Job: A Comedy of Justice

In someways I think my journey to this book will always outlast the book itself.

When I was seventeen I told my boss I would read this book, that had been so influential to his young catholic school life. It was one of only two gallon sized bags worth of objects prized from my worst car wreck in my early twenties. It has been the lasting joke of a decade. Whether I had finally read it.

And this late winter, in the year I will turn 29, he sent me a second copy. It is pristine, and not as tender warming as the one that slowly is trying to die, but its very much still in this house with me. (And both copies likely find it queer, I read it on my Kindle instead of through either of them.)




I am not sure I liked this novel. It is slow and plodding, and it does not do details and relationships the way my favorite books do. But it was quite compelling, and I was involved with the point of the novel by about the one-third mark.

I can see very much why it changed his life when it did, though at 29, I can see why it seems for granted to me, with all my life has had in it. I'm not sure I'd rec it to others, but I'm certain I would still love to talk about it with people. And thus I will leave you the quote that will stay with me forever, too:





"Is this Texas, then, or Hell?"

"Well. That's all really a matter of opinion."

So. This book.

It was probably one of the greatest adventures i've read on a long long while. Following Alexander "Graham" "alec" Gergermester through all the tribulations, dimentional jumping and pure anarchy of reality he was placed, how he learns to become more than a simple follower of the "word of god" how he tries to save everyone he meets to His grace, even lucifer himself, though he didnt knew at the moment, how he is faced with reality, how he learns to respect his "wife", the women who chooses to be with him, but also chooses to be herself, much to his raising conflict, how she respects him but still has her own beliefs and none of his prude attitudes toward sex or "modesty", well... Alexander is sent to a travel around realities where he becomes more and more human, but still has love for others first in his heart, and tries to save them all when he can.

It felt like i went with him for the hundreds and hundreds of years that it took for him to grow, you feel the weight of the time and still is an easy read, you are shown a picture of heaven and a picture of hell, and of what lies beyond, and its extremelly interesting.

its funny in many places how Alexander and Marga find themselfs having worked their backs off to just end in a different reality, where all the money they carry means nothing, its funny to pretend for a moment and see what the world would be if no one invented electricity, or aviation, or oil motors, or if this all was invented a few decades before we know it. Its a really fun set of universes, and its a really fun book

A very subpar story by someone I expected much more from. I'm not religious so perhaps aspects of the fable are lost on me but a tale of a bloke who doesn't have a lot of luck, indeed, who God herself seems to be spiting, should have been far more interesting than this.

Not the deepest thing you'll ever read, but it's just such a satisfying story.

Heinlein delves into religion in this book. Alexander Hergensheimer is a fundamentalist minister but then everything changed and he is supposed to be Alec Graham, an underworld figure. He is in love with Margrethe but he is afraid that the weird things happening on earth mean the end of the world is coming and Margrethe is a heathen. Can he save her so that she is in Heaven with him?

I have to acknowledge a debt of gratitude to LT member wirkman. He points out that Job is a reworking of a novel by James Branch Cabell, a tribute as it were from Heinlein to an author he much admired. Somehow the book picked up for me after that. After mentally peeling back slightly heavy handed approach that was part and parcel of fitting his story inside Cabell's 'moral story' I recognized the much lighter Heinlein touch and sailed through to the end with ease. And in the end saw that it was a love story, and if you want the background to that story I refer you to his entry in Wikipedia. Recommended, but it's one mostly for the Heinlein or the Cabell fans.

I'd forgotten how thoroughly unlikeable the protagonist of this book is. Ick. I also had a hard time understanding what caused him to fall in love with Marga, and even more, WTF did Marga see in him?

It's an interesting meditation on religious fundamentalism, but ultimately it strikes me as a little too facile. It was written near the end of Heinlein's career and it feels a little as if it were done by rote. There are several recycled bits from earlier works, including the obligatory reference to consensual parent/child sex. The dialogue is a bit stiff- RAH was very stingy with his contractions, and I think that makes for awkward sounding conversations.

The Farnsworth family were far and away my favorite characters. I liked the steampunky elements of the first several chapters. In the end, though, I couldn't get past my distaste for Alex. This one's not going back on the shelf. 2.5 stars.

Alexander Hergesheimer, a minister of religion, takes a bet to firewalk in Tahiti, and the world changes. Then it keeps changing while he crosses the Pacific, falls in love, crosses Mexico, America, ascends into heaven, and descends into hell. This is, perhaps, the best late Heinlein. It is funny, poignant, and pointed. The ending is pleasant, if a bit dated. There's a bit of the flavour of Stranger towards the end.

I really enjoyed this when it came out. Imagine the story of Job told in future times, with multiple universes and all the things that can go 'wrong' to a modern/future person, without being grim, terrible or nasty. Its a bit irreverent if you are a strict religious person, but I found it enjoyable.

All the other books I've read by Robert Heinlein I really liked, but this one left me totally cold. I did read to the end just to see if it would get better, but it did not.

A fun and enjoyable story about a man who suddenly finds himself shifting into different versions of earth, along with a girl he meets after his first shift. The main character is a very religious man, which gives room for a satirical take on religion. I enjoyed the book, but was not greatly impressed. Reading the reviews here, I will have to pick up one of Heinlein's more popular works to see if they are better.

This was my first Heinlein novel and I must say I enjoyed it! I bought it at a garage sell for 30 cents because I vaguely recognized the name.

I just read Christophers Moore's "Lamb" before this and must say that this was a refreshing take on religion.

In the end love is all that matters in every life I guess...

