What Is 'The Man Who Fell To Earth' Novel About In Summary?

Question

Saw this 1960s sci-fi novel mentioned and got curious—what's the plot for Walter Tevis's alien visitor story without major spoilers?

PEKTOsan Na! · Answer

'The Man Who Fell to Earth' is an alien from another planet who crashes on Earth and tries to create a device to return to his home planet. However, he is gradually corrupted by the corporate excesses and human vices of Earth. It is a classic sci-fi novel which explores the negative aspects of modern society. Meanwhile, I have been reading 'When the moon fell' which is a completely different premise - the moon falls to Earth in a catastrophic event and crashes into the fantasy world. A small village is affected by the event and a village mage tries to find a way to survive with the massive celestial body now in his backyard. The scenarios for survival are odd, surprisingly cozy and very inventive.

Grady · Answer

The novel is a slow-motion tragedy. It is told from the perspective of an alien who is not invincible. Newton’s physical body cannot survive on Earth for long, and his emotional well-being is fragile. Most people reading a science fiction novel would expect Newton to conquer Earth in some way, but instead he is conquered by it. Most people reading a science fiction novel would also expect Newton to find romance with the one human who truly cares for him, but even that is painful for him. His relationship with hotel clerk Betty Jo is painful, and her kind, curious nature reveals to Newton the incompatibility of his world and hers.

However, the critique of capitalism is fantastic too and at the end of the novel when World Enterprises (Newton’s company) finally manage to exploit his work for their own capitalist gain it is a very horrific and shocking moment – especially when the men in suits dissect his patents in order to extract as much profit as possible from them (just like vultures). That’s how a work of genius is corrupted by greed and idealism is torn apart by philistine bureaucracy. As always I would recommend reading the novel and then watching the film with Bowie, because both complement each other perfectly whereas the novel is much more subdued and does not have the same emotional impact as the film.

Carter · Answer

I had read most of the great Sci Fi classics before stumbling upon ‘The Man Who Fell to Earth’ but this had such an impact on me that it has to be mentioned. Thomas Jerome Newton, an alien from a world dying of drought comes to Earth disguised as a human. His mission to find a way to transport water from Earth back to his planet and in doing so he finds and establishes a means for the alien to create huge amounts of wealth and technology which he uses to fund his search for water. Of course his great plans are slowly unraveled as he is a victim of human corruption and he falls prey to human vices such as alcohol and greed.

Tevis uses the fish out of water perspective of an outsider to comment on humanity. The hero, Thomas Jerome Newton, is a genetically perfect, super-intelligent, space traveling alien, who gradually unravels as a man as he is consumed by the society of humans. The book is a melancholy study of an isolated man, struggling to find his place in a world that is dominated by addiction, and other human flaws. The only sound left for Newton in the end, is the strumming of a guitar, alone in an empty apartment, a long way from home.

Isaiah · Answer

At its core The Man Who Fell to Earth is a paradox: a sci-fi novel about humanity by a man who drew most of his material from his experiences as an immigrant to the US. Newton’s attempts to fit in in order to succeed are mirrored by the advancements his inventions bring to society. But Newton is also something of a freak: he is studied by everyone, and eventually discarded by them, just as Earth’s atmosphere and culture are slowly eroded away.

The novel Tevis wrote is enjoyable for many reasons. A Christ like figure is sacrificed for others, or the novel serves as a cautionary tale of man’s insatiable ambition? In a novel of moderate size Tevis leaves many of the questions that are posed by the novel to be answered by the reader. They are the sort of questions that haunt one for weeks after they have read the book. The novel especially haunts those who are outsiders in this world.

Jimmy Torrellano · Answer

The plot summary given does little justice to the work as a whole. An alien tries to build a company to get back home. So far, so good. However, this summary gives little indication of the emotional impact that reading the book has on the reader. They are confined to the mind of Newton, and so they experience his hope, then determination, then frustration, then despair, and finally a numb, empty disappointment. It is a masterful portrayal of slow decline, and each chapter is another brick in the wall that seals him in. His worsening physical ailments, his growing addiction to drink, his poor and indeed toxic relationships with those around him – all develop naturally. So much so that by the time it becomes clear that he has passed a point of no return, you are already long past it. What I read is not so much a plot, as the development of how that plot affects the protagonist, chapter by chapter. And that is the mark of a classic: it transcends the plot to deliver a powerful impression of decline and decay.

arenas4288 · Answer

Lack of villains: Newton has no villainous antagonist. Farnsworth, the lawyer, is portrayed as a pragmatic businessman. Betty Jo, the character with whom Newton has a romantic relation, is confused between her desire for stability and her need for freedom. The two government agents follow their assigned roles. The tragedy of Newton’s defeat is that it is a systemic tragedy. It arises from the normal practices and structure of society. Man’s greed; man’s fear of the unknown; red tape; addiction—these are the villains of Newton’s defeat. The novel repeatedly emphasizes the point that these are unknown, faceless entities which man cannot fight. In the end, man cannot fight against the environment in which he lives. This is a very scary idea and it is an idea that the novel conveys strongly to the reader.

