By: Mary Doria Russell Publisher: Ballantine Books Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Ballantine Books Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 448 Publication Date: September 08, 1997 Release Date: September 08, 1997
Product Description: "A NOTABLE ACHIEVEMENT . . . Russell shows herself to be a skillful storyteller who subtly and expertly builds suspense." --USA Today
"AN EXPERIENCE NOT TO BE MISSED . . . If you have to send a group of people to a newly discovered planet to contact a totally unknown species, whom would you choose? How about four Jesuit priests, a young astronomer, a physician, her engineer husband, and a child prostitute-turned-computer-expert? That's who Mary Doria Russell sends in her new novel, The Sparrow. This motley combination of agnostics, true believers, and misfits becomes the first to explore the Alpha Centuri world of Rakhat with both enlightening and disastrous results. . . . Vivid and engaging . . . An incredible novel." --Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
"POWERFUL . . . Father Emilio Sandoz [is] the only survivor of a Jesuit mission to the planet Rakhat, 'a soul . . . looking for God.' We first meet him in Italy . . . sullen and bitter. . . . But he was not always this way, as we learn through flashbacks that tell the story of the ill-fated trip. . . . The Sparrow tackles a difficult subject with grace and intelligence." --San Francisco Chronicle
"SMOOTH STORYTELLING AND GORGEOUS CHARACTERIZATION . . . Important novels leave deep cracks in our beliefs, our prejudices, and our blinders. The Sparrow is one of them." --Entertainment Weekly
Amazon.com: In 2019, humanity finally finds proof of extraterrestrial life when a listening post in Puerto Rico picks up exquisite singing from a planet which will come to be known as Rakhat. While United Nations diplomats endlessly debate a possible first contact mission, the Society of Jesus quietly organizes an eight-person scientific expedition of its own. What the Jesuits find is a world so beyond comprehension that it will lead them to question the meaning of being "human." When the lone survivor of the expedition, Emilio Sandoz, returns to Earth in 2059, he will try to explain what went wrong... Words like "provocative" and "compelling" will come to mind as you read this shocking novel about first contact with a race that creates music akin to both poetry and prayer.
Truly thought provoking "It was predictable, in hindsight. Everything about the history of the Society of Jesus bespoke deft and efficient action, exploration and research. During what Europeans were pleased to call the Age of Discovery, Jesuit priests were never more than a year or two behind the men who made initial contact with previously unknown peoples; indeed, jesuits were often the vanguard of exploration. . . . . The Jesuit scientists went to learn, not to proselytize. They went so that they might come to know and love God's other children. They went for the reason Jesuits have always gone to the farthest frontiers of human exploration. They went ad majorum Dei Gloriam; for the greater glory of God. They meant no harm."
The Sparrow is about a group sent by the Jesuits to make first contact with an alien race which has been discovered in Alpha Centauri. The book has been criticized for its lack of scientific detail and the illogic of the Jesuits in choosing these particular emissaries, but the moral questions it raises and the spiritual struggles endured by Emilio Sandoz are more the point of the book, in my opinion.
Sandoz returns to Earth, the only survivor of the first mission to Rakhat, a man broken in both body and spirit, return to Earth accused of several crimes, prostitution and murder among them. Sandoz is brought to Rome, where an inquiry into the mission begins. The story goes back and forth between the past -- the discovery of Rakhat and the mission itself -- and the present -- Sandoz' recovery and the inquiry. It's quite an effective structure. Even though we know how it all turns out in the end, Russell builds tension by allowing us to get to know her characters as Emilio does in a way that a simple remembrance of them wouldn't accomplish.
While the mission itself is fascinating, particularly for those of us who grew up watching Star Trek and Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica, it is the spiritual and theological questions the book raises that were far more interesting to me. Is God really "putting turtles on fenceposts?" and leading us along through our lives simply to get us to a certain point?
"For some of them, there had been a turning point that now seemed justified, no matter how painful the decision might have been. For Sofia Mendez, a way to make peace with what, even now, she could only think of as "the days before Jaubert." For Jimmy Quinn, the end of worry that he was wrong to leave his mother, and right to claim his life as his own. For Marc Robichaux and Alan Pace, there was a sense that they had lived their lives the right way and confidence that God had recognized their artistry as the prayer they has always menat the work to be, and there was hope that He would let them serve Him now. For Anne and George Edwards, for D.W. Yarbrough and Emilio Sandoz, this voyage had given meaning to random acts, and to all the points where they had done this and not that, chosen one thing and not another, to all their decisions, whether carefully thought out or ill conceived. I would do it all again, each of them thought."
It's a very good book -- well written, thought provoking, and thoughtful as well. It left me with more questions than answers, but in this case, I think that's a good thing.
