Customer Reviews

Farnham's Freehold

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(21)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

Frankly I am SHOCKED at the poor reviews this book recieves.

There are two MINOR complaints I have about this book, one that the son's acceptance of his castration is a little too easy, could have had 2 or 3 sentences that would have made this more believable, either to set him up as a yes man (where he would do anything to get ahead) wich he did not seem to be; or to have him willing to do anything to be with mommy and make her happy (wich he was not when it came to talking about her drug problem etc).

The second minor complaint that I have is that I think the sign at the end of the book could have had more impact and shown the moral of the story or what the characters learned through their experiences more. Such as: books for barter was good but it should have listed other things wich would have underlined the story such as labor/work (underlying theme is that labor is virtue and sloth is evil), Training (self improvement is stressed, the value of knowledge), Durable goods (items saved from pre apocolipse = forthought and planning, Items manufactured post apocolipse = labor and skills) etc. Keep the bridge lessons as a insider joke but they could have had something about Be nice or leave- no intolorance will be tolorated etc to underline the anti racism message. I just feel like he diddnt wrap it all up in a nice polished way and that it was a missed oppertunity.

Ok now onto the positives.

This book is not racist. If you think it is you are completely missing the whole point and I kind of wonder if you really read the whole book. Im going to refute things in list form since there are so many points and they overlap.

people have claimed Racism because-
1. The Dark skinned overlords are Cannibals.
Cannibalism was practiced worldwide in history, and often by caucasians. Look it up in Wikipedia. Not to mention that Cannibalism is sprinkled throughout european mythology. So Yes cannibalism is a metaphor for barbarianism (no pun intended barbary pirates) but that is not nessicarily African or dark skinned barbarism and to assume that they are cannibals BECAUSE they are black is the readers being racist and missing the authors non racist point. He is showing how the Slaves are being treated as livestock. Eating them only drives this point home. Yes its shock value, but frankly its a shock the story needs so that people dont think to themselves "hey, true they arent free men (and women) but is it really so bad? The protagonist starts out (when he is captured) thinking "Ill just play allong for now..." and as things progressively get worse he thinks "ok this is bad but I should bide my time" untill he see's the furthest extreme wich is the cannibalism that shows how he is not just viewed as chattel but as cattle; thats when he finally thinks "I gotta get outta here no matter what happens... death is better than this!" We can accept castration as a outrageous but believable cultural norm for this society, why is everyone so outraged that the author chose cannibalism as a plot device? Plain and simple, people have a view of the stereotypical black boogieman cannibal (robinson crusoe, king kong etc) with bone through nose standing around a boiling cauldron of human soup or chasing the poor innocent white explorer with spears or dart guns to eat them. Keep in mind that this could instead be a aligory for a aristocracy that consumes the lower caste using them up completely with no regard for freedom or human life. Think Vlad the impaler or The Bloody countess, instead of the Cannibal bushman and the racist outcry becomes meaningless. PS people read a Modest Proposal by Swift Im sure you will hate it.

2. The black people are all Muslim, the book is anti Islam!
You need to put this into historical context. This book was published in 1964 the year Malcom x was assasinated. Islam was at that time viewed by many as the religion of the radicalized black extremists. As opposed the ML King message of love the sinner hate the sin of racism, Malcom X had a message of segregation and that White people were inherently oppressive, racist, and evil. The black panthers were predominantly muslim, and much of Africa southern Asia and
the middle east is muslim. It is only natural that the black culture in the story would have a muslim bent. But if you notice the protagonist says repeatedly that they are NOT true muslims, they belong to a bastardization of muslim beliefs and that he himself had read the koran and knew more true phillosophy of Mohhamed than they did and did not think that true muslims would approve of this warped Islam. Also if you read Stranger in a strange land you will see that the Author actually is fond of many religions including Islam and speaks well of it in terms of a idea but that he thinks the people who practice it dont often follow the idea as with all religions. Personally I disagree with the Author, I think all religion is a bad Idea.

3.The book uses the N word it must be racist!

So did Huckleberry Finn wich was why it was burned. The problem is that where the characters use the N word the author is showing that the character in question is either racist, or its the black character talking about how racist people treated him. So in fact by using the N word the author is in fact pointing out racism, and condemning it. Yes the N word makes me wince, part of me never wants to hear it or read it, but I dont believe in rewriting history to only keep the nice shiny happy bits, if I believed that I would be a holocaust denier. As a white person I especially should understand and condemn racism, and without confronting it how would I understand why it was bad? The (black) character Joseph uses the N word in a sentence where he is saying you (white man protagonist) dont understand what its like to be a black man. Nore will we ever if we dont view the horrific effects of racism. The fact that it makes us wince shows us the bitter medicine is working.

