hugh Farnham built in this novel outfitted with everything needed to restart civilization. At the same time, the tension surrounding segregation was also coming to a head. As a result of a nuclear strike, Hugh's family is thrown into a world where everything they know is upside down and topsy-turvy. The family consists of Hugh, his wife Grace, son Duke, daughter Karen, Duke's girlfriend Barbara, and Jim his negro caretaker. Farnham is one of Heinlein's prototypical 'get-it-done', brilliant, well-read, enlightened, and prudent characters. Hugh is of course not a a racist, not a chauvinist, does not believe in class superiority (we're all equal),not a Russian hater, and is true to his word in the highest degree. It's definitely worth reading in context of what was happening in the country at the time. If the story were as good as the commentary woven throughout then it would be a 5 start must read on my list.
—Steve Walker
