i'd love to know who the 10 people are that Satan killed. i guess he probably killed a few when he was playing with Job--didn't his wife and children get murdered in a Satan-related incident?
I can't think of that story now without thinking of Robert Heinlein's Job: A Comedy of Justice, a brilliant book that I loved even when I was a Christian, and even more so now.
I don't remember much about the Job insanity. I thought god was the only one who killed all those people during his bet with satan that Job would stick around no matter how much god fucked him over.
Yeah, I'd be interested to know who the 10 were supposed to be.
I've read a lot of Heinlein in the past, though I must admit his rabid puritanical morals began to rankle a bit. I still treasure some of my memories of his stories, but I'm a bit reluctant to re-read them for fear they'll disappoint me. Lately I've been re-reading some of my old favorites and loving it -- John Wyndham, James (Alice Sheldon) Tiptree Jr, Melissa Scott... We are sooo lucky living during this renaissance.
I think you remember exactly the cogent points of the story--in the b.i.b.l.e., it's Satan that does the smiting, but God was standing right behind him, approving of the whole thing.
It's weird to me to consider Heinlein as having "puritanical" ideas. True, the stuff of his I've read (not much) carries chauvinistic overtones, but it seems like the residual attitudes of his time. Is it wrong of me to say that--to make excuses for his narrow-mindedness? Regardless, Job is a very funny book about fundamentalism, and makes great fun of provincial attitudes. I guess you could argue that it's his modernist agnosticism that is puritanical in nature, but it doesn't prevent this book from being the best of his stuff that I've read.
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(Now there is a sentence I never thought I'd ever utter.)
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I can't think of that story now without thinking of Robert Heinlein's Job: A Comedy of Justice, a brilliant book that I loved even when I was a Christian, and even more so now.
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Yeah, I'd be interested to know who the 10 were supposed to be.
I've read a lot of Heinlein in the past, though I must admit his rabid puritanical morals began to rankle a bit. I still treasure some of my memories of his stories, but I'm a bit reluctant to re-read them for fear they'll disappoint me. Lately I've been re-reading some of my old favorites and loving it -- John Wyndham, James (Alice Sheldon) Tiptree Jr, Melissa Scott... We are sooo lucky living during this renaissance.
Reply
It's weird to me to consider Heinlein as having "puritanical" ideas. True, the stuff of his I've read (not much) carries chauvinistic overtones, but it seems like the residual attitudes of his time. Is it wrong of me to say that--to make excuses for his narrow-mindedness? Regardless, Job is a very funny book about fundamentalism, and makes great fun of provincial attitudes. I guess you could argue that it's his modernist agnosticism that is puritanical in nature, but it doesn't prevent this book from being the best of his stuff that I've read.
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