Again, I really liked this story. The phrase "The grass is always greener on the other side" is what really jumps out at me after reading this. Willis Kaw is aware that he was not to born to the planet Earth and is convinced that he comes from a much better place. A place with a bright green sky and birds that do not fly, but instead skim surfaces. He thinks that he comes from a planet that does not have to deal with "bodies that decay and smell bad and run down and die (pg.353). He is sure that the anguish and the torment that comes along with being a human being is a punishment that he has been given for an unknown crime that he committed on his home planet.
While he is on earth, he dreams of going home to his planet. He has lost his daughter, his son has been crippled and he's in a loveless marriage. Once he succeeds in returning to his home planet, he realizes that life on earth was a gift to him. Life on his planet is actually much worse than on earth and Plydo falls asleep dreaming of his life as Willis Kaw on the planet Earth.
This just goes to show that we should be thankful for what we have. While it's true that life is not perfect, life could be worse. This seems to be the underlying message that the story drives home.
I do have one question though. Why "Strange Wine" ? It doesn't seem to fit in at all ..
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I spent 2 hours on the internet, trying to find out why it was called "Strange Wine," and I couldn't find anything. Unless someone decides to actually write to Harlan Ellison, I don't think we're ever going to find out. But he's 73 now, and probably can't remember anyway...
I really liked this story, and after thinking about it, I've come up with some idea of the title. The last line of the story reads "Of life as Willis Kaw, life on the pleasure planet." Wine is used to give pleasure, so I thought that Ellison called it "Strange Wine" becuase Willis Kaw found Earth to be a odd, foreign, and strange planet, but it was still better then whatever homeworld he comes from.
So basically, People of his race used Earth as a kind of 'wine' by sending the revered people of thier race so they can escape the troubles of life on this homeworld.
One thing you have to keep in mind here is that Ellison says that he does not drink -- not in the 'used to drink, but don't now' sense, but in the 'never drank and don't care to experience it' sense. Of course, he's seen drunks, and he knows them, and that may be the experience that he's applying to his ideas about drinking wine -- that people who accept a "strange wine" might go on a "strange" vacation from reality, might be other than themselves. In other words, not a "strange wine", but, rather, a wine from strangers.
I dunno -- look at the story "Shattered Like A Glass Goblin" and tell me what you think.
Just my 2 cents.
As far as I can tell, it's a matter of wordplay... 'Wine' is meant as a pun on 'whine', and the reality of Willis Kaw's situation does indeed prove a point about how strange it is to whine when things could be so much worse!
I've always loved this story, but I think the ending/moral (that all the reviews of it I've read online praise so highly) is a complete botch, because it's patent nonsense.
First off it's very difficult to imagine any sentient, living creatures whose lives would be for whatever reason so much more horrific than ours. There's really only development to deal with - levels of development of the respective worlds, since conditions of life are everywhere more or less the same, where life could spring up and evolve in the first place. Ok so once you say that, what level of development must this world be at, that has the technology, and the desire, to send some specially deserving person to another world and another body via means that we can't even imagine? Things are probably great on their planet, and the inhabitants' claiming otherwise to provide the story's punchline seems just silly. Like I've always wondered that, after he says "No, sir, it's WE who know no happiness here" or whatever, I mean, what do they immediately go and do after the story, how do their lives immediately unfold? I'd love to see Ellison try to explain what about their lives is so unhappy compared to ours. He wouldn't be able to do it.
Life on earth is horrible and full of suffering. This is not a matter of perspective. This is not a matter of things being relative. Life sucks. It hurts. It's hard. People suffer a ton, for no reason.
Kafka was much more realistic and honest, and that's why he's Kafka and Harlan is Harlan. Another, sort of similar set-up occurs in Pan's Labyrinth - and again, it's much more honest and realistic about human suffering.
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