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TO_SAIL_BEYOND

                                           Theodore Sturgeon had a similar
                                           approach (he called it "asking
Throughout Heinlein's                      the next question").  Sturgeon
life, questioning taboos                   got to incest first: "If All Men
(asking "Why not?") was                    Were Brothers, Would You Let One
one of his standard                        Marry Your Sister?"             
approaches to problems,                                                    
in his later (and              _Time Enough for Love_      STURGEON
unfortunately lesser)          (cf. "Da Capo", the
novels he started              concluding
attacking sexual taboos,       time-travel/incest
including incest.              fantasy).

One of the reason these
things seem like such weak
novels to me is that there's
no recognition that such
social experiments can fail.


Heinlein heroes often seem to
be perfect entities who are
almost always in charge of
their emotions: they are never
unreasonably jealous.

However, in _To Sail Beyond
the Sunset_, we're shown the
other side of these things.

Living in a family where
recreational incest is the
norm leads to a jealous
rivalry between two
sons fighting for the
attentions of a daughter.


Maureen's open relationship
leads to a divorce.            Her husband decides he
                               prefers the younger woman
Maureen is left with at        in the menage et trios.      Or... at least
least some doubt about                                      that's the way
how she's lived...                                          Maureen seems
                                                            to see it.

  Writing your own rules                       A close reading suggests
  for living is diving off                     that Brian (her husband)
  into an unknown sea where                    has some reason on his side:
  you may win big or lose
  horribly.                                    In effect Brian is a man with
                                               two wives, one of which is
  Heinlein, at last, seems                     past child-bearing age.
  to be dealing with the
  real issue. Of all the                       Living in the United States
  later works, this one                        early in the 1900s, he has a
  seems the strongest.                         woman in the household bearing
                                               children, who is not legally
  Usually Heinlein's heroes                    married to any one.  This
  have to contend with the                     seems at best very awkward, if
  Mrs. Grundy's of the                         not outright dangerous.
  world, but here they also    STRANGER
  have to deal with the                        Note, Maureen mentions in
  flaws within themselves.                     passing that neither of the
                                               other two expected her to
  It's the difference                          move out:
  between writing a novel
  and an advertisement.                        In other words, in Brian's
                                               mind, this was just a change in
                                               legal technicalities.
    Had Heinlein lived a little longer,
    maybe he could've gotten beyond the        If Maureen doesn't see it that
    level of softcore sexual fantasy,          way, maybe Brian just did an
    and gotten back to the sort of             astoundingly bad job of
    thing he could do best:                    explaining the idea --

    Imagination tempered by realism.           Or maybe Maureen has done a bad
                                               job of representing his side.


                                                    Heinlein is not
                                                    usually given
                                                    credit for being
                                                    capable of
                                                    subtlety,
                                                    but here's a clear
                                                    counter-example.


                          An even better counter-example
                          might be Algis Budry's reading
                          of the end of "The Moon is a
                          Harsh Mistress".



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