4. The black men all rape the white women in the book, showing how the author thinks that Black men are all sex crazed and that white women are more desirable than black women etc. Its perpetuating the stereo type!

WRONG! How could you miss that this is DIRECT mirroring of how slaves were treated in the American South? Decreed to be sub-human but raped by their masters and the idea of a mixed child being abhorrant? This doesnt have to do with black men desiring white women, but as slave women being used for sex and treated as sub human. How could you not get that? Also the castration and the studding and eugenics breeding programs were also a part of American slavery. Its all in your history why dont you see it?

The same arguement can be applied for the lazy arguement, Slave masters are lazy, slaves were always running around trying to be productive. Drugs being a means of control etc. Its all a satire of history.

5. There is no good black character, Joseph character is a uncle tom etc.

No he proves that it is power that corrupts not upbringing. Joseph is a important character as he is the one who transforms the most. In the beginning he is a servant in the truest sense of the word, a free man but Bowing scraping and trying not to give offense. At the end he is the wealthy and powerful man who is willing to use people he called friends as cattle, and takes pleasure at retribution to his former "oppressors" when he gets the upper hand. Heinlein is saying that no one should weild that much power over another man, that even a good man will become a despot given too much control. He also says it when he says that no white man would have been any better if in the same position that the black leader was in.

At any rate this is getting long, I appologise, I can understand those who said it did not have a lot of character development or description, thats Heinleins style and some people dont like it. I can even understand people (kids) who found it boring, some people arent really readers when it comes to more challenging material. But please, please please... stop saying its racist.

After a bomb warning screaming from the Farnham household television, the family, along with their servant and a friend of their daughter's, rush down into their bomb shelter. They wait in fear at the world they will find upon emerging, but when they finally open the shelter, are amazed at the beautiful untouched world around them. After some adventuring, they find that they are in the same place as when they began, but the land remains untouched by human developement. They are seemingly alone in the newly beautiful world and become adapt to being self sufficient. Together, they plan to start a new civilization, until one day they are discovered. Taken and enslaved in the 'new world' where people of colour become the ruling class and the anglo's the slaves, they find that they somehow had been catapulted into the future. This new world is a place where people are born into certain classes, their futures being determined by birth. Much like the world we live in today, the people accept their places willingly and never question their status. Hugh Farnham, however, see's the injustices of this new world and devises a plan of escape. Although I'm not a huge science fiction fan, I really did enjoy 'Farnham's Freehold'. Heinlein weaves a clever little story with this book, and throws in a few neat twists at the end. Covering the issues of race, governing politics, and those of gender, he comes up with a really creative tale that is accessible to a wide audience. It's really worth a read.

I am a sucker for any type of post-apocalytic story. Farnham's Freehold is this type of story. I really liked this book and also disliked it at the same time. Hugh and his family; wife, son, daughter, servant and a friend are caught by a nuclear surprise. They survive in Hugh's shelter; and are catapulted to a world in the future where all 'white' society has been obliterated, and black rule over whites. Slavery, studding, torture, castrating and cannabilism are the norm in this society.

These situations are not sensationalized but they are shocking.

Problems with book:

1. Not much character depth: The most truthful characters are Joseph the servant, and Hugh himself. The other characters are as followed: the drunken wife, a mama's boy, a daddy's girl and a sexy friend of daddy's girl.

2. Not scientific. I can buy how Hugh builds a well stocked shelter. I can buy how they got catapulted to the future. I can't buy how only black society survived. Certainly, the Chinese (more technologically advanced than Africa in 1962) or the Japanese would have survived also.

3. Disturbingly written. Cannabilism and torturing are disturbing actions. But they way in which it is written seems to be more shocking than the acts themselves.

Good points of book:

1. Stunningly adroit fable of racism. Slavery has visited every society, including the kinder, gentler and more responsible Masters.

2. Use of drug 'Happiness' to keep slaves happy and docile. Very reminscent Huxley's soma. Wise foreshadowing on how some believe illicit drugs are used to keep down the black man and other underclasses.

3. They way Hugh and Joseph are written. Hugh is over the top, a man who will do whatever it takes to survive while still having a moral compass. Joseph is everyman who is doing what he must to survive. The roles of Hugh and Joseph have flipped. Although Hugh is a fair and loving boss; Hugh does not even blame Joseph when he is placed in a position of authority.

If you read this book as SF you will be slightly disappointed.

If you read this book as a satire you will be impressed.

