Job: A Comedy of Justice by Robert A. Heinlein
Hello, Stranger.
Primary Driver: (Plot, World, or Character)
Bechdel Test: Fail
Technobabble: Minimal to moderate.
Review: All the fun of parallel worlds with no charm. Irritating characters responding in incomprehensible manners to unfortunate but often uninteresting twists of fate. New candidate for weakest female lead character in a book! Pacing is atrocious - up to and including a massive shift for the final third or so of the book, making it feel like two lackluster novellas. This book felt significantly longer than its 370 pages. Everything about this book feels half-baked and peculiarly self-indulgent.
...I was utterly confused. A stranger in a strange land, I was overcome by customs new and shocking......I was indeed a total stranger in an utterly strange and confusing land...
Not two! Dang it, Robert!
Alright, let's move past petty stuff and get into it. There are a lot of trite ways that authors go about establishing the differences that exist in parallel worlds. I'll make this multiple choice.
A) A character from one world and one from another can go back and forth, discussing the finer points of exposition needed - technological differences and so on.
B) Characters can visit libraries to read up on things, "Oh, that's how it went here!" - and they can also muse, "How unlike my world, where it went like so!"
C) Someone from a world that is not our own can fixate on technology that is foreign to them but familiar to the reader; establishing how astounding such things are.
D) A character whose thoughts we see can ponder what has gone on without them present in their world
Obviously, all of these require the author to use rather monologue and exposition heavy writing. What, then, did Heinlein pick?
Obviously E) All of the Above. There are just so many monologues, and libraries, and rants. So many discussions of technology. Even worse - none of it is interesting, none of it matters. At no point did I care about this other world; I never had to wonder, "How did that chain of events occur?" Nothing raises questions of any note. It's a different world, which is not ours, and it's different, which is different. I mean, not too different. Yeah, the money looks different. But it's still money. Oh, marginally different groupings of nations? Does that have any impact? No, sure doesn't.
A friend of mine is in a long distance relationship and has not seen her partner for quite a while. She will sometimes tell me what he has been up to - understandable, because she misses him. But the fact that his day to day life is marginally different than that mine does not make it a story, and I'm just not that invested. His days are slightly different, but nothing worth discussing. The only reason this is a poor parallel - because I do care, as I have a personal connection to both of them.
Unlike this book; I feel absolutely no connection to our dear Alexander Hergensheimer.
He is an immensely dislikable character, and this is clearly an intentional choice. It is, however, a baffling one. This book does not have a plot, exactly. Alex gets buffeted from one unfortunate circumstance to another, and each time things seem to improve, something happens to reset that progress. He has zero agency in anything - just a vague direction. The world, as noted, is different, but not intriguingly so. And you have no desire to see him win.
Leaving us with an uninteresting and objectionable passive protagonist wandering around a rather bland world. Nothing that makes this appealing at all to read.
While this book felt like purgatory to me, maybe it's heaven for you! If so, consider using the link below - I'll get a few cents at no extra cost to you!
Link: A Comedy of Capitalism
But the superior technology of this world was evident, in many more things than television. Consider 'traffic lights'. No doubt you have seen cities so choked with traffic that it is almost impossible to cross major streets other than through intervention by police officers. Also' no doubt you have sometimes been annoyed when a policeman charged with controlling traffic has stopped the flow in your direction to accommodate some very important person from city hall, or such.Can you imagine a situation in which traffic could be controlled in greater volume with no police officers whatever at hand - just an impersonal colored light?Believe me, that is exactly what they had in Nogales.Here is how it works:At every busy intersection you place a minimum of twelve lights, four groups of three, a group facing each of the cardinal directions and so screened that each group can be seen only from its direction. Each group has one red light, one green light, one amber light. These lights are served by electrical power and each shines brightly enough to be seen at a distance of a mile, more or less, even in bright sunlight. These are not arc lights; these are very powerful Edison lamps - this is important because these lights must be turned on and off every few moments and must function without fail hours on end, even days on end, twenty-four hours a day.These lights are placed up high on telegraph poles, or suspended over intersections, so that they may be seen by teamsters or drivers or cyclists from a distance. When the green lights shine, let us say, north and south, the red lights shine east and west - traffic may flow north and south, while east and west traffic is required to stand and wait exactly as if a police officer had blown his whistle and held up his hands, motioning traffic to move north and south while restraining traffic from moving east and west.Is that clear? The lights replace the policeman's hand signals.The amber lights replace the policeman's whistle; they warn of an imminent change in the situation.But what is the advantage? - since someone, presumably a policeman, must switch the lights on and off, as needed. Simply this: The switching is done automatically from a distance (even miles!) at a central switchboard.
