Literary Significance and Criticism
Science-fiction writer and critic James Blish, writing in 1957, shortly after publication, criticized the lack of characterization of its hero Dan Davis, saying, "It is surely an odd novel that is at its best when the author is openly editorializing...." — in this case about the "parity system of farm price supports, which in 2000 is applied to automobiles."
"Every other important subject of science fiction which Heinlein has examined at length has come out remade, vitalized and made the author's own property. It didn't happen here, for the first time in Heinlein's long and distinguished career — and not because Heinlein didn't have something to say, but because he failed to embody it in a real protagonist. Evidently, Heinlein as his own hero is about played out."
The critic Alexei Panshin, writing in 1968, said that "as a whole, the story is thoroughly melodramatic but very good fun. ... It was as though Heinlein the engineer said, 'If I had the parts available, what little gadgets would I most enjoy building?' and then went ahead and built them fictionally. A good story."
The title of the novel was used for a song on The Monkees' fourth album Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd.
Read more about this topic: The Door Into Summer
Famous quotes containing the words literary, significance and/or criticism:
“Society has really no graver interest than the well-being of the literary class.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The hypothesis I wish to advance is that ... the language of morality is in ... grave disorder.... What we possess, if this is true, are the fragments of a conceptual scheme, parts of which now lack those contexts from which their significance derived. We possess indeed simulacra of morality, we continue to use many of the key expressions. But we have—very largely if not entirely—lost our comprehension, both theoretical and practical, of morality.”
—Alasdair Chalmers MacIntyre (b. 1929)
“When you overpay small people you frighten them. They know that their merits or activities entitle them to no such sums as they are receiving. As a result their boss soars out of economic into magic significance. He becomes a source of blessings rather than wages. Criticism is sacrilege, doubt is heresy.”
—Ben Hecht (1893–1964)