I read this wonderful novel 15 years ago, maybe more than 20.
A space ship crashes on a planet inhabited by aliens, who look different from us (like lizards maybe?) but are extremely congenial and know/share a lot about our culture(s). Over the years, the crew must gradually adjust, in their individual ways, to the reality that they will never be able to return to Earth. One couple have a child, but when he dies, the woman kills herself. By the end of the novel, only one crew member is left. His loving relationship with a female alien ended because she realized that he could never overlook their deep difference, and he is very lonely. He resolves to go to a concert and kill whoever happens to be sitting next to him and then himself. But he realizes that the elderly man/alien sitting next to him, mourning a grandson, is so human - rather, the man and these aliens share such "human" qualities - that he can't kill him. They end up listening to Brahms.
What's the title? Who's the author?
A space ship crashes on a planet inhabited by aliens, who look different from us (like lizards maybe?) but are extremely congenial and know/share a lot about our culture(s). Over the years, the crew must gradually adjust, in their individual ways, to the reality that they will never be able to return to Earth. One couple have a child, but when he dies, the woman kills herself. By the end of the novel, only one crew member is left. His loving relationship with a female alien ended because she realized that he could never overlook their deep difference, and he is very lonely. He resolves to go to a concert and kill whoever happens to be sitting next to him and then himself. But he realizes that the elderly man/alien sitting next to him, mourning a grandson, is so human - rather, the man and these aliens share such "human" qualities - that he can't kill him. They end up listening to Brahms.
What's the title? Who's the author?
