Have you read Stranger in a Strange Land?

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swbluto
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20 Apr 2011, 9:34 pm

If so, did you grok it?



Zen
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20 Apr 2011, 9:39 pm

I tried reading the original uncut version and got bored of everyone having sex with each other. I'd like to read the edited version though. More words doesn't equal better writing. :lol:



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20 Apr 2011, 9:40 pm

I grok.

It was grok.

Groking grok.

The most grokishly groking grok I have ever groked.

Grok?


PS: Thou art God.


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21 Apr 2011, 1:09 am

I grokked it. I like the word "grok." I think it's a better book for an adolescent than an adult, though. I'm sure I'd have loved it at 11-14 years old, but having read it at 22(ish?), I was turned off by the sense of self-importance I got from the author. Didn't everyone already think the kinds of things the author was trying to get his audience to think on their own without aid of a book by the time they were a teenager, anyway? My friend who read this book at 30 (and is the one who reccommended it to me) disagrees with me, though. He suggested that perhaps not most people are big thinkers as children. Anyway, I liked the beginning, but cared for it less and less as it went on and it all seemed very obvious and un-clever.

Mostly I was left disappointed that such a fantastic title was used up by a not-so-fantastic book.


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21 Apr 2011, 3:14 am

Kaybee wrote:
I grokked it. I like the word "grok." I think it's a better book for an adolescent than an adult, though. I'm sure I'd have loved it at 11-14 years old, but having read it at 22(ish?), I was turned off by the sense of self-importance I got from the author. Didn't everyone already think the kinds of things the author was trying to get his audience to think on their own without aid of a book by the time they were a teenager, anyway? My friend who read this book at 30 (and is the one who reccommended it to me) disagrees with me, though. He suggested that perhaps not most people are big thinkers as children. Anyway, I liked the beginning, but cared for it less and less as it went on and it all seemed very obvious and un-clever.

Mostly I was left disappointed that such a fantastic title was used up by a not-so-fantastic book.


My sentiments almost exactly. I did find it a quite awesome book when I read it as a teen, and then very disappointing upon re-reading it as a 30 year old. There's something a bit icky and childish about Heinlein's fantasies about a middle aged super writer with a harem of girls. It's also way, way too long. But I think there's lots to be entertained by and to think about.

Grok is a word I use sometimes along with the phrase 'I am only an egg'.


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Last edited by Moog on 21 Apr 2011, 7:52 am, edited 1 time in total.

arielhawksquill
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21 Apr 2011, 7:49 am

Read it, grokked it, bought copies and gave them away to other people so they could, too! I read it at the properly impressionable adolescent age, but thought it stood up to re-reading in my 20's. (I also couldn't stand the unedited version.)

I knew a couple of people who were involved in the Church of All Worlds back in the 1990s.



squonk
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21 Apr 2011, 12:03 pm

I only know that title as a song by U2 from the album "October".



hyperlexian
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21 Apr 2011, 1:51 pm

in my teenage years i was interested in fiction for a while, and i read Heinlein voraciously. i really loved his work at the time.


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jmnixon95
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21 Apr 2011, 3:20 pm

Wanna read it.

And, don't worry guys! I am an adolescent!
I'm hardly ever interested in any literature aimed at my age group, however. :lol:



Ambivalence
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21 Apr 2011, 3:27 pm

Yes, read it. Thought it was quite good but not great. Might see if I can find where I put it if I run out of other things to read.


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21 Apr 2011, 4:06 pm

Got it, but haven't grokked it. Lost in a haze. Don't know what to read.


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DeaconBlues
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21 Apr 2011, 5:58 pm

Zen wrote:
I tried reading the original uncut version and got bored of everyone having sex with each other. I'd like to read the edited version though. More words doesn't equal better writing. :lol:

If the people having sex bored you, don't go read the first-published version - most of what the editors removed had to do with philosophy and character development; they kept most of the sex, though.

I liked it, I understood most of it - can't really say I grokked it, though, at least not as I grok the word to mean.


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Zen
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21 Apr 2011, 6:12 pm

DeaconBlues wrote:
Zen wrote:
I tried reading the original uncut version and got bored of everyone having sex with each other. I'd like to read the edited version though. More words doesn't equal better writing. :lol:

If the people having sex bored you, don't go read the first-published version - most of what the editors removed had to do with philosophy and character development; they kept most of the sex, though.

I liked it, I understood most of it - can't really say I grokked it, though, at least not as I grok the word to mean.

Oh. Thanks for the warning. xD



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22 Apr 2011, 7:50 am

I don't think that I'll be reading it. I'm too much of an innocent.


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syzygyish
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22 Apr 2011, 8:02 am

I must have read it as a very young adolescent, because I don't remember any sex at all.
I was inspired by it, mainly, I think, by the 'secret teachings' he received from the martian elders before he was sent back to Earth.
As a young aspy, I was glued to the idea that if only I could find out, or figure out, or discover the 'secret teaching'
I could fit in, be accepted, teach, be worshiped even, like he was.
It was a bit disheartening to realise I could never be raised by Martians, since I had already been born on Earth! :(


I devoured Everything Heinlein wrote, back then. Free Love, misfits coming of age and realising their potential.

It's not a good idea for aspies to read too much Heinlein, not when we're young, not like I did.
It gives us false hopes.


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22 Apr 2011, 9:11 am

Kaybee wrote:
I grokked it. I like the word "grok." I think it's a better book for an adolescent than an adult, though. I'm sure I'd have loved it at 11-14 years old, but having read it at 22(ish?), I was turned off by the sense of self-importance I got from the author. Didn't everyone already think the kinds of things the author was trying to get his audience to think on their own without aid of a book by the time they were a teenager, anyway? My friend who read this book at 30 (and is the one who reccommended it to me) disagrees with me, though. He suggested that perhaps not most people are big thinkers as children. Anyway, I liked the beginning, but cared for it less and less as it went on and it all seemed very obvious and un-clever.

Mostly I was left disappointed that such a fantastic title was used up by a not-so-fantastic book.


big agree! hardly even sci-fi at all, really.

DeaconBlues wrote:
Zen wrote:
I tried reading the original uncut version and got bored of everyone having sex with each other. I'd like to read the edited version though. More words doesn't equal better writing. :lol:

If the people having sex bored you, don't go read the first-published version - most of what the editors removed had to do with philosophy and character development; they kept most of the sex, though.


interesting. could explain why i felt so disappointed.


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