Customer Reviews

Mr. Spaceman

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Mr. Spaceman is an eloquently written novel about an alien perparing to make contact with Earth. The spaceman attemps to obtain a thorough understanding of humanity by sensing the "inner truths" of a variety of people. This entertaining book gives a wonderful perspective on humanity, our fears and desires, allowing both the spaceman and the reader to gleam a better understanding of humanity. This book should quickly be elevated to "literature" status, especially when so much science fiction is so poorly written.

Mr. Spaceman had its genesis in one of the funniest and most poignant stories in Butler's last collection, Tabloid Dreams. In "Help Me Find My Spaceman Lover," lonely Edna Bradshaw told of falling in love with Desi, an alien being, in the parking lot of an Alabama Wal-Mart. Now Butler has picked up Desi and Edna's story at a later point. Married and hovering above the earth at the end of the year 2000, they're entertaining an entire busload of Texans bound for a Louisiana casino. Desi has beamed both bus and passengers up to his spaceship so he can continue his research into the nature of human beings. This is to prepare him to reveal himself and his spaceship to earth media on New Year's Eve.

With down-home hospitality, Edna offers cheese straws and sausage balls to the abducted bus passengers who can't help noticing Desi's eight fingers on each hand, all ending in little sucker disks. But he's no ordinary spaceman; he's simple and wise by turns, lacing his conversation with earthly advertising slogans and song titles. "I'm a friendly guy," he says. "There Is a Kind of Hush All Over the World Tonight. I Would Like to Teach the World to Sing. I Would Like to Buy the World a Coke."

Eventually Desi learns the life stories of the individual passengers through his empathic powers. Though these often moving monologues from the heart compose a kind of cross-section of American humanity, many have the familiar ring of characters met too often in recent fiction. None is as engaging or original as Desi himself. His visit to an American supermarket, dressed in zoot suit and hat, is one of the most hilarious scenes in the book.

Butler's blend of humor and insight, along with his ability to examine the human condition, is on display here, as it was in Tabloid Dreams and Good Scent from a Strange Mountain. Mr. Spaceman, though, is a tour de force, a flight of fancy which lands squarely in the center of the heart.

Desi the Spaceman has quite a task before him. As he continues to hover over planet Earth with his wife Edna - he picked her up in the Walmart parking lot near her home in Alabama - he realizes that his mission is coming to its most dangerous step. He must reveal himself to Earth and face the possible defensive (and violent) response.

Before the "unveiling", which is to take place on New Year's Eve, Desi decides to hijack a bus of casino-bound gamblers from a dark highway. He's brought people to his ship before, but these will be the first who are allowed to retain the experience upon their release. The bus reveals a truly diverse bunch, everything from a punky, confused Christian to a gay bus driver named Hank.

Mr. Spaceman is a simple, affecting collection of the very things that Desi is trying to learn from each of the individuals. Their inner voices, emotions, fears, and - most importantly - their yearnings. While it sounds a lot like science fiction, it's really more of a gentle, New Age study of the human condition. Robert Olen Butler seems to have a great compassion (if not always the best understanding) for each of his characters as they reveal their stories to the spaceman. That sensitive tone carries through the novel without much plot development, but that seems about right. While there's nothing new here, it's an enjoyable read and I certainly look forward to other works by the author.

I bought Mr. Spaceman because of the novelty of the plot. It sounded quirky and fun and I hadn't read anything by the author despite the fact that I have seen his work in quite a few bookstores. I am very glad that I picked it up - this was a very honest look at American life at the turn of the millennium. Lives seen through the naive eyes of an outsider. Well concieved and written. And while lives and cultures are being examined, the author makes no value judgements; he leaves it to the reader to interpret.

Bottom line: great read. I wish there was a 4 and a half star rating...I'm stingy with my 5's but this one is almost there.

The author of the beautiful Pulitzer-winning "Good Scent from a Strange Mountain" sends his readers on another incredible journey with "Mr. Spaceman." Not afraid to tread new ground by taking his literary voice into the science fiction genre, Robert Olen Butler has written the perfect novel for the new millenium. "Mr. Spaceman" is deeply satisfying -- funny, moving and always surprising. I couldn't put it down and felt a huge sense of loss when I finished reading. A slim book, it speaks volumes about our commercialized society, about dreams, about families, about religion and about love. This is a unique and very funny voice, writing at his best. Mr. Spaceman will stay with you for a long time.

I bought Mr. Spaceman because of the novelty of the plot. It sounded quirky and fun and I hadn't read anything by the author despite the fact that I have seen his work in quite a few bookstores. I am very glad that I picked it up - this was a very honest look at American life at the turn of the millennium. Lives seen through the naive eyes of an outsider. Well concieved and written. And while lives and cultures are being examined, the author makes no value judgements; he leaves it to the reader to interpret.

Bottom line: great read.

This is a wonderful work that extends from Butler's collection of short stories, _Tabloid Dreams_. Like in the short fiction, he uses the tabloid/sci-fi plot as a starting point for a work that really explores character over plot. In many ways it reminds me of Heinlein's _Stranger in a Strange Land_ without the hyper-political and and overly male point of view.

The alien Desi works as a wonderful device to get inside the heads of a real variety of characters; as we share and re-live their experiences, we get the full force of what they went through followed by interesting commentary and observations of the outsider Desi. Much of it is humorous and touching as we dip into the unique voices of all these characters. We see truck drivers, Harvard graduates, young teen rebels with piercings and everything in between. Butler's skill at presenting all these different types of people is astonishing.

An interesting critical point is the way in which Desi struggles with words themselves; Desi comes from a culture that has long since abandoned speech and the written word, and he is constantly questioning it's abilty to convey what we really mean. Despite this, Desi finds a real source of beauty in language and comes to unique undestandings about how we relate to one another.

I loved this book. Desi is as engaging a "character" as I've encountered in years. He's been studying us for 30 years and is preparing for a grand appearance on New Year's Eve of the new millenium. His wise and quirky ruminations are by turn funny, poignant, and sad. He discerns the yearning that drives humans, but he doesn't quite understand it -- just as we don't. He has fallen in love with Edna, a downhome girl from Alabama who enjoys cooking and nurturing the folks who have been beamed up to the spacecraft.

So we wonder: Is this a love story? A sci-fi tale? A comedy? A study of the mysteries of language, of culture, of spirituality?

However we classify it (if we even need to do so), I'd like to say that this work seems a more imaginative achievement than his Pulitzer-Prize-winning book (A Good Scent ...). What impresses me most about Butler's writing is his commitment to voice. He lives within his characters, granting them compassion and understanding. His works are literary entertainments, what any discriminating reader yearns to find.

I really enjoyed reading this story. The writer knew how to attract me with his character "Desi" (Mr. Spaceman). Desi is a funny, sensitive creature; observe our planet not from his home planet point of view. But from his heart, He knows what wrong and right and how can he be helpful to these poor creatures that suffer (that would be us!). The story cover many issues and it has a colorful contents that proves how smart a writer can be.

I don't know why I liked Desi, but he reminds me of me. I am sensitive and I have a good heart, but what I don't have is ... a free opinion on things. What I meant is that cultural constraints, traditions and even the community, sometimes, affect our own opinions and decisions. While we should free our-selves from all of them, and try to have a fresh look on everything around us.

I have learned my lesson. It is your turn now.

Enjoy reading the book.

Mr. Spaceman reads well until the conclusion. By turns it is witty and profound, working out a marvelous set of parallels with the story of Christ. (Desi the Spaceman even has a last supper with his "twelve apostles.") But the novel degenerates into a paean for the author's favorite city that fails to bring the themes of the work to completion.