Thank you for ignoring that.
I was unsure if it counted as a spoiler, but it seemed enough so: there are a whole lot of parallel worlds here, not just one. But the strength of parallel worlds lies in similarities and differences - and none of them are particularly interesting. We spend a fair bit of time in the first parallel world, enough that it seems like it's worth caring and keeping track of changes. And then, all of a sudden, a whole new world! With different changes! Alex explicitly mentions going to the library to find out what is going on at least six times, a number of which note multiple visits. That's a lot of going to find out mundane changes! It's rare that William Jennings Bryan comes up a half dozen times in a book as well. To which I say, "Huh."
There is slight payoff on the library thing; when Alex reaches heaven, he complains:
Whoever designed it, the Holy City has a major shortcoming, in my opinion - and never mind telling me that my presumption in passing judgment on God's design is blasphemous. It is a lack, a serious one.
It lacks a public library.
One reference librarian who had devoted her life to answering any and all questions, trivial and weighty, would be more use in Heaven than another cohort of arrogant angels. There must be plenty of such ladies in Heaven, as it takes a saintly disposition and the patience of Job to be a reference librarian and to stick with it for forty years.
I don't have any issue with this part; libraries are great and librarians are heroes. But we should take a step back. The first two thirds to three quarters of this book are pointless world-hopping. Then the rapture happens, and the last hundred pages are about Alex trying to track down Marga (love interest, didn't talk about her yet because she has no character traits) in the afterlife. It is a completely different book - going between heaven and hell, meeting god's boss (Mr. Koshchei), getting stuck in divine bureaucracy... this final part is actually enjoyable at times.
'Listen and learn. You can forget the Ten Commandments. Here only two or three of them still apply and you'll find you can't break those even if you were to' try. The golden rule everywhere in Heaven is: Rank Hath Its Privileges. At this eon you are a raw recruit in. the Armies of the Lord, with the lowest rank possible. And the least privilege. In fact the only privilege I can think of that you rate is being here, just being here. The Lord in His infinite wisdom has decreed that you qualify to enter here. But that's all. Behave yourself and you will be allowed to stay. Now as to the traffic rule you asked about. Angels and nobody else fly over the Holy City. When on duty or during ceremonies. That does not mean you. Not even if you get wings. If you do. I emphasize this because a surprising number of you creatures have arrived here with the delusion that going to Heaven automatically changes a creature into an angel. It doesn't. It can't. Creatures never become angels. A saint sometimes. Though seldom. An angel, never.'
I counted ten backwards, in Hebrew. 'If you don't mind, I'm still trying to reach that information booth. Since I am not allowed to fly, how do I get there?'
'Why didn't you say that in the first place? Take the bus.'
Yet the journey to get to these clever parts is far too long, and even this overstays its welcome. Oh, and Loki is responsible for the chaos involved, and it's because of a bet with Yahweh, because Lucifer was not in a betting mood and was in no mood for another Job... just a whole lot of threads that add nothing at all.
I feel like I have done a bit too much stating of what made me dislike this book so much - when showing is so much easier. The following except combines so many of the things I don't like about this book. Blatant exposition to show how different a world is, a protagonist you need to hate, and cripplingly slow pacing. Allow me to introduce you to the unedited internal monologue of Alexander Hergensheimer:
Sometimes I contrasted my sorry state with what I had so recently been, while wondering if I would ever find my way back through the maze into the place I had built for myself.
