@RUTGERS.ARPA:FIRTH@TL-20B.ARPA (03/12/85)
From: FIRTH@TL-20B.ARPA Job: A Comedy of Justice Robert A Heinlein *** Warning: spoiler and literary criticism *** According to his title, RAH has selected two tough acts to follow. James Branch Cabell's "Jurgen" is not - and does not aim to be - a great book, but it is a true philosophical novel, and by a master stylist. Heinlein uses the picaresque style of his model, and in my view to better effect. A traditional SF reader will be irritated by the throwaway descriptions of the many "parallel worlds" in the book; but they serve their purpose, which is to develop the hero, and there is at the end a reasonable justification for largely having ignored them. The trials of his Job are more real, and more relevant, than the adventures of Jurgen. They address the same question - what is the ultimate source of value in humen experience - what do we live FOR? Jurgen sought the clue in a fictitious past; Heinlein's Alec seeks it in a parallel present. The book does not have the mannerisms that I have disliked in other works, such as Time Enough for Love or The Number of The Beast. It has very little preaching disguised as dinner-table conversation. It moves. Moreover, its protagonist is not a "competent man". He is, by many standards, a wimp. However, he has an unshakable moral integrity. I was reminded at times of Farnham's Freehold, which showed a man of great competence, but no integrity: here is the antithesis. The novel contains Heaven and Hell, Gods and Devils, but it is not religious. On the contrary: it adheres throughout to the Stoic position that moral value is created only by the free choice of free agents. There are abrupt transitions between parallel worlds, described in traditional SF idiom. And abrupt transitions between heavens and hells, in traditional religious idiom. The shock of the latter led me to reflect on the complacency with which I had accepted the former. My conclusion was that RAH had rehabilitated the character - the "volitional" protagonist - as the centre of attention. Yes, a good book. Robert Firth -------