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From: barry@ames.UUCP (Kenn Barry)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers,talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: Heinlein's panegyric for the Bomb
Message-ID: <1655@ames.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 13-Sep-86 13:39:54 EDT
Article-I.D.: ames.1655
Posted: Sat Sep 13 13:39:54 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 13-Sep-86 23:44:21 EDT
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Organization: NASA-Ames Research Center, Mtn. View, CA
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Warning: *SPOILERS* of FARNHAM'S FREEHOLD below.

From: orb@whuts.UUCP (SEVENER):
>I read Farnham's Freehold and it certainly seemed to me to be more of
>a paean to "survivalism" than to actions to stop a nuclear war in
>the first place.  The protoganist is praiseworthy for stocking up
>with everything from food to encyclopedias to prepare for the aftermath
>of World War Last.   His major concern is protecting his survivalist
>fiefdom from looting by others who are starving and so forth.
>But that's OK, because we know that it should be "every *MAN* for himself"
>after any disaster, right?

	Even though I consider FF to be one of Heinlein's worst
books, it does have an interesting ambiguity. Is Hugh Farnham
praisewrothy? On first inspection he seems a pretty typical
Heinlein protagonist: competent, self-confident, independent,
smart and tough. But, what happens to him? His fancy, expensive
bomb shelter gets blown through time by some unknown side effect
of a direct hit. Farnham is saved not by his own foresight, but
by incredible luck.
	When he attempts escape from the tyrannous society he
finds in the future, it's a flat failure. He's caught, and only
the generosity and curiosity of the tyrant allow he and his to
eventually return to their proper time. Not, however, before he
also fails to save his son from castration.
	He's also a failure in his personal life. His wife is a
useless alcoholic, and his son a worm.
	Finally, the typical Heinlein hero ends up very well off
by the end of the book. Head of a company, head of a planet, hero
of a war, whatever. Farnham ends up with a few acres surrounded
by barbed wire and mine fields. Is this a fief, or a prison?
	I don't know what Heinlein intended, but whatever his
intent, I think one can read FF as a story about the limitations
of self-sufficiency and not its virtues.

>"Farnham's Freehold" is hardly a realistic view of the effects of
>nuclear war whatsoever.

	I've excised your documentation of this because I agree.
I don't think FF is in any real sense about nuclear war. The war
just sets the stage for a story that ends up being an allegory of
racism, and a study of extreme individualism, among other things.
It is an unusually bleak book for RAH, and the protagonist is not
a terribly likable fellow. He's often more querulous than
commanding, and lacks the knack that other Heinlein heroes have
for being right when it counts.
	If one must ask what the book's message about nuclear war
is, I think it portrays nuclear war as a very bad idea. But that
message is not central to the story.
 
-  From the Crow's Nest  -                      Kenn Barry
                                                NASA-Ames Research Center
                                                Moffett Field, CA
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