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Spaceman of Bohemia Kindle Edition
Orphaned as a boy, raised in the Czech countryside by his doting grandparents, Jakub Prochv°zka has risen from small-time scientist to become the country's first astronaut. When a dangerous solo mission to Venus offers him both the chance at heroism he's dreamt of, and a way to atone for his father's sins as a Communist informer, he ventures boldly into the vast unknown. But in so doing, he leaves behind his devoted wife, Lenka, whose love, he realizes too late, he has sacrificed on the altar of his ambitions.
Alone in Deep Space, Jakub discovers a possibly imaginary giant alien spider, who becomes his unlikely companion. Over philosophical conversations about the nature of love, life and death, and the deliciousness of bacon, the pair form an intense and emotional bond. Will it be enough to see Jakub through a clash with secret Russian rivals and return him safely to Earth for a second chance with Lenka?
Rich with warmth and suspense and surprise, Spaceman of Bohemia is an exuberant delight from start to finish. Very seldom has a novel this profound taken readers on a journey of such boundless entertainment and sheer fun.
"A frenetically imaginative first effort, booming with vitality and originality . . . Kalfar's voice is distinct enough to leave tread marks." - Jennifer Senior, New York Times
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherLittle, Brown and Company
- Publication dateMarch 7, 2017
- File size1187 KB
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Editorial Reviews
Review
Spaceman of Bohemia represents the fiery, funny launch of an exciting new voice. Jaroslav Kalfar, like a good literary astronaut, finds levity in gravity and vice versa.
-- "Sam Lipsyte, New York Times bestselling author"For all the strangeness of outer space, it is the writing about his home village, the place to which he longs to return and perhaps never can, that beats strongest in this wry, melancholy book.
-- "New York Times"Spaceman of Bohemia is an out-of-this-world look at all our beautiful smallnesses, from the cells of our biology to the bacterial minutiae of one broken heart. The roar of revolution and governmental injustice is cast against the depths of our emotions and the bottomless, grateful silence of the stars. Jaroslav Kalfar has spun an unforgettable tale, a poignant interplanetary work that collapses the distance between us with the beauty of its language and the unstoppable wonder of this universe he's created.-- "Samantha Hunt, author of Mr. Splitfoot"
Blend Bradbury and Lem with Saint-Exupery and perhaps a little Kafka, and you get this talky, pleasing first novel by Czech immigrant writer Kalfar....a book built on sly, decidedly contrarian humor...Kalfar's confection is an inventive, well-paced exercise in speculative fiction.
-- "Kirkus Reviews"Spaceman of Bohemia is a wise and elegant work composed of its own unique ethereal grace-a hauntingly beautiful story of solitude, hope, family, and love that transcends, uplifts, carries the reader away.-- "Dinaw Mengestu, author of The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears"
Spaceman of Bohemia is unforgettable: a work of breathtaking scope and heart, and a reflection of humanity that's raw and strange and profound and true.-- "Lisa McInerney, author of The Glorious Heresies, winner of the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction"
With charm and the urgent delicacy that this poetic first novel demands, British-born narrator Jot Davies deftly delivers this story...Davies' contemplative voice carries the listener on a singular ride to places where alien spiders and memories of an Iron-Curtained Eastern Europe somehow occupy the same space, proving perhaps that there may be more uncharted territory in the mind than in all the cosmos. Surreal, heartfelt, and vivid.
-- "AudioFile"Spaceman of Bohemia is the best, most enjoyably heartbreaking, most fun book you'll read this year. On the surface, you'll see affinities with Gary Shteyngart, with The Martian, with Kelly Link. But Jaroslav Kalfar's voice is entirely his own. I beg you: take this strange, hilarious, profound, life-affirming trip into literary outer space.-- "Darin Strauss, National Book Critics Circle Award winner for Half a Life"
With its interplanetary shenanigans and lessons in Czech history, this zany satirical debut is bursting at the seams.
-- "Guardian (London)"About the Author
Product details
- ASIN : B01HZFB6VO
- Publisher : Little, Brown and Company (March 7, 2017)
- Publication date : March 7, 2017
- Language : English
- File size : 1187 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Not Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 289 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #203,895 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #103 in Absurdist Fiction (Books)
- #202 in Action & Adventure Literary Fiction
- #844 in Galactic Empire Science Fiction eBooks
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
![Jaroslav Kalfar](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/S/amzn-author-media-prod/p9an55nupr12flfn7142mqrr4v._SY600_.jpg)
Jaroslav Kalfař was born one year before the Velvet Revolution in Prague, Czech Republic. He immigrated to the United States at the age of fifteen. He has earned an MFA from New York University, where he was a Goldwater Fellow and a nominee for the inaugural E.L. Doctorow Prize. He is a recipient of the 2018 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship. His debut novel, Spaceman of Bohemia, was a finalist for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, The Arthur C. Clarke Award, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. Film adaptation of Spaceman starring Adam Sandler and Carey Mulligan is set for release in 2023.
