This essay begins with part 1
Para 3, launch the action
In the third paragraph we finish up exposition, introduce a second main character, and kick-start the plot.
Mornings I attend Tech High and afternoons I study or go flying with Jeff Hardesty--he's my partner--or whenever a tourist ship is in I guide groundhogs. This day the Gripsholm grounded at noon so I went straight from school to American Express.
This wastes no time, does it? My name's Holly, I live in Luna City, there's some guy Jeff, and bam I am off to guide tourists! He feeds you just enough exposition to get you oriented and a bit intrigued ("flying"? on the Moon?), and then he starts the action.
But on a close reading, some things need mention. First, the use of "partner". Today, "partner" has some different connotations than it did when this was published 60 years ago. A millenial reader might suppose that she means a sexual partner, which would be a complete misreading. In 1957, the word connoted only a professional or business partner. The reader might suspect that Holly is inflating some juvenile pastime to adult status, and in the next paragraph she mentions, "Guiding is just temporary (I'm really a spaceship designer)." Clearly she's not actually a spaceship designer at age 15, so this confirms that she's inflating a hobby to adult status. The alert reader will connect that with "partner" reference.
Another reference that falls flat is "American Express". The modern reader's only association with American Express is of a credit card with more restrictions than most. In the 1950s, the American Express office was the traveler's oasis, providing all kinds of services including money transfers from home. Heinlein extrapolated this to the future, so it would be natural for tourists, fresh off the ship, to go first to the American Express office to get money, maps, and hire guides or porters. Sixty years on, if you want cash in a foreign city, you go to an ATM.
Meet The Menace.
Holly is assigned to guide "Miss Brentwood".
"'Holly,'" she repeated. "What a quaint name. Are you really a guide, dear?"
Holly spends a couple of paragraphs mentally dissing "groundhogs" for their ignorance, then
"My license says so," I said briskly and looked her over the way she was looking me over.
So far, so good. But now I think Heinlein loses Holly's voice.
Her face was sort of familiar and I thought perhaps I had seen her picture in one of those society things you see in Earthside magazines--one of the rich playgirls we get too many of. She was almost loathsomely lovely ... nylon skin, soft, wavy silver-blond hair, basic specs about 35-24-34 and enough this and that to make me feel like a matchstick drawing, a low intimate voice and everything necessary to make plainer females think about pacts with the Devil. But I did not feel apprehensive; she was a groundhog and groundhogs don't count.
Sorry, this doesn't sound like the Holly I've already come to know and parts just don't make sense.
First, I literally don't know what Heinlein meant by "society things ... in ... magazines". Articles? Why is Holly reading magazines? She's a busy, active student; the doings of Earthside socialites is about as far from Holly's interests as you can get. Indeed, would anybody be reading "Earthside magazines" in Luna City? Surely it couldn't be economical to ship bales of Vogue or Elle to the Moon? It would be much more credible if Holly remembered this face from a TV show, not from print. This is the first (but not the last) place where the absence of electronic media harms a modern reading. TV was hugely popular in 1957, why didn't Heinlein extrapolate that to Luna?
Next, the remark about "rich playgirls" doesn't fit. It just isn't credible that there would be enough of those for Luna City as a whole, let alone Holly, to have experienced "too many" of them. Plus, "rich playgirls" don't travel alone, they have entourages of agents and gofers, and usually handsome boy-toys. I think this remark is some personal irritation of Heinlein's that he let leak into Holly's voice.
I also don't think Holly would say "loathsomely lovely". Holly is more distanced than that, especially regarding a groundhog. She would use some word to suggest she saw Miss Brentwood as a specimen; or, being a confident youngster, she might be frankly admiring: "she was quite lovely, in a grown-up way".
The phrase "basic specs about 35-24-34" was probably meant to show Holly's engineering bent, but to me it is the kind of joke a male engineer would make. Plus, describing women by their bust-waist-hip measurements has a 1950's ring. I remember it as a commonplace sexism of my youth (in Playboy maybe?), but I don't think people use it any more.
To continue the boring nit-pickery, "everything necessary" is vague. She's already listed pretty much "everything" except—and here is a key exception—Miss Brentwood's clothes! If Holly has any girly-girl genes she would notice clothes. A teenager, realizing she is in the Luna City equivalent of flip-flops and a hoodie next to someone in expensive fashion wear, would feel instant mortification. Holly should have noticed the disparity of clothing even ahead of that in body shapes.
And also, "make plainer females think about pacts with the Devil"—is this something Holly would think? I don't think Holly lumps herself with "females", nor has the deep need to be admired for her looks that would motivate selling one's soul to get them. Her father might have this wry thought (or Heinlein might); but not our 15-year-old nerd.
continue in part 4
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