A Close Reading of Heinlein's The Menace from Earth (part 2)

This essay begins with part 1

For quoting the story text I use a paragraph style that looks like a typescript. In that text, where Heinlein used an ellipsis, I spell it out as three spaced dots, so: . . . ; then where I've omitted text, I use an ellipsis character, …

Opening Paragraph: Meet Holly Jones

Right, then. Let's read the opening paragraph.

My name is Holly Jones and I'm fifteen. I'm very intelligent but it doesn't show, because I look like an underdone angel. Insipid.

First let's talk about what that brief paragraph accomplishes. The words give us some facts, and the tone tells us about the character: she is self-confident and plain-spoken. The phrase "underdone angel" perfectly forms the image of young, pale, blonde person, probably of slight build (certainly not voluptuous, like the swimsuit model on the cover of the book); but the phrase also has a self-deprecatory tone. She doesn't look like an angel, but like an underdone, insipid angel: pale, unfinished, childish. We suspect she has spent time looking in a mirror, feeling sarcastic about nice things her mother said. "An angel, right..."

In short, that's a model of an opening paragraph: It establishes the protagonist's looks and personality. Also, it establishes what Jeff Smith calls the bond of trust between writer and reader: we believe the author knows what he's about, and it will be worth our time to keep reading.

Let's talk about first-person narrative. Beginning writers are advised to avoid it, for a number of good reasons. Here is Heinlein, an experienced writer, using it in the most direct way imaginable. We don't know why Holly has chosen to tell this story. Is she talking to someone? Writing a diary? That's a flaw, according to many editors. "You need to be clear whom the narrator is addressing," says Julie Ann Dawson. Think of Andy Weir's The Martian: he makes it clear just a few lines in that Mark Watney is recording his notes because he expects to die and wants to leave a record.

On the other hand, Heinlein is in pretty good company when he jumps into a first-person narrative with no apology or explanation:

• Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe: "I was born in the year 1632, in the CIty of York, of a good family, though not of that country, my father being a foreigner of Bremen, who settled first at Hull."
• Marcel Proust, Swann's Way: "For a long time I used to go to bed early."
• Gene Wolfe, The Shadow of the Torturer: "It is possible I already had some presentiment of my future."

We never know why those people chose to tell their stories, and we are never told why Holly is telling hers.

Paragraph two: high-density exposition

The second paragraph establishes Holly's milieu.

I was born right here in Luna City, which seems to surprise Earthside types. Actually, I'm third generation; my grandparents pioneered in Site One, where the Memorial is. I live with my parents in Artemis Apartments, the new co-op in Pressure Five, eight hundred feet down near City Hall. But I'm not there much; I'm too busy.

Heinlein's Luna is familiar territory to anyone who's read The Rolling Stones or The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, but let's read this as if we were new to it. Look at all the information that is conveyed, or clearly implied, by these four sentences.

• We're on the Moon.
• The Moon is populated and developed enough to have a "City".
• The people there have enough of a local culture to hold themselves distinct from "Earthside" types.
• People have been on the Moon for some decades, based on "third generation"—and "the Memorial" implies something with age to it.
• The city is expanding: Holly lives in a "new co-op", and "Pressure Five" suggests there are also older Pressures One to Four.
• The city is organized vertically: City Hall is 800 feet underground.
• Holly is free to move around (she's not home much) which says a lot about her relationship to her parents.

That's a lot of exposition disposed of very quickly, tossed off in a breathless rush in Holly's voice.

It doesn't really matter, but how old is Luna City? Holly's "third generation" is ambiguous. If it means she's in the third generation of people living on the moon, then we have:

• Her grandparents come from Earth aged ~20.
• Her parents are born in Luna and have Holly about age 20.
• She's 15; thus 35 years since her grandparents began "pioneering".

But it could mean the third generation of people born in Luna. Then her grandparents grew up on the Moon and when they reached adulthood, moved out (from some unspecified first colony) to pioneer Site One. That would add another 20 years, making the total 55. Thirty-five to fifty-five years doesn't seem like a lot of time to build a large, complex underground city. Even if there are natural caverns (which Heinlein mentions later in this story and in other stories in the series), it isn't as simple to grow as a surface city. San Francisco could mushroom in a few years of the Gold Rush, or Oak Ridge could mushroom in a few years of WWII atomic work, because people could create streets just by laying out rows of flags, and throw up frame houses on any bit of flat ground. Creating a multi-level city even in an existing cave means extensive work in pressure suits. Vertical organization needs more sturdy architecture than a framed cottage. Even at Lunar gravity, an 800-foot stack of dwelling layers needs solid support!

Oh well; again, it doesn't affect the at-speed reading experience. The "third generation" reference is enough to establish a feeling of history and Holly's pride in it. On to the next paragraph, where we learn a bit more about our girl protagonist.

continue in part 3