so, once upon a time i could pick up a copy of Stranger in a Strange Land, open it at random, and just pick up the story from there. I'd read it enough times. recently, i got a copy of the 'original' version, the one heinlein first submitted for publication, which contains about an extra 60,000 words. I was able to spot most of the changes and substitutions as i went along, just from my once encyclopediac knowledge of the book's text. some of the restored content didn't add anything significant, and in fact harmed the flow of particular passages. some of the restored content just *fit* much better in certain scenes, and helped make them more natural. but there was one thing that shocked me. i didn't realize it wasn't there until i was on one of the last chapters, but one of the major - i mean *MAJOR* - things i'd originally taken from Stranger was heinlein's definition of love. it was so perfect, so sublime, so honest... and it wasn't in this restored edition. how the fuck can they take that out?? or, not put it back in, or whatever the case may be. anyway. you should all go read both versions. do it. do it now.
Would passing on`/quoting that particular passage be a major spoiler? I am too curious, and maybe it would motivate me to pick up that book...
"I'll give you an exact definition. When the happiness of another person becomes as essential to yourself as your own, then the state of love exists." -- Jubal Harshaw to Ben Caxton, Stranger in a Strange Land cited here: http://www.space.com/sciencefiction/stranger_appreciation_991101.html Heinlein offers a slightly different definition in Time Enough for Love, but while its expressed differently, it's still true/applicible under the definition in (the origional published edition of) Stranger
interestingly enough, re: the old and new editions of the book... when i picked it up, it was because of a comment by Stewart Copeland about a song he wrote for a B-side when he was with the Police. (the song in question is Friends, for those who might be curious) Copeland said the song was based on Stranger, and said the book was about cannibalism. That's a bit like saying The Old Man and the Sea is about piloting a boat. sure, there's a bit of boat piloting in there (more, really, than there is cannibalism in Stranger in a Strange Land), but you'd never pass an english course if you tried to say thats what the book's about. So, inspired by this curious comment of copeland's, i picked up a copy of the book. (my original copy was acquired at a used book store, and bore the stamp of at least two other used book stores in the inside cover. it definately made the rounds before it got to me...) my mom was a bit uncertain if i should be reading it, as to her recollection, the book was about free love, and i was 14 or 15 at the time. well, you could make a much stronger case that the book's about free love than you could that the book's about cannibalism, but Stranger was, to me, more about love as an emotion than love in the sense of happy fornication. but, this 'new' (or, original, depending on how you wanna split hairs) edition with the restored content struck me as being very much about free love. most of the other stuff was still there (i learned more about art from that book on my first read-through than i think i ever learned from my art appreciation courses in university), but that definition of emotional love was lacking, and that, as much as anything else, really seemed to shake the tone. the scene that the quote comes from was still there, and realtively intact, and... truth be told, the set-up for it worked better with the cut content restored. but it just seemed so strange... heinlein's widow and agent both agreed, after a side-by-side review of the old and new transcripts that the restored one was better. i realize its a simple thing, and possibly a silly thing, but those two lines of jubal's made, to me, the original edition vastly superior.
So he was dead when the "restored" edition came out? Did he agree on the shorter one, in the end, or was that publishing policy? There are a lot of books around who, in the lifetime of their author, would not have been published that way, for better or worse...
Heinlein is a very quotable author. I, for one, am glad that his publisher forced him to give us that one.
according to Virginia Heinlein's preface to the 'restored' edition, the initial cuts and changes were insisited upon because the book itself was too radically different to what sci-fi books had been like up until then, and some scenes were too shocking or unsettling to middle american values in 1961. heinlein was asked to cut the text down by about 70,000 words, but he got it down by 60,000 and said it couldn't be cut and further. ultimately, in many places, i think the 'cut down' version flows better. one of the only real failings of heinlein's later career was that he got too big to push around and he refused to make editorial changes. his books suffered, because like it or not, editors are a necessary evil for every author. still, if that 'restored' edition could be finangled to include the discussion on love that yielded the above quote, i'd be happy.
