Walter Tevis - The Man Who Fell to Earth <AudioBook>

Plot summary
Thomas Jerome Newton is a humanoid alien who comes to Earth seeking to construct a spaceship to ferry others from his home planet, Anthea, to Earth. Anthea is experiencing a terrible drought after many nuclear wars, and the population has dwindled to nearly 300. Like all Antheans, he is super-intelligent, but he has been selected to complete this mission for his strength, due to the harsh climate and gravity of Earth compared to the cold, small Anthea.

Newton first lands in the state of Kentucky but quickly becomes familiarized with the environment and aspires to become an entrepreneur. Newton uses advanced technology from his home planet to patent many inventions on Earth, and rises as the head of a technology-based conglomerate to incredible wealth. This wealth is needed to construct his own space vehicle program in order to ferry the rest of the Anthean population.

Along the way he meets Betty Jo, a simple Kentucky woman. She falls in love with him. He does not share these feelings, but takes her, and his curious fuel-technician Nathan Bryce, as his few friends while he runs his company in the shadows. Betty Jo introduces Newton to many customs of Earth culture, amongst them church-going, fashion, and alcohol. However, his appetite for alcohol soon invokes much emotional instability, as he is forced to deal with intense human emotions with which Antheans are unfamiliar.

His secret identity as an alien is discovered by Nathan Bryce, but Newton, aware that he has been discovered, is relieved to reveal his identity to someone for the first time. The Antheans he will ferry to Earth will flourish and hopefully make use of their superintelligence to influence Earth to peace, prosperity, and safety from the apocalypse.

However, the CIA arrests Newton, having followed him since his appearance on Earth and having recorded this private conversation with Bryce. They submit him to rigorous tests and analysis, but ultimately find that, despite much conclusive evidence of his alien identity, it would be pointless to release the results because the public would not believe the truth. Such claims would also reflect poorly on the Democratic Party, responsible for the capture. The CIA releases Newton, but no sooner than he tries to exit his building, the FBI, uninformed by the CIA that Newton is exempt from further tests, commences their own brief examinations. Their final examination is ultimately an X-ray of Newton's skull, through his eyes. Newton, whose eyes are sensitive to X-rays, tries to stop them to no avail and is blinded.

The story of Newton's blinding reaches the press in a frenzy, and, ironically, the story is used by the Republican Party to depict the Democrats as being corrupt, and leads to their seizure of power, which is to inevitably lead to apocalypse.

Newton, in a final confrontation with Bryce, is bitterly unable to continue his spaceship project due to planetary alignments having changed during captivity and the troubles of his blindness. He creates a recording of alien messages which he hopes to be broadcast via radio to his home.


Review
I wonder if Walter Tevis is a religious man. I wonder that because The Man Who Fell To Earth seems to have many undertones of religion. Sure, it also has things to say about humanity and loneliness and being a stranger. But, if I had to pick a central theme, I’d pick one with religious references.

The main character of The Man Who Fell To Earth is an alien. And, as with most sci-fi stories, the plot sounds fairly ridiculous when explained apart from its originating book or movie. In this case, this alien has come to earth because his planet is dying. He wants to create a spaceship in Kentucky that will transport his friends and family to earth. The only problem is that his extraterrestrial wisdom tells him that the people of earth are soon to destroy themselves through war just as his people did on Anthea. The only way for both the Antheans and the humans to survive is for the aliens to work their way into key political positions all over the world and keep us from blowing ourselves up (written in 1963, at times it feels mildly dated).

So, …..that was a mouthful. I hate science fiction for paragraphs like that. You just can't sound cool when you're describing a sci-fi story. Regardless, I'll head back into that religion theme I promised.

When our alien character, T.J. Newton, reveals himself to one of his two friends the conversation goes like this:

They…walked side by side, saying nothing, down the long, heavily carpeted hallway to their room. Bryce unlocked the door with his key, and after he had closed it behind them he said, quietly now, his voice steady, "Well, are you [an alien]?"

Newton sat on the side of the bed, smiled wearily at him, and said, "Of course, I am."

There was nothing to say. Bryce found himself muttering, "Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ." He seated himself in an armchair, and stared at his feet. "Jesus Christ."

Maybe all we have here is Bryce breaking the commandment about using God's name in vain. Or, maybe, it's the author trying to reveal something to us (perhaps both). Maybe, these few lines in the book are like that kid telling Bruce Willis that he sees dead people in The Sixth Sense.

I think you can make a strong case that The Man Who Fell To Earth is a parallel to the story of Jesus. But, instead of Jesus loving humanity enough to save them we have a Christ-type who looses his good intentions as he gets caught up in man's hopelessness. Instead of saving the world he gives up and becomes part of the world.

The world is not looked at fondly by Walter Tevis in his book. Here we get a glimpse of what it means to be human:

"…he did not know what to think, and as a consequence he hardly thought about it at all. He had become very human."

Tevis describes human-beings as people that choose not to think when difficult thoughts are presented to them. Look at much of our primetime television and you might have a hard time arguing with the notion. So, as the book progresses we see Mr. Newton get caught up in the overwhelming despair of being a lonely human. He forgets about his purpose on earth and becomes an alcoholic. After a heavenly observation of human life, and then an earthly attempt at being human, and then having humans reject his salvation plan he decides that humanity is not worth saving.

It's an interesting form of allegory leading us as we finish the book to ask: Does humanity deserve to be saved? I think that in our stories of Jesus we sometimes paint a picture that says: "Of course we deserve to be saved. Christ came to Earth for us, because we're all basically good folks". The message of The Man Who Fell To Earth is that there is something inherently sad, lonely, and proud inside of humanity. We don't deserve much at all.

The reason I think The Man Who Fell To Earth is a great novel is not because of its plot, which isn't anything too remarkable. Instead, it's for its thoughts on people, on loneliness, on being a stranger. It's stories like this that (in my opinion) show the science fiction genre at its best. It's likely that you'll disagree with some of my observations when you read the book, but if you read with the intentions of having your thoughts sparked you are sure to leave satisfied. In my mind, that is the sign of a good book.