Would I want to go back? Abigail was there - and, while polygamy was acceptable in the Old Testament, it was not accepted in the forty-six states. That had been settled once and for all when the Union Army's artillery had destroyed the temple of the antichrist in Salt Lake City and the Army had supervised the breaking up and diaspora of those immoral 'families'.
Giving up Margrethe for Abigail would be far too high a price to pay to resume the position of power and importance I had until recently held. Yet I had enjoyed my work and the deep satisfaction over worthwhile accomplishment that went with it. We had achieved our best year since the foundation was formed - I refer to the non-profit corporation, Churches United for Decency. 'Non-profit' does not mean that such an organization cannot pay appropriate salaries and even bonuses, and I had been taking a well-earned vacation after the best fund-raising year of our history - primarily my accomplishment because, as deputy director, my first duty was to see that our coffers were kept filled.
But I took even greater satisfaction in our labors in the vineyards, as fund raising means nothing if our programs of spiritual welfare do not meet their goals.
The past 'year' had seen the following positive accomplishments:
a) A federal law making abortion a capital offense;
b) A federal law making the manufacture, sale, possession, importation, transportation, and/or use of any contraceptive drug or device a felony carrying a mandatory prison sentence of not less than a year and a day but not more than twenty years for each offense - and eliminating the hypocritical subterfuge of 'For Prevention of Disease Only';
c) A federal law that, while it did not abolish gambling, did make the control and licensing of it a federal jurisdiction. One step at a time - having built. this foundation we could tackle those twin pits, Nevada and New Jersey, piece by piece. Divide and conquer!
d) A Supreme Court decision in which we had appeared as amicus curiae under which community standards of the typical or median-population community applied to all cities of each state (Tomkins v. Allied News Distributors);
e) Real progress in our drive to get tobacco defined as a prescription drug through the tactical device of separating snuff and chewing tobacco from the problem by inaugurating the definition 'substances intended for burning and inhaling';
f) Progress at our annual national prayer meeting on several subjects in which I was interested. One was the matter of how to remove the tax-free status of any private school not affiliated with a Christian sect. Policy on this was not yet complete because of the thorny matter of Roman Catholic schools. Should our umbrella cover them? Or was it time to strike? Whether the Catholics were allies or enemies was always a deep problem to those of us out on the firing line.
At least as difficult was the Jewish problem - was a humane solution possible? If not, then what? Should we grasp the nettle? This was debated only in camera.
Another matter was a pet project of my own: the frustrating of astronomers. Few laymen realize what mischief astronomers are up to. I first noticed it when I was still in engineering school and took a course in descriptive astronomy under the requirements for breadth in each student's program. Give an astronomer a bigger telescope and turn him loose, leave him unsupervised, and the first -thing he does is to come down with pestiferous, half-baked guesses denying the ancient truths of Genesis.
There is only one way to deal with this sort of nonsense: Hit them in the pocketbook! Redefine 'educational' to exclude those colossal white elephants, astronomical observatories. Make the Naval Observatory the only one tax free, reduce its staff, and limit their activity to matters clearly related to navigation. (Some of the most blasphemous and subversive theories have come from tenured civil servants there who don't have enough legitimate Work to keep them busy.)
Self-styled 'scientists' are usually up to no good, but astronomers are the worst of the lot.
Another matter that comes up regularly at each annual' prayer meeting I did not favor spending time or money on: 'Votes for Women'. These hysterical females styling themselves 'suffragettes' are not a threat, can never win, and it just makes them feel self-important to pay attention to them. They should not be jailed and should not be displayed in stocks - never let them be martyrs! Ignore them.
There were other interesting and worthwhile goals that I kept off the agenda and did not suffer to be brought up from the floor in the sessions I moderated, but instead carried them on my 'Maybe next year' list:
Separate schools for boys and girls.
Restoring the death penalty for witchcraft and satanism.
The Alaska option for the Negro problem.
Federal control of prostitution.
Homosexuals - what's the answer? Punishment? Surgery? Other?
Maybe don't be like that, Stranger.
And don't forget to read a book!
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