K-PAX is the name of the first
novelA novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
in the K-PAX series by
Gene BrewerGene Brewer is the author of the K-PAX series of novels: K-PAX, K-PAX II, K-PAX III, K-PAX IV and Prot's Report, a brief natural history of the Earth, which appears in the K-PAX trilogy, an omnibus edition of the first three K-PAX books...
and a film based on the series:
- K-PAX (1995)
- K-PAX
K-PAX is a 2001 American science fiction and mystery film directed by Iain Softley and starring Kevin Spacey, Jeff Bridges, Mary McCormack and Alfre Woodard. The screenplay, written by Gene Brewer and Charles Leavitt, is based on a novel of the same name by Brewer about a psychiatric patient who...
(2001) – film
- K-PAX II: On a Beam of Light (2001)
- K-PAX III: Worlds of Prot (2002)
- K-PAX IV: A New Visitor From The Constellation Lyra
K-PAX IV: A New Visitor From The Constellation Lyra is the name of the fourth novel in the K-PAX series by Gene Brewer. Published by Xlibris in early March, 2007 .- Plot description :...
(2007)
The books deal with the experiences on Earth of a man named "prot" (rhymes with "goat"). Although fictional, the story is presented as based on real events. It is written in the first person from the point of view of prot's psychiatrist, who shares his name with the author; the psychiatrist's wife is Karen, the name of the author's wife.
The 2001 film
K-PAXK-PAX is a 2001 American science fiction and mystery film directed by Iain Softley and starring Kevin Spacey, Jeff Bridges, Mary McCormack and Alfre Woodard. The screenplay, written by Gene Brewer and Charles Leavitt, is based on a novel of the same name by Brewer about a psychiatric patient who...
was directed by
Iain SoftleyIain Softley is an English film director. He was educated at St Benedict's School, Ealing, where he played the part of Thomas Becket in its 1975 production of T. S...
and is based on the first book in this series.
Kevin SpaceyKevin Spacey, CBE is an American actor, director, screenwriter, producer, and crooner. He grew up in California, and began his career as a stage actor during the 1980s, before being cast in supporting roles in film and television...
portrays prot, and
Jeff BridgesJeffrey Leon "Jeff" Bridges is an American actor and musician. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Otis "Bad" Blake in the 2009 film Crazy Heart....
plays the psychiatrist. There are some significant differences between the film and the book.
K-PAX has also been made into a stage play, also written by Gene Brewer, and has been performed at the Lion and Unicorn Theatre, directed by Victor Sobchak. and more recently the play made its North American debut at The Geneva Underground Playhouse in Geneva, Illinois directed by Eric Peter Schwartz and featured in the cast:
Scott Surowiecki - Prot
Pat Able - Dr. Brewer
Angela Bend - Bess
Peter Lemongelli - Howie
Kathy Richardson - Giselle
Steve Lord - Chuck
Russ Devereaux - Ernie
Angelicque Cate - Nurse Betty
Synopsis
A white male is picked up by the New York Police after being found bending over the victim of a mugging at
Grand Central TerminalGrand Central Terminal —often incorrectly called Grand Central Station, or shortened to simply Grand Central—is a terminal station at 42nd Street and Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States...
in midtown
ManhattanManhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
. After having responded to the police questions with somewhat strange answers, he is transferred to Bellevue Hospital for evaluation. Although not physically ill, he is found to harbour a strange delusion: That he is from a planet called K-PAX in the
constellationIn modern astronomy, a constellation is an internationally defined area of the celestial sphere. These areas are grouped around asterisms, patterns formed by prominent stars within apparent proximity to one another on Earth's night sky....
of
LyraLyra is a small constellation. It is one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy, and remains one of the 88 modern constellations recognized by the International Astronomical Union. Its principal star, Vega — a corner of the Summer Triangle — is one of the brightest...
. The patient, who calls himself "prot" (intentionally lower-case to reflect the insignificance of an individual life form in the universe), is eventually transferred to the
ManhattanManhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
Psychiatric Institute (MPI), where he becomes the patient of Dr.
Gene BrewerGene Brewer is the author of the K-PAX series of novels: K-PAX, K-PAX II, K-PAX III, K-PAX IV and Prot's Report, a brief natural history of the Earth, which appears in the K-PAX trilogy, an omnibus edition of the first three K-PAX books...
.
Dr. Brewer, with the help of a journalist named Giselle, discovers that prot may simply be an alter ego (the result of Multiple Personality Disorder) of Robert Porter, whose life has been devastated by the murder of his wife and child and his subsequent killing of the perpetrator.
