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food), the language of contempt (Earthies, Lunies), the gravity (hard on Earthmen, even harder on anyone who tries to return to Earth), the difficulties of sleeping in one-sixth Earth gravity, and the problems of elimination. More importantly, he describes the social mores of the Lunarites: nudity is accepted as comfortable and natural; population is controlled by rationing the right to children; artificial insemination is the normal method of conception (although disapproved on Earth, it is allowed on the Moon for medical reasons; it is not clear whether artificial insemination is the custom among Lunarites or only between Lunarites and Earthie immigrants); and sex between Lunarite and immigrant or tourist is undesirable because of the possibility of injury to the slighter, less heavily muscled Lunarites as well as the difficulty of coordinating Earth-accustomed muscles to the Moon's gravity. This earned Asimov a pleasant reward at the end of the novel (as in The Naked Sun) when he brought Selene and Denison together. |
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As in Part I, the characters seem like real people. Denison is not a hero (no doubt he functions as the author's representative: Denison's age is forty-eight; Asimov's, when he wrote the novel, was fifty-one), and Selene is not a heroine. Selene's attachment to the sullen Neville seems perverse, though her later rejection of him seems correspondingly more satisfying. Neville, on the other hand, is a more classic villain (although Asimov can probably understand his attachment to his lunar tunnels and sympathize with his desire to take the solid Moon along with him on his space travels). Gottstein seems a character of convenience. The reader longs a bit for Lamont's intensity or even Bronowski's wit. |
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Denison, however, who downplays everything, has what was always for Asimov (and for those readers who like Asimov's fiction) the saving grace of rationality. He behaves rationally, understanding the stupidity of others (the stupidity against which the gods themselves, but not Denison in his later years, contend in vain), realizing that one must make people want what is good for them rather than waste effort and time on trying to make them stop doing what they want to do. He accepts the weaknesses of others as readily as he admits his own. He has learned (rather like the moment when Asimov learned to give up the smart-aleck quip and become lovable). At the age of twenty-five, he says, he was still such a child that he had to amuse himself by insulting a fool for no reason other than that he was a fool. Since Hallam's folly was not his fault, Denison admits he was the greater fool to insult him. Since then, he has learned not to insult others and has learned to accept help where it is offered without false pride and without illusions as to |
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