If this seems dichotomous, I don't care. I said I was a sucker for post-apocalyptic stories.

I'm giving this one three stars just because there are some interesting speculations in it about the future of a postapocalyptic world (and because I share the lead character's positive view of the United States, as Heinlein clearly does as well). But this one ranks near the bottom of my own list of Heinlein's novels.

For one thing, he wrote this one smack in the middle of his Nuclear Rant Period, and he's very heavily into Soapbox Mode here. This was a time in Heinlein's life when he got (let's put it gently) deeply annoyed at anyone who suggested that massive nuclear buildup wasn't the way to handle the alleged Soviet threat, or that maybe surviving a nuclear holocaust might not be such a terrific thing. (Indeed, he built a bomb shelter at his Colorado Springs home -- _before_ Colorado Springs was anywhere near a likely nuclear target; NORAD didn't exist yet.) His surly attitude (not to mention his tub-thumping sermons about the Benefits of Military Service) informs this entire novel.

For another -- and it's probably a consequence of the first problem -- _not one_ of the characters in this book is even remotely likeable. Joseph, the 'houseboy', is as close as we come to a decent human being, and even _he_ turns out to be sinister and menacing before we're through. It's hard to take sides between Hugh Farnham and his son Duke; the dad's a jerk and the son's a whiny wuss. Hugh's wife Grace is no prize either, and their daughter Karen -- apparently intended to be sweet and innocent -- just comes across as spoiled. And Barbara never gels as a character at all.

For a third thing, even the stuff some readers _like_ about late-period Heinlein isn't well done here. For example, some readers have commented on Heinlein's apparent approval of incest. That shouldn't be news; _all_ of Heinlein's works stand in part for the proposition that moral standards are relative to time and place, and there's quite a bit of (authorially approved) incest in his later works. Nevertheless, _here_ it just doesn't work: in the context of _this_ family (hardly one of Heinlein's freewheeling horny-redheaded-genius open marriages), Karen's remarks to Hugh on the subject just sound out-of-place and weird.

This one belongs next to _Expanded Universe_ on the shelf of books that could well have turned me off to Heinlein if I'd started with them. It's not without merit -- again, there's some interesting social commentary and speculative future history, and I can't fault the patriotic intent -- but for my tastes the merits are far outweighed by the flaws.

I recently read Heinlein's Stranger In A Strange Land, liked it, and decided to read some more of RAH's works. So I went to the bookstore looking for The Number of the Beast, the Heinlein I had decided to read. I didn't see it on the shelf, but I did see a book called Farnham's Freehold. As I had never heard of this book before, I took it off and looked at it. The strange cover (as if the title wasn't strange enough) intrigued me, as did the subheading "Science fiction's most controversial novel". Hmmm... Then I read the summary on the back of the book and decided to buy it. And then I read it.

What can I say? I liked the book. But it's not for everyone. It is very light science fiction (but then so are most (all?) of Heinlein's), but the overall story itself is complex. It shows a future world where blacks are the predominant race, and whites are slaves. Lots of other things too; cannibalism, free love (Heinlein for you), racial slurs, and constant reference to women as "sluts". Etc., etc., etc. However, all this is in here for are reason. This book is more satire, than sci-fi. It is a bit like 1984 or Brave New World at times, like other Heinlein works at others, but in the end, definately in a class of it's own.

Don't go into this book expecting to read another Strange In A Strange Land, or Starship Troopers. It's not. It's different. Not something for everyone, but possibly everything for someone.

This quirky and interesting novel by Heinlein doesn't seem to fit easily in his oeuvre although there are certainly echos of several recurring and important Heinlein themes.

One is the idea of the competent man which we see in Hugh, a self made man who has the foresight to build the bomb shelter that saves his family from nuclear holocaust. Ever since the early short story "By His Bootstraps," Heinlein was a pioneer in writing about time travel. Heinlein was one of the first sci-fi writers to discuss in detail time travel paradoxes. And the idea that the future will be dramatically different from the present in various unsavory ways--especially in the development of corrupt, oppressive, right wing societies--can certainly be seen here. This story adds a few more unpleasant ideas in that slavery and cannibalism are common. The dark side of human nature and society often takes front and center in Heinlein novels although this is another aspect that can be off-putting to some readers.

Heinlein also loves throwing political and social curveballs which we see here in the fact that the ethnic class structure of American society gets turned upside down, with blacks now being the rulers and whites the underclass. In fact, the whites are slaves and food animals, truly a very dark future dystopia even for Heinlein.

