Okay... I only finished the book earlier today -- the last week has been extremely harried & hectic, and I'm afraid it looks as if it may be that way for a while yet, so I'm not sure how much I'll be around for the next few discussions
-- but I'd like to throw out a few thoughts:
1. On Sen. Gottlieb. The way I read this, it
did have a psychological effect on him, hence the wild-eyed gunslinging routine. Not crazed, but definitely right at the breaking point (understandably so -- and Sam/Elihu picks up on that and is in exactly the same frame of mind). But as for being ambulatory, etc., I'd also put this down to Heinlein's tendency to have the "competent man" perform in near-superhuman fashion in such a situation. He tended to have his protagonists (especially narrators) not be his genuine "competent man" models, for contrast. They were above the "fools and children", but below the genuine article -- here I think we see the influence of some of Neitzsche and Shaw (and no, I couldn't quote specifics from either, as I've not read either in nearly 30 years, save for bits and pieces). As with many things of this sort in Heinlein, this was more a matter of faith than genuine scientific observation; he had his own philosophical credo, and tended to ignore or override that which went against it, often becoming quite self-contradictory in the process. But, as Asimov said, "he wrote about it beautifully" and made it quite powerful for the reader, and difficult to refute --
because he had such faith in it, it carries conviction, whether it is accurate or not.
2. On Mary's behavior. I'm afraid I still have some problems with this one. While I can agree that she didn't actually argue with Sam because of the points made above, I do think there would have been at least a momentary flash -- barely notable, but there -- as she has been a very independent woman quite used to dealing with such situations on her own, and that's a learned response that doesn't just stop with the flick of a switch -- it's a gradual thing. So I think there really should have been at least some acknowledgment of that aspect, and this is a flaw. However, on the earlier discussion of how women think: "there is nothing wrong with Mary's brain but she jumps logic and arrives at her answers by instinct. Me, I have to worry it out by logic." (p. 237) Even though I had not read that passage when I made my earlier post, I'd say it rather fits.
3. On the Titans' adaptation (or lack of same)... the carapace may be a much easier adaptation for them, something which was acquired over time from exposure to several environments requiring it, or even from some tiny portion of biochemistry we share with other organisms, that the slugs can more easily utilize, whereas nine-day fever was a much more specific thing; it was Venerian in origin, apparently, and did have about a 90% mortality rate. The slugs never tried to regain Venus after the first failed attempt, so obviously word got out somehow... either through an uninfected slug whose host had verbal communication with those familiar with the scenario, or simply by an uninfected slug aware that all of its peers were dying, thus making Venus an undesirable acquisition -- perhaps they decided that this was going to wipe out the entire population, and therefore they would have no food resource. Each of these, I think, given the amount we have of the "slug psychology", would fit: they tended to win by as easy methods as possible, and didn't care for that which was too much of a struggle.
4. I'd like to throw this little relationship out there:
Quote:
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Vargas was insisting that nothing had been proved, while McIlvaine maintained that we were seeing something new to our concepts; an intelligent creature which was, by the fashion in which it was organized, immortal and continuous in its personal identity -- or its group identity; the argument grew confused. In any case McIlvaine was theorizing that such a creature would have continuous memory of all its experiences, not just from the moment of fission, but back to its racial beginning. He described the slug as a four-dimensional worm in space-time, intertwined with itself as a single organism, and the talk grew so esoteric as to be silly.
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This seems to tie into some of Heinlein's other concepts -- that is, concepts he plays with concerning spirituality/immortality, etc. I'm thinking particularly of the "pink worm" in "Life-Line" here; but Heinlein's fascination with the concept of memory, other lives, reincarnation (as per
Beyond This Horizon/
Stranger in a Strange Land, etc.) also seems linked to this, to me. Any thoughts?