When prot returns to his own planet, Robert Porter is left in a catatonic state. However, Bess (another patient prot had promised to take with him) disappears along with a box of souvenirs prot has been collecting.
Prot promises to return in "about five of your years".
K-PAXian
K-PAXian is the term used in the books to refer to the inhabitants of the planet K-PAX. In the book, all knowledge of K-PAX and its attendant species comes from the individual known as prot (rhymes with goat; K-PAXians only capitalize the names of planets and stars and other celestial bodies). Prot is interviewed extensively by the fictional psychiatrist Gene Brewer, who was of the opinion that prot was the second personality of a human being, Robert Porter, who had suffered an excruciating and unbearable loss.
In the books, prot notes that
Jane GoodallDame Jane Morris Goodall, DBE , is a British primatologist, ethologist, anthropologist, and UN Messenger of Peace. Considered to be the world's foremost expert on chimpanzees, Goodall is best known for her 45-year study of social and family interactions of wild chimpanzees in Gombe Stream National...
,
John LennonJohn Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
,
Henry David ThoreauHenry David Thoreau was an American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, and leading transcendentalist...
,
Mohandas Karamchand GandhiMohandas Karamchand Gandhi , pronounced . 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was the pre-eminent political and ideological leader of India during the Indian independence movement...
and
Albert SchweitzerAlbert Schweitzer OM was a German theologian, organist, philosopher, physician, and medical missionary. He was born in Kaysersberg in the province of Alsace-Lorraine, at that time part of the German Empire...
are among the most K-PAXian (famous) humans on Earth.
K-PAXians' forefathers were something like worms and lived in the ground, whereas humans' forefathers were fishes and other aquatic beings.
Physiology
The conditions on the planet K-PAX are used in the books to explain a number of prot's oddities.
K-PAX is seated far from the two stars it orbits: K-MON and K-RIL. Thus, K-PAXians experience an eternal dusk as K-PAX orbits in a helix around the two celestial bodies. These stars are also not like the Sun because they are not main sequence stars. From the descriptions in the novel it is assumed that they are
protostarA protostar is a large mass that forms by contraction out of the gas of a giant molecular cloud in the interstellar medium. The protostellar phase is an early stage in the process of star formation. For a one solar-mass star it lasts about 100,000 years...
s nearing their inevitable collapse. The constant phase shift of light on K-PAX and the lack of light made it necessary to evolve the ability to detect shorter wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation, i.e., ultraviolet. This explains prot's need to wear his sunglasses in all but very dim conditions. In the book, when prot is questioned as to why a K-PAXian appears human on Earth, he responds, "Why is a soap bubble round?" He explains that K-PAXians appear human because the humanoid form is the most efficient shape to explore the planet. The method of reproduction of the alien dremer's (prot's species, a term used in the book), unlike human
sexual intercourseSexual intercourse, also known as copulation or coitus, commonly refers to the act in which a male's penis enters a female's vagina for the purposes of sexual pleasure or reproduction. The entities may be of opposite sexes, or they may be hermaphroditic, as is the case with snails...
, is considered extremely unpleasant, due to intense feelings of pain and horrible smells, among other unpleasant sensations. Prot is completely uninterested in flirtation. Prot can age to a thousand years, like his parents, who are in their late six-hundreds, while prot is 337 years old in the first novel. Prot's age contributes to his knowledge base, and on Earth, prot is considered a savant, although it is never specified whether dremer intelligence is inherent or a result of K-PAXian society. Prot makes it clear that dremers make every attempt to improve and disseminate their understanding of truth. Prot ultimately communicates that sentient beings on K-PAX have such a universal awareness of life that it would seem a majority of human endeavor is benign, but he is excited for us because our race has a bright future if only we disregard our primitive misconceptions of our surroundings.
Society
In K-PAXian society, sex is considered unpleasant (although, not by all species),
veganismVeganism is the practice of eliminating the use of animal products. Ethical vegans reject the commodity status of animals and the use of animal products for any purpose, while dietary vegans or strict vegetarians eliminate them from their diet only...
is preferred,
speciesismSpeciesism is the assigning of different values or rights to beings on the basis of their species membership. The term was created by British psychologist Richard D...
has been overcome, eating
meatMeat is animal flesh that is used as food. Most often, this means the skeletal muscle and associated fat and other tissues, but it may also describe other edible tissues such as organs and offal...
is never considered and there are no (corporate)
lawLaw is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...
s (e.g. police officers),
governmentGovernment refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...
s (in other words -
anarchyAnarchy , has more than one colloquial definition. In the United States, the term "anarchy" typically is meant to refer to a society which lacks publicly recognized government or violently enforced political authority...