Another odd feature of this novel is that none of the main characters are very likable, as other writers here have observed. Heinlein could write some of the best villains in science fiction, but his main characters were usually at least somewhat appealing even if a bit unconventional, hard boiled and stubborn. Not to mention allergic to authority figures. But Heinlein's vision of the future got darker as he got toward the end of his career (such as in his novel, Friday, in which I discuss this idea at length in my review, incidentally).

Overall, though, this is a worthwhile Heinlein story despite some ideas and situations that might be off-putting to some people not familiar with Heinlein's work and his ability to imagine very trenchant, dystopian futures.

The first time I read Farnham's Freehold, I was too young for it and just tolerated it. As I matured, the novel seemed to get better, because I better understood some of the things Heinlein was saying and doing.

I think most folks today will get turned off by this story. However, it actually is good writing. Some of the points about reverse racism are telling. Actually, the book is more about several kinds of prejudice. Goodness knows that there was a lot of prejudice in the 1940s and 1950s. Some of the other reviewers have pointed to most of what seems to be happening. However, Heinlein's story does have more than one level and appearances can be decieving.

This novel, still (many years later), is not as good as Heinlein's better works. If you are new to Heinlein, start with one of his juveniles.

I won't bother repeating the plot of the book, as many others have already done so.

I have read most of Robert Heinlein's books, and although Farnum's Freehold is far from his best it is memorable with typical several typical Heinlein characters. The father is the self sufficient, thinking "hero" who does not have to be perfect, the mother a traditionalist with no original thoughts, the friend a younger, female match for the father, etc.

This book is from the early 1960's, and should be judged for the time it is written. I have the advantage of having read the book closer to its original publication date. Many of the ideas were new at the time - the idea of the reverse slave society, the time travel due to some extreme event - these are all being done again and again by current authors (think some of Turtledove's stories, and Flint's "1632" and its sequels). They might seem hackneyed now, but let's remember who came first.

Many think of Heinlein as sexist, but little could be further from the truth. His frequent use of strong female characters was way ahead of its time, both in and out of science fiction. Yes, he shows some of the stereotypical weak female characters - but usually as the antithesis of his strong, female heroines.

That's what I told the guy who gave me this book by the time I got to chapter three. And it only went downhill from there.

Conceptually it's a good story. A fairly average household of that time, plus one guest, live through a nuclear attack and end up in a very foreign world. You can get the gist of the story from other reviews.

The problem with the book is two-fold.
Firstly, the characters all fall nicely into various stereotypes and they carry out those stereotypes perfectly. When different situations come up, they all act exactly as they would be expected to from the very beginning of the book. I'm not even sure that Hugh Farnham would have been seen as a mold breaker because there were certainly plenty of non-racist White men at that time.
Secondly, I take issue with certain aspects of the future world. I don't want to go into details because I want you to have the same shock I had when reading it. But I will say this, certain things are too convenient, certain things are blatantly unnecessary, and one conversation in particular between Joe and Hugh is completely unrealistic.

That said, the book is worth reading because the situations that this group of people perpetually end up in are completely unexpected even though their reactions to them are.

Hugh Farnham has built a bomb shelter, and stocked it with the kind of things he thinks his family will need after the reds drop the big one. He takes a lot of criticism for this from his highly educated lawyer son, who even blames Hugh for the fact that his mother is an alcoholic. But when the bomb hits, everyone becomes a believer and quiet Hugh becomes the leader. Some odd twist carries his bomb shelter into another world, or another time, with no human life it seems.

I love the early science fiction novels by Heinlein, I have read some 4 or 5 times over my lifetime. This book was written in the later Heinlein period, and his writing began to get weird for me. Some people probably love it and prefer the later stuff, just my own tastes. I liked the beginning and end of this book, but a huge chunk of the middle turned me off. The book has some weird sexual relationship issues, tons of racial tension, family disputes, alcohol dependency and other issues that took away some of the excitement and danger of a survivalist story. The post-apocalypse world he envisions has a race with technology far beyond ours, yet most of their society is uneducated and not devoted to progress. So you wonder where they got this technology. The characters in the story have little depth and realism, outside of Hugh and his former employee Joe. Or else their personality changes so fast you can't keep up with it. I reread it this year, after having read it last about 20 years ago and still feel the same. i have to say that near the end of the book, it kind of goes back on track and after several chapters of painful reading, the book blossoms again and makes you wish he had spent more time in that part of the story. In fact, the last chapter would be the a great introduction to a sequel. having said all of this, Heinleins's worst books are better than most of his contemporaries books, so don't get me wrong. If you like his later books, you will enjoy this.