A modern-day (well, set in 1994, written in 1984) retelling of the story of Job from the Biblical Old Testament, with quite the sci-fi twist. Alexander Hergensheimer is a pious church fundraiser who is experiencing something very weird. He participated in a native fire walking during a cruise ship vacation and regains consciousness in a world not his own. It looks very much like Earth, but everything is different: culture, values, technology, even his name! He falls for his stewardess and thereafter together they are flipped into world after world. Why is this happening to him? Who is doing it? The answers to those questions are highly entertaining and thought-provoking.
Although I didn't care for Alec's constant preaching and proselytizing, I understand the necessity of it as regards to the plot and was able to deal with it better at the end of the book than while I was reading it. I very much enjoy Heinlein's take on religion, and wonder if this is the budding of his World as Myth theories.

Typical Heinlein narrative style coupled with a somewhat atypical story of a modern-day Job who is jerked from one reality to another (usually losing everything in the transition) by, he suspects, God (or gods). Drags a touch in the middle, but Heinlein brings the whole thing to a satisfyingly irreverant and nifty conclusion. In other words, he does explain (mostly) what's been going on, and the explanation is worth the time it takes to get to it.

I'm not wild about this one. It's Heinlein being pretty self-indulgent, and whining about the Judaeo-Christian view of God. But, that said, it's also an unusual take on Job.

Picked this up as reading material for a backpacking trip. I read it years ago, back when it first came out. Heinlein is strong on ideas and creativity - not so strong on other things. This is a retelling of the Job story from the old testament, with the added twist that the Judeo-Christian God is not the only God.

This is the first book I've read by Heinlein. After reading the reviews of others, it appears that this piece wasn't a very good representation of "classic" Heinlein. Not having been endowed with possible genre bias, I can say that I enjoyed reading this book. The ending wasn't very satisfying and Heinlein's Christian straw-man was a bit narrow, but I can understand what he was shooting for and I never found myself bored with the narrative.

I found the ideas in this book mind expanding. For instance, Jehova is looking for a betting partner and turns to Loki as Satan has no interest in destroying some poor schmucks life.

This is the first Heinlein book I read and still one of my favorites. A hapless protagonist gets his life turned upside down as he is thrust from one impossible situation to the next. Along the way he reevaluates his view on love and on religion all without losing his faith.

This is quite possibly my favorite of Heinlein's works that I have read so far. For once he manages to write a story that is mostly plot rather than lecture that engages me; I have a bizarre fondness for being lectured by him even though it's not something I enjoy from other authors. Maybe it's because of how unusual it is for one of his protagonists to be presented as being so thoroughly wrong about the world for so much of the book. Maybe it's because I've always been a sucker for stories about following one's love beyond death. Of course, it could also be professional ego from the way he flatters librarians.

A funny update on the trials of Job, a conservative Christian who ends up getting more than he bargained for on a vacation cruise. The character Margrethe is fun, and the book's a righteous romp through religion, sexual mores, and the true meaning of a Bad Day. The ending's not as strong as it could be, but the book's worth reading.

I enjoyed this amusing little science fiction novel because I am always up for a little religious satire. Heinlein elaborates on the biblical story of Job, presenting Christian mythology as an eternal bureaucracy. I didn’t find the book particularly memorable, but it was fun while it lasted.

I should probably confess up front that I am not a Heinlein fan. This is the third of his books that I have read and the first that I really enjoyed. Perhaps my view is tainted in that way.

As I said, I did enjoy this book, but was very uncomfortable with most of it. Heinlein is very impressed with his own knowledge of the Bible, and yet seems to know very little about Christianity. Non-believers often find it strange when I make that distinction, but it is not so very difficult a concept. I had a couple of classes with a woman who knew every fact and date in the textbook, and yet understood nothing of it. She had the knowledge, but was without understanding. When it comes to the Spirit, the problem is even more pronounced (1 Corinthians 2:14).

This is not normally too much a problem. I am a great fan of Isaac Asimov’s, and yet he was utterly blind to anything supernatural at all. That does not make me like his books less. But in this case, Heinlein seems to be writing a great deal of the book as an attack on Christianity, though he has missed the meaning and point of the Scripture he is attacking. The primary problem is his concept of grace, something he believes can be lost the second a stray thought arises. The idea that you must confess all sins immediately before dying or burn in hell provides the backbone for this novel and also provides Heinlein with a terrible injustice to attack. The problem is, it isn’t Christianity. He is attacking a strawman. The novel is weakened because it is directed against his own misunderstandings.

I will repeat that I enjoyed it for the plot and characters. The end was unworthy of the rest, but it was a fun read.

Since I did not have a religious education something that I didn't understand when I first read this book was that Heinlein was making an interesting play on some of the very theme's of the book of Job, particularly where the Biblical Job wishes that he had an advocate in Heaven, and wishes that he could sue God for his greivances.

I am a big Heinlein fan, and have enjoyed most of his books. Unfortunately I just couldn't see the point of this one.

It was well written and a quick read. I understand he was making a comment on religion, the people who use it, and its impact and place in society. The problem is, I have no interest in christianity and that was what the story was about. Yes it can apply to any religion, but that doesn't do much for me either. The characters were ok, but too squeaky to be real, and of course many were religious. Then at the end of the book we visit heaven and hell, and meet some of the inhabitants. Frankly I just couldn't wait for it to be over.

What was also sad, was though this book was published in 1984, as perhaps a satire on religion, in the current climate many of the religious rules are almost law here. And you almost can't get elected, or hold public office if you don't 'believe' and tow the party line on all issues. Then the believers appoint judges to interpret the law, and promote rules that tie the hands of those they can't intimidate into silence.