ash_ley108 · Answer

The film starring David Bowie is more of a mood piece and the later made-for-TV movie was a sort of thriller type of re-imagining. The book, however, is a completely separate entity. While the film and television adaptations attempt to externalize and provide additional plot to enhance the story, the book – written by Tevis – is able to operate on an entirely internal plane and relates the story to the reader slowly and painstakingly through the eyes of Newton as his mind begins to deteriorate. The external adaptations can serve as interesting additionalForays into the world of Steinbeck’s Treasure and Cavy and others, but they are in no way an adequate substitute for the real thing. Tevis’ prose is a slow and sad journey that requires the reader to experience the story through the eyes of Newton page by page. There is no better way to experience the soul of the story than on its own terms.

herbert_camaso · Answer

I just wanted to acknowledge some of the differences between the book and the Bowie movie. While the movie is a really trippy and visually stunning artifact, the book is more grounded in the reality of failure. In the novel, Newton is not a really cool, rock star alien. He’s more of a pathetic, sick, old man. The movie portrays some of the corruption, but in much more surface-level terms than the book does. The book really goes into detail about the corporate sides of things as well as the slow decay of human life. The relationship between Newton and Betty Jo is also much more transactional in the book and ultimately much sadder. I think that anyone who likes the movie would really get into the book as well, because it has the same basis of storyline and characters, but it’s a completely different experience in terms of how you feel when you finish it. The book really makes you feel the cost of Newton’s ambition, and the weight of his loneliness. That’s really something that the movie only touches on. So yeah, I would definitely recommend the book to anyone who likes the movie.

K G · Answer

The basic plot of this novel by Daniel F. Galouye is that an alien lands on Earth, tries to get back home, and gets corrupted by humanity. But there’s so much more to the book than that, and a lot of what makes it so great is the style of the author Daniel F. Galouye, and in particular the style of the novel as realized by the author of the OCD (Original Classic Download) edition, Manfred B. von Braunmühl, and still more the style of the novel’s author Daniel F. Galouye, and in particular the style of the novel’s content as expressed by the novel’s author Daniel F. Galouye, and in particular the style of the novel as expressed by the novel’s author. Detached. Observe. Report. The novel is a scientific autopsy report on the disintegration of a human being, and it’s not a fun, pulpy space adventure. It’s a slow, dense, and deliberately structured novel that is dominated by its small cast of characters, and by the small, crushing details of their experiences and observations. And it’s not really about space or aliens at all. It’s about identity, and about home, and about what we lose when we try to become something other than what we are. The novel is not a good choice for someone looking for a lot of action or for a lot of fun. It is a good choice for someone looking for a rich, dense, and complex character study of a deeply psychological and profoundly philosophical nature. It is a masterpiece.

Dolly Fajardo · Answer

The book is basically a reverse engineered superhero origin story, and the superhero loses. He has all the normal things a hero would have: power, secret identity, mission to save the world. But instead of winning in the end, the world loses to him. The book is a deconstruction of the hero, the outsider who comes in to save others, or even himself. It is the story of a man who is morally superior, intelligent beyond most others, and yet in the end he is brought down to a lower level of humanity. Not through violence, but through seduction. Newton was offered comfort, companionship, and even power in our terms, and he accepted it all. Each of these things took something away from him, until in the end he was barely recognizable as the man he once was. It is a very sad book. It is a cautionary tale about modern society, but there is no villain. The villain is us, collectively, in all our seductive, toxic glory.

Ruth Chocoj · Answer

A distant alien with advanced technology crashes on Earth just in time to witness the extinction of his species. He must locate a way to get back home. The novel is a cold war-era sci-fi story but told from a unique, almost clinical, psychological perspective. The story follows the alien’s slow, painful disintegration as he struggles to survive in a peculiar environment teeming with human greed and bureaucracy. Thomas Jerome Newton is the alien’s name and his extreme loneliness will resonate deeply with readers. The novel dissects themes of extreme loneliness, human corruption and how an entirely unique life form can be utterly destroyed and devoured by humanity. The novel is a sad ‘stranger in a strange land’ story, more of a quietly devastating autopsy of hope and failure. The reader is left with a strange sense of melancholy that is not typically found in your average alien story. The book is also a sharp commentary on the nature of addiction and the way advanced technology can be used to exploit the greatest addiction of all – capitalism. The film adaptation featuring David Bowie as Newton captured some of the otherworldliness of the novel but did not probe as deeply into the psychological destruction that Newton suffers as he navigates the extreme and often bizarre environments of twenty-first century Earth.

The film captured only a portion of Newton’s “otherworldliness,” made all the more apparent by Bowie’s fantastic performance. The book, on the other hand, added greater depth to the psychological degradation suffered by Newton as he sank deeper into the mire of his humanity.

clayroo · Answer

I am a sucker for superior beings falling to incredibly human weaknesses. Newton, an alien from a superior civilization, isn’t defeated by a wondrous army of scientists, nor by curious box after curious box. In the end, it was just whiskey, TV, loneliness, and the petty greed of his employees that brought him down. His advanced mind simply couldn’t grasp (and thus protect against) the nasty, banal evils of the human condition. A checklist of human vices, applied to a previously untouched soul, one by one. The ways in which he tries to utilize human systems and ends up being twisted to serve against his goals are endlessly, wickedly clever. How he’s searching for companionship, only to be thrown aside, or not even to recognize the love and help that’s right in front of him. How, in seeking relief from pain, he becomes instead an addict, lost. It’s a systematically brilliant deconstruction of an alien. A simple plot summary, but immense power in the execution, a steady, unrelenting trickle of compromises and decays. It’s one of the most humanly written stories about an alien ever. And so very, very inhuman about us.

What Is 'The Man Who Fell To Earth' Novel About In Summary?

12 Answers

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