...[a] funny and moving debut novel ... A key to the book’s tone can be found in his use of humor. Kalfa? takes us on a wild ride, and he packs a lot of world history-level tragedy into his book, and this could have ruined the story. You’re already asking us to follow the first Czech into space, then there are his relationship problems, a giant alien spider, and, oh yeah, the fall of communism. But he makes it all work seamlessly by giving us quiet moments that balance grief and humor ... That’s where this book’s greatness lies. By giving us a character who is a culmination of Czech history, Kalfa? is able to tackle half a century at once. And by giving that character a deeply personal problem, he’s able to ground the politics in heartbreak.
Jaroslav Kalfar’s Spaceman of Bohemia is not a perfect first effort. But it’s a frenetically imaginative one, booming with vitality and originality when it isn’t indulging in the occasional excess. Kalfar’s voice is distinct enough to leave tread marks. He has a great snout for the absurd. He has such a lively mind and so many ideas to explore that it only bothered me a little — well, more than a little, but less than usual — that this book peaked two-thirds of the way through ... Kalfar has an exhilarating flair for imagery. He writes boisterously and mordantly, like a philosophy grad student who’s had one too many vodka tonics at the faculty Christmas wingding. This is generally a good thing, though it can also mean periodic forays into pretentiousness.
Jaroslav Kalfar’s Spaceman of Bohemia is not a perfect first effort. But it’s a frenetically imaginative one, booming with vitality and originality when it isn’t indulging in the occasional excess. Kalfar’s voice is distinct enough to leave tread marks. He has a great snout for the absurd. He has such a lively mind and so many ideas to explore that it only bothered me a little — well, more than a little, but less than usual — that this book peaked two-thirds of the way through ... Kalfar has an exhilarating flair for imagery. He writes boisterously and mordantly, like a philosophy grad student who’s had one too many vodka tonics at the faculty Christmas wingding. This is generally a good thing, though it can also mean periodic forays into pretentiousness.
No one can accuse Kalfar of showing a lack of ambition. His first novel is bursting at the seams: as well as being about interplanetary shenanigans, it is also a history of the Czech lands from the middle ages to the present and, in the second half of the book, a thriller ... It’s as if an episode of Star Trek has crashed into Milan Kundera’s The Joke ... Spaceman of Bohemia should win many fans. It’s Solaris with laughs, history lessons and a pig killing. I will be interested to see what Kalfar has to say about the US in the future.
Kalfa?’s novel is resoundingly about failure and the interior life. In fact, it is a pedigreed descendant of the landmark novels of Barry Malzberg, who at the height of his career represented the deliberate, postmodern dismantling of the Golden Age verities about space travel ... interspersed with Jakub’s spaceflight, in long episodes richly evocative of a vanished past, we see Jakub’s sociopolitical path in his changing nation, as well as his early romance with Lenka. All this history will eventually blend with the outer space experiences to produce deep insights about Jakub’s destiny and that of his country ... bravura metaphysical insights, matched with Realpolitik drama, might very well propel Spaceman of Bohemia into the realm traversed by The Martian and other tales for novice travelers and seasoned astronauts alike.
...the space mission, the alien and all the rest of the book’s extravagant conceptual furniture are merely metaphors for the human-scale issues that are its real concerns, in particular the collapse of Jakub’s marriage to Lenka. That’s not to say Kalfar hasn’t done his research. There are lovingly detailed passages on the mechanics of going to the toilet and cleaning your teeth in orbit, the dangers of muscle wastage and other minutiae of life in zero gravity, but all the whizzy space business is harnessed to the basic question of what it means to leave and whether it’s possible to come back ... Kalfar’s satire of Czech Communism treads familiar territory, which, being retrospective, lacks the urgency that this kind of writing used to have before the Velvet Revolution. But 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.
The author skillfully splices a barbed picture of the Czech Republic between Jakub’s misadventures in the cosmos. These include floating free inside the dust cloud and hitching a ride on a clandestine Russian space shuttle. The book suggests that every national hero has a dark side, though you may have to leave Earth to see it.
...an intensely satisfying debut from an author who shows a profound understanding of the uncertainties of life and how difficult it can be to voice them. Mr. Kalfa?’s use of the political history of the Czech Republic gives an added dimension to his protagonist that informs his reactions to the world; Jakub is brought to life so thoroughly that the full-circle nature of his narrative feels both surprising, yet inevitable to readers paying attention. This novel—a thoughtful blend of Philip K. Dick, the book/?movie The Martian, and Kafka’s The Metamorphosis — is a gratifying introduction to an author who, one can hope, is just beginning.
...[an] audaciously moving debut ... Eloquent, heart-stunning and rich in awe-inspiring prose, Spaceman of Bohemia flirts with how we leave our mark on history. But its real mission is to unravel what makes us human — and that, according to this wise, rapturous and original novel, is a connection to others.
Kalfa?, a Czech-born American writer, vividly evokes the landscape, the people and the complicated moral history of his native land ... In the first half of the novel, Spaceman of Bohemia seems dimly imagined, especially in its space settings, where the scientific implausibility of the dust cloud, the Czech mission, the lone astronaut and the talking spider lend the story the insubstantiality of a lazy fantasy. The novel brightens somewhat in its second half ... Yet in these last pages the author strains for meaning while the astronaut seeks to understand his own significance to Czech history. The novel’s language is sometimes awkward and words are misused, as if the book had been launched without editorial Mission Control.
Though decked out in the trappings of science fiction, the novel is a work of postmodern Gothic that explores the ghosts haunting our globalized interior monologue. While most of the story is set in outer space, the real action takes place inside Jakub’s head. Kalfa?’s talent lies in his elegant handling of the three omniscient ghouls traveling with Jakub: Czech history, his alien companion, and the Czech literary canon itself … An army of other ghosts from the Czech literary canon visits the text, providing the educated reader many moments of light comedy … Jaroslav Kalfa? is most definitely an author worth watching, judging by this shrewd and puckish exercise in what might be called intergalactic Gothic.
Blend Bradbury and Lem with Saint-Exupéry and perhaps a little Kafka, and you get this talky, pleasing first novel by Czech immigrant writer Kalfar ... Blending subtle asides on Czech history, the Cold War, and today’s wobbly democracy, Kalfar’s confection is an inventive, well-paced exercise in speculative fiction. An entertaining, provocative addition to the spate of literary near-future novels that have lately hit the shelves.
...[a] wonderfully jubilant and touching debut novel ... Written in an erudite comic style, the novel boldly switches tones like a spacesuit built for multiple planetary atmospheres: from the historical to the domestic, from out-of-this-world fables to brutal terrestrial reality.
