FOR US, THE LIVING

Reviewed 2/06/2004

For Us, the Living, by Robert Heinlein
Cover art by Mark Stutzman
Access to this book courtesy of the
Santa Clara, CA City Public Library
FOR US, THE LIVING: A Comedy of Customs
Robert Anson Heinlein
Spider Robinson (Introduction)
Robert James (Afterword)
New York: Scribner, 2004

Rating:

5.0

High

ISBN-13 978-0-7432-5998-9
ISBN 0-7432-5998-X 263p. HC $25.00

Errata

Page 36: "Perry was particularly delighted to recognize Diana among the Grecian wenches, and pointed out his discovery with a glee."
  S/B "with glee".
Page 61: "You see the banks had created a panic and a wave of fear by calling loans and refusing to loan more money."
  This is arguable, but I would say "calling in loans" and "lend". Also, lack of a comma after "see" gives the sentence a run-on feel, about which see Note 1, below.
Page 74: "Then let telegraph clerk in the country be considered a special election official."
  S/B "let each telegraph clerk".
Page 78: "...and he had the free intellect necessary to do what needed to be done without clouding the issue with a lot of moralistic tape."
  Unless this is an expression new to me, S/B "tripe".
Page 97: "In any case the screw itself is a gyro and you were processing it on a rigid frame."
  S/B "precessing".
Page 140: "...described with sweeps of his hands what would happen to a shell unlucky enough to be constrained by an inversed-cube type acceleration."
  S/B "inverse-cube" or "inverse-cubed".
Page 146: "I think you know what I mean by the term, and I think its in human nature that I should feel as I do...."
  Pesky apostrophes! S/B "it's in human nature".
Page 148: "Men are able consciously to examine their motives, emotions, and so forth, and by a conscious process to inhibit or divert a reaction, reflex, and so forth. He can control his emotions or modify them by conscious application, and thereby change 'human nature'."
  Error of number: S/B "They can control their emotions". (Or, better, at the start: "Man is able consciously...".)
Page 151: "With the advent of the New Economic Regime women no longer required the services of a man to support her or her offspring."
  Error of number: S/B "them or their offspring". (Or, conversely, near the start, "...no woman required...".) I'd also put a comma after "Regime".
Page 151: "Not only did it glorify the love between man and woman but it made possible a deeper, less antagonistic, relation between man and his brother, woman and her sister, for the primary causes of rivalry were gone."
  Extra comma: S/B "a deeper, less antagonistic". I'd also put a comma after "between man and woman" — but this is arguable.
Page 163: "For many years this was regarded as the ideal economic condition although any child can see the error of it, but it was called by all sorts of fancy names..."
  Strikes me as another "run-on phrase". See below, Note 1.
Page 166: "Thus steel plate or tanned leather may be termed raw material for automobiles factories and luggage factories."
  S/B "automobile factories".
Page 167: The list of elements of production worked out by Perry under Master Cathcart's tutelage
  This list omits the workers. (However, they are soon restored to the mix.)
Page 175: "Perry set it up on his slide rule."
  I judge this a continuity error. See below, Note 2.
Page 178: "Taxes on everybody—such as the sales tax—rob Peter to pay Paul, and increases purchasing power not a whit."
  Error of number: S/B "increase purchasing power".
Page 181: "As a matter of practice the government keeps very small stocks of commodities because with a stable standard for money the public prefers cash or credit at the Bank of the United States to the trouble of handling bulk in commodities."
  Words interchanged: S/B "commodities in bulk".
Page 190: "I said that government is a factor. It is, if for no other reason than through its police powers it makes the environment safe to work in."
  Missing word: S/B "than that through its police powers".
Page 191: "Yes, that is evident but what of it?"
  Strikes me as another "run-on phrase". See below, Note 1.
Page 205: "We know what we think it ought to do, but we knew that when the equations of synthesis were for it. But this stuff is all new. Suppose it does something different?"
  Missing word: S/B "when the equations of synthesis were solved for it" — or something similar. (See also Note 3.)
Page 211: "For example, if we had ordinary push buttons and I pressed the combination for maximum breaking, I'd be pushed hard upon the board by my own momentum, and I might not be able to release the controls."
  Those pesky homonyms! S/B "maximum braking". (See also Notes 4 & 5.)
Page 212: "The president had directed the building of a fleet of fast, unarmed, long-radii patrol vessels, ..."
  Odd choice of words: Why not "long-range"? (Perhaps an error in handwriting transcription, like tape/tripe.)
Pages 214-5: "—for the greatest bulwark of the underworld were always the moral creeds of the churches."
  Error of number: S/B either "bulwarks ... were" or "bulwark...was".