Customer reviews
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Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find the book great, enjoyable, and brilliant. They describe the story as amazing, thought-provoking, and whimsical. Readers praise the writing style as amazing and poetic. They also appreciate the humor and the characters, which seem quite real.
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Customers find the book great, enjoyable, and enlightening. They say it makes for a nice summer read and is brilliant.
"...But that is a small complaint because the read is engrossing overall and I found myself invested in the characters and always enjoying the book when..." Read more
"...A slow read for me, but worth the effort. Well written, self depreciating humor and, life experiences (fictional) in Czechoslovakia...." Read more
"...Still, nicely written and, until near the end, highly engaging." Read more
"Fantastic book. Looking forward to the Netflix movie" Read more
Customers find the story amazing and the writing refreshingly honest. They say the book is fun, thought-provoking, and imaginative. Readers also mention the book hits home in excellent ways.
"...I thought Kaflar pulled off the narrative structure quite well, weaving the present mission with glimpses from the protagonist's past as well as..." Read more
"...This whimsical little exploration contains universes. It made me grin, it made me guffaw, it made me tense up in dread and it made me sob...." Read more
"...It is well-written, inventive and it rings true for those of us who came from that corner of the world...." Read more
"...As an American with very close Czech Republic ties, there are many very poignant moments in this book that I feel touch the sole of Czechs and Czech..." Read more
Customers find the writing style amazing, poetic, and humanistic. They also say the love story is particularly well-written. Readers describe the book as unique and tender.
"...The prose and plotting is also well done, though it does careen out of control at times and characters tend to say the kind of dialogue that no one..." Read more
"...A slow read for me, but worth the effort. Well written, self depreciating humor and, life experiences (fictional) in Czechoslovakia...." Read more
"...Still, nicely written and, until near the end, highly engaging." Read more
"...A sci-fi adventure is superimposed on this background. It is well-written, inventive and it rings true for those of us who came from that corner of..." Read more
Customers find the humor in the book miraculous.
"...A slow read for me, but worth the effort. Well written, self depreciating humor and, life experiences (fictional) in Czechoslovakia...." Read more
"...(ala Kafka) Plus the outer space parts are very creative and outrageously funny(ala K. Vonnegut). Strongly recommend." Read more
"...The humor is also miraculous. There is time and space. There is growing up...." Read more
"...The writing is beautiful, poetic, humanistic and funny, blending light sides and dark sides with eloquence, sadness and joy.Amazing." Read more
Customers find the characters in the book to be quite real.
"...It is a gloomy book. The characters are well drawn..." Read more
"...The characters seem quite real as well...." Read more
"...I also enjoyed the thought behind the characters and their webs of existence." Read more
"Such a unique and tender book: the characters are beautifully written." Read more
Customers find the pacing of the book slow. They also mention the backstory is sluggish.
"I'm still reading it, about 2/3 of the way through. A slow read for me, but worth the effort...." Read more
"...episodes of the novel are dragged down rather than enhanced by a sluggish backstory involving post-communist intrigues and another about the..." Read more
"Unusual intertwining of science fiction and history. Sometimes slow but always entertaining. A definite read...." Read more
Reviews with images
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Top reviews from the United States
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The prose and plotting is also well done, though it does careen out of control at times and characters tend to say the kind of dialogue that no one ever says in real life, only in first novels. But that is a small complaint because the read is engrossing overall and I found myself invested in the characters and always enjoying the book when I picked it up.
In short, buy this book! It will make for a nice summer read. Looking forward to more from this author.
It is not a perfect book by any means; it meanders and rambles and goes off on digressions and lines of thought that can be tedious. However, at the end of the day (or, rather, of the book), there is a sweetness and acceptance of some of the bumps that life puts in our way, along with some sadness that things don't necessarily work out the way you'd like.
While it's impossible to exclude or ignore some of the excesses of the book (those digressions noted earlier), Kalfar definitely has talent. He uses a mixture of devices -- straight narrative, dialogue and an epistolary set of transcripts from the hero's wife's psychotherapy sessions, among others -- to make his point. The characters seem quite real as well.
So while he needs some more discipline, there is a good and maybe a great writer here, and I look forward to his next work(s).
Top reviews from other countries
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Reviewed in Germany on March 14, 2024
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