Loved the book all the way through - SPOILER ALERT!! SPOILER ALERT IN REVIEW!! I enjoyed this book from the first page to the last. The character development was perfect, though if there was any drawback, many of them were snuffed out too quickly, but most people don't die over 10 pages, anyways. Emilio Sandoz is a great character - the preacher who goes into one of the greatest challenges ever dealt to the human race (albeit in 2019) with complete unquestioning love of God and comes out of his first extraterrestrial experience with a very different view of the "man upstairs." Can't wait to read "Children of God" to continue with his adventures. Thank you, Ms. Russell, for this book.
Spellbound Only two-thirds thru, I cannot wait to review it.
Normally I do not care for stories that jump constantly between timeframes, but in this instance, I am grateful for the relief. Starting at the far ends of the situation, the author builds to an intensity in one part of the story and then skillfully switches to the other end, usually just at the point I would have had to put the book down to take a breather from it. As it is, now I can hardly bear to put it down.
Another reviewer questioned, as I did, do I really want to expose myself to the horrors that destroyed the crew of this mission to a strange planet; I have reserved the fifth star for this review because of that, as I am still on the edge of wondering, do I go on or should I stop before I am simply to aghast to continue. The author, however, builds the suspense in such small increments, I hardly realize that I am becoming inured, and my need to know what happens next keeps drawing me farther.
I do know a couple of things about what is going to happen because I stumbled upon a couple of spoilers for this story in the review of its sequel, so anyone who really doesn't want to know more than the author intends, I suggest NOT checking out Children of God -- which I am still undecided whether to order, depending on how Sparrow unfolds.
But I am definitely adding the author to my list of favorite writers. I really do not care what genre a book is determined to be, or when or where the story takes place; the most important thing for me is character development. I have to like, or at least be able to relate to, the people in the story in order to give a darn what happens to them. I have put more than one book down halfway through it just because slogging through all those pages for people I don't care for is too big a waste of my time. No danger of that here; Russell writes people so clearly and so sympathetically that I want to meet them in real life.
A Flawed, Inauthentic Representation of Faith I am a Protestant. If I were a Catholic, I would be highly insulted by this book. I really hope that the later part of this century doesn't find priests drinking like fish and cursing like sailors. For that matter, I hope they don't act like that now. It's not that these things are the worst imaginable sins, it's that a believer -- especially a member of the clergy -- should seek to be an example, to be holy as Christ is holy.
Although I am not a Catholic, I find the main character, Emilio Sandoz, plenty insulting enough to the Christian faith in general. To anyone, Catholic or Protestant, who has a true relationship with God, Sandoz' faith crisis isn't hard to understand: he isn't a Christian, so naturally the role of being a Christian minister chafes him in certain areas, including chastity.
Sandoz does a lot of good works. Through much of the book, before the mission to Rakhat leaves Earth, he cares for the poor. He tends to those people who many believers, Catholic and Protestant both, would walk right by and not help. Certainly, Jesus said that anyone who helps people like these really does their service to Him.
Having said that, the New Testament also makes it clear that works without faith is dead. So, Sandoz is only operating with half a loaf. What happens to the human body if you only give it half of its needed calories, day after day? Starvation eventually sets in and the person gets sick and weak. Similarly, it is no wonder that Sandoz is so spiritually undernourished -- half of his spiritual diet is missing. He has no personal relationship with God.
When Sandoz' childhood is revealed in the book, it's easy to see why he became a priest: he greatly admired the man, also a priest, who saved him from a life of crushing poverty in the slums. So, his chosen path is understandable, but wrong-headed. The priesthood is not like any other profession. You don't choose it, it choses you. And since Sandoz had no such calling, he would have been better off becoming a secular social worker. Then, at least, he could have had a wife and a family and been relatively happy.
I don't know any Jesuits, but I'd like to think that they wouldn't be so quick to judge one of their brothers before getting the full story. Sandoz is treated with suspicion, impatience and contempt when he returns to Earth before the full story comes out. The Jesuit who judges him the most seems like a cartoonish foil set up to make Sandoz look more sympathetic.
Sandoz and the rest of the crew seem like they are full of bonhomie and goodwill in their desire to reach out and know the people of Rakhat and their (seemingly) beautiful music. Actually, they are full of hubris. They do go about the mission with the puerile enthusiasm of -- as one previous poster so aptly put it -- Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland putting on a show in their backyard. Hey, kids! Let's go to Alpha Centauri!
They emphasize linguistic and musical knowledge and completely ignore the need to bring psychology and diplomacy into the mix. Considering how they upset a large portion of Rakhat society even in the first book, they would have done well even to look at DVDs of the old "Star Trek" series for guidance.
Well, folks, this group has no Prime Directive. They jump into Rakhat society with both feet and start meddling and the results turn out to be tragic.
Anyone who's read a good bit of science fiction will see the set-up between the two sentient species from a mile away. It's not hard to guess their relationship. It's also not hard to guