Talk:By His Bootstraps

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This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as stub, and the rating on other projects was brought up to Stub class. BetacommandBot 13:32, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:By His Bootstraps ASF Oct 1941.jpg
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BetacommandBot (talk) 04:57, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Literary references?
I wonder whether we could add a section about literary reference. What is the Wikipedia standard?

In this case, I'm thinking of the strong allusions to Lovecraft's universe found in this (amazing) short story.

Reality3chick (talk) 21:28, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
 * They need to be cited by some WP:Reliable source, not something you notice yourself (WP:No original research). Clarityfiend (talk) 00:03, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
 * The high ones are like the elder ones etc. but I'd say heinlein is just using the tropes without making this a Lovecraftian story 81.49.8.92 (talk) 15:39, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

Spoiler warning
I really disagree with removing my spoiler warning. I don't know yet if there are Wiki rules about this, but encyclopedias DON'T have to include whole stories in order to do their job; this is not Reader's Digest, this is _about_ a work. I'd get angry if I came across an article like this, just wanting to learn about an author's work and be given spoilers. If there is no further discussion on this, I plan to put the warning back; meanwhile I'll research this policy further.

Reality3chick (talk) 23:35, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
 * See WP:Spoiler, which states "Wikipedia no longer carries spoiler warnings, except for the content disclaimer and section headings (such as "Plot" or "Ending") which imply the presence of spoilers." The once teeming herds of spoilers were driven to extinction by packs of bloodthirsty predators (homo editoris). Clarityfiend (talk) 00:01, 18 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the reply, I still find this to be in bad taste but my only alternative would be to become a "homo editoris" as well and start adding "Plot + Ending" in every rampant article...
 * The reason I find it in bad taste is ironically stated in WP:Spoiler itself: "However, when including spoilers, editors should make sure that an encyclopedic purpose is being served".
 * Imho usually it's done just out of a desire to share...


 * Reality3chick (talk) 12:28, 18 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I have a yellowing hardcover anthology from 1957 called Famous Science-Fiction Stories which includes this tale. Each story in the book has a 1-paragraph preface by the editor. The preface reads:
 * This is literally a "whodunit." There are four or five characters in this story (or puzzle) and most of them are the same man! The question is who is who - and when. Or, when is a man not himself - yesterday, today or tomorrow? It may sound like a joke, but we assure you it isn't. It is a perfect illustration of the paradox of time travel. If the story's problem can be solved, then (perhaps) so can time travel.
 * So, even 50 years ago, this story was published with a spoiler! Rlw (Talk) 18:01, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Is there more than one version?
There's a paragraph on the "High Ones" that I remember differently than the pdf I just saw on the web. --Rich Peterson75.45.106.99 (talk) 05:34, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Paradoxes
The importance of this story in the Heinlein universe is in how the paradoxes are resolved, or not. Heinlein maintained that there were no paradoxes in time travel and he attempts to show that, but he cannot deal with the dictionary (the "notebook") that Bob finds. Bob copies the notebook and leaves it behind for "Bob" to find, but where did the original one come from? Later stories by Heinlein seem to avoid this issue... In any event, this article, having mentioned paradoxes in the lead (no, I won't call it a "lede") should deal with the subject. 72.179.63.75 (talk) 04:29, 8 May 2012 (UTC) Eric

Not about time travel paradoxes?
I recently came across a letter written by Heinlein to Theodore Sturgeon in which he denies that BY HIS BOOTSTRAPS is about a time travel paradox:

''I have had a dirty suspicion since I was about six that all consciousness is one and that all the actors I see around me (including my enemies) are myself, at different points in the record's grooves. I once partly explored this in a story called BY HIS BOOTSTRAPS. I say "partly" because I touched on one point only—and the story was mistaken by the readers (most of them) for a time-travel paradox story...whereas I was investigating whether "the wine we thought we swallered could make us dream of all that follered...but we was only simple seamen so of course we couldn't know."''

I'm no good at editing articles, but perhaps someone more capable would like to implement this into the article.

Full letter can be found here.

2001:980:AD79:1:8C77:2C27:4CFD:CA93 (talk) 14:38, 28 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Let us observe first how neatly he establishes the causal loops here as well as in all you zombies, and that people do generally feel to such loops as paradoxical. Secondly there are no paradoxes in the sense of inconsistencies in these stories which is what makes them great. After the action packed wisecracking adventures of the four Bobs, Wilson then turns philosophical for most of the concluding pages and this is where the two issues alluded to by heinlein in the letter are discussed at length. One is how Bob 2 (joe) and Bob 3 could have acted out of free will when what they ended up doing is/was exactly what they remembered or could have remembered from the earlier go arounds. In a nutshell : do you exercise free will when you can already know with certainty what your decision is going to be? The second issue is that Bob consistently has trouble truly identifying himself with his instances earlier and later on his subjective timeline. Narratively this is signaled by heinlein calling the subjective Bob 'Wilson' and the displaced Bobs 'that guy', joe, diktor. Heinlein describes in his letter the equally disorienting notion of thinking the guys around you are all temporally or otherwise displaced versions of yourself : in a nutshell if so why do I have this person's point of view at this point in my subjective experience? 81.49.8.92 (talk) 15:35, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

Etymology of 'Diktor'
May I change this passage "(the etymology is not explained - "Diktor" might be derived from "doctor", "director" and/or "dictator")" into smth like "(the etymology is not explained - "Diktor" might be derived from 'dictate' from latin root 'dicto' and mean '(the only) one who tells (what to do)"? Source: Wiktionary. [|dictate] How to put it into sources? Or would it be original research and thus no good? Btw, estonian and russian word 'diktor' means announcer, as in television or radio news anchor. The one who tells things to all others.BirgittaMTh (talk) 09:14, 14 July 2017 (UTC)


 * All true but given when the story was written and whom for, diktor's remark that this word is one of the few surviving remnants of English, it is almost certain that heinlein intended his readers to make the most obvious inference, namely dictator with the middle syllable dropped 2A01:CB0C:CD:D800:580A:6A5F:C27D:EB35 (talk) 15:16, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

Genevieve, Bob Wilson's girlfriend, should be in plot description. So should Diktor's choices of music.
Any gifted explainers on Wikipedia? Because the various phone calls Bob has with Genevieve are in important part of the plot, but if I tried to explain it, the plot description would get as long as the novella itself. Also Diktor's list of music for Bob to purchase were probably intended by Heinlein to say something.Rich (talk) 20:49, 8 June 2020 (UTC)


 * A later bob, with some time to spare as his earlier three ego-some are slugging it out, visits Genevieve, casually and callously proposes to her in order to have sex with her, and then cruelly leaves her high and dry as he slips into the far future 10 years ahead of becoming diktor. It is g who calls Bob's boarding house apartment shortly after the encounter and is shocked by Bob apparently not knowing anything about it, but this is because it's the earliest bob who is drunk at this point to boot. This is the only phone call between bob and g, although we witness it three times. The other call is between two bobs, again the first one and the fourth one about to get back to the future for good. Bob is extremely cruel on g and I don't know if this is just heinlein being equally misogynistic or just having fun slipping it by his readers almost unnoticed. 2A01:CB0C:CD:D800:580A:6A5F:C27D:EB35 (talk) 15:07, 8 May 2023 (UTC)