Notes:

  1. I see in this book many run-on phrases and sentences. The word patterns remind me of Robert Silverberg's The Quest for Saint Aquin, which had the Devil speak sentences without punctuation, such as "I did best did I not with the breasts". However, it may just be that my threshold is set too low right now. But, in Silverberg's story, that lack of punctuation drove the poor questing monk bonkers. (Of course, the woman with the breasts was the pièce d'résistance, so to speak. Say! Do you suppose that Justin Timberlake is really... ??? ;-)
  2. Heinlein had a "thing" for slide rules (as did I). He had his engineer-type characters use them in many stories. And, in Methusalah's Children, a character who is a natural math whiz is called "Slipstick Libby". In this instance, Perry Nelson undoubtedly knows how to use one. But his is definitely unavailable to him, and the person he "replaces" was a psychologist, unlikely to have one. So I judge it a continuity error that he obtains and uses one with such apparent ease. (I could also argue that it's a failure of imagination to expect that slide rules would not have been made obsolete by computers. But that is a failure most everyone made.)
  3. I admire Heinlein for pointing out here the limitations of modelling or simulating real-world processes on computers. The results depend critically on the assumptions underlying the model, which were probably made by someone other than the model's users and are frequently ignored by them — a fact that has caused considerable grief, and enriched many law firms, when the real-world products failed in unanticipated ways.
  4. Another thing I admire about Heinlein's work (his entire canon) is that it demonstrates a superior grasp of ergonomics (or human-factors design). This bit about the rocket's controls is right on; and many authors would have completely overlooked it.
  5. Probably the two most prevalent classes of grammar errors in computer-based messaging are misuse of the apostrophe (as in it's/its) and selection of the wrong homonym (there/their/they're; to/too). However, I found only one of each in this book. So I can't complain to Scribner too much about leaving only two of the most common errors in there; their editors are good; they're on the ball. But I can't resist pointing out that, had that rocket pilot been unable to release the controls after selecting full reverse thrust, it would indeed have led to maximum breaking.
  6. Some other assumptions Heinlein made for this story are that asbestos was still used in garments and houses, and that in 2086 the U.S. population was only 180 million. I find both of these odd. But in feeling so, I am in the position of hindsight criticizing foresight. One feature, however, strikes me as indefensible. Heinlein felt English spelling should be simplified. So he has Perry and Diana, on their jaunts, encounter signs saying things like "PASENJERS STRAP IN" or "DANJER! OBTAN DARK GLASES FROM STUARDES BEFORE VUING SON". (To pick one of the two nits in this last sign, found on page 211, there should be no silent "E" at the end of "BEFORE".) George Bernard Shaw advocated a similar spelling simplification. His proposals inspired a sendup called "Meihem in ce Klasrum" which is worth reading. I dislike such schemes (exkuz me, skeems) because: a) they destroy a lot of the richness of English; b) anyone capable of appreciating a story by Heinlein and the concepts in it would have little trouble with today's English spelling rules, be they ever so complex and exception-ridden; and c) it is well known that every language changes over time, so unless it is essential to the plot, presenting such changes is just a distraction.
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