), or schools, and no
religionReligion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
. The anarchy on K-PAX is a non-destructive, non-violent and peaceful one; it's a self-harmonizing, ordered anarchy. The beings reason with those beings who engage in destructive or immoral behaviour, although such instances are extremely rare. All living beings, from worm-beings to the more humanoid dremers (prot's kind), are regarded as civilized parts of the planet's community. Some readers view this as a more advanced society, or
utopiaUtopia is an ideal community or society possessing a perfect socio-politico-legal system. The word was imported from Greek by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean. The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempt...
, with individuals living in peace and harmony with each other, without the need for law. K-PAXians have
no fixed abodeNo fixed abode or without fixed abode is a legal term generally applied to those who do not have a fixed geographical location as their residence...
and instead live a sort of nomadic life, drifting between certain settlements/villages where food, clothing, and other things are stored. K-PAXians do not have a set occupation; day-to-day tasks such as cleaning, infrastructure maintenance, and harvesting food are handled by all K-PAXians when they need to be done. Children may or may not know their parents, but this is unimportant as they are raised by their society as a whole. K-PAXians do not develop strong interpersonal bonds, but view all beings with great compassion. Despite a lack of major cities, K-PAX does feature a number of large library type structures for the dissemination of knowledge. K-PAXians are far more technologically advanced than humans. K-PAXian society seems very similar to that described by Sir
Thomas MoreSir Thomas More , also known by Catholics as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, social philosopher, author, statesman and noted Renaissance humanist. He was an important councillor to Henry VIII of England and, for three years toward the end of his life, Lord Chancellor...
in his novel
Utopia.
It seems that truth, with its absolute nature, is very desirable for prot. Readers can infer that knowledge of truth is something like a divine state of being for the K-PAXian society, considering prot's vast knowledge, scientific aptitude, and admiration for the arts. In this light, truth becomes as important to prot as it was for Mohandas Gandhi. Besides truth's revered status in K-PAXian society, the notion of "God" (anthropomorphic) or "gods" is seen as illusive and false conformity. It can thus be assumed that K-PAXian society is agnostic. K-PAXian society does not have a need for jokes or games, because life on K-PAX is considered to be fun and interesting anyway. Prot also mentions that our planet just arrived at a minor stage of planetary evolution - he thinks we are as yet children. The K-PAXians arrived at "K" on an alphabetic development-scale (A-K), meaning perfect stability and peace, whereas Earth is a class "B" planet. Class "A" planets used to be "B" planets but were destroyed by their own inhabitants.
Prot even says that humans do not have a (good) sense of humor; games and jokes are seen as obsolete on K-PAX and even as mindless by prot (to some degree). K-PAXians enjoy time with meditative walks in the woods, community needs, the arts (sculpturing, painting, music, etc.), scientific observations, conversation about ideas and information, and journeys to other planets.
The whole civilization of K-PAX despises and does not use any kind of (violent/revengeful) punishment or ostracism, as prot states, the mystery of life contains non-violence. K-PAXians do not domesticate each other (for example, dremers do not domesticate the ruli species, nor amps the worm beings).
Technology
Despite living a fairly
agrarianAgrarianism has two common meanings. The first meaning refers to a social philosophy or political philosophy which values rural society as superior to urban society, the independent farmer as superior to the paid worker, and sees farming as a way of life that can shape the ideal social values...
lifestyle, K-PAXians are highly technologically advanced. Most notable is their ability to travel
faster than the speed of lightFaster-than-light communications and travel refer to the propagation of information or matter faster than the speed of light....
both around and between planets. K-PAXians have developed computers with complete holography. These computers engage all senses and reproduce events of the history of K-PAX or other inhabited planets. K-PAXian villages contain laboratories in which the components of herbs and other plants are analyzed for medicine, resulting in cures of every existing ailment. K-PAXians do not need to synthesize these components into new products, as they have mastered chemistry to gain any needed substance directly from the plants. They do not have the need to create genetically new forms either. K-PAXians use two types of solar energy, having moved beyond their previous use of bacterial decay, gravitational energy and muscle force as energy. Prot warns Gene Brewer about the use of
nuclear fissionIn nuclear physics and nuclear chemistry, nuclear fission is a nuclear reaction in which the nucleus of an atom splits into smaller parts , often producing free neutrons and photons , and releasing a tremendous amount of energy...
, informing him that it creates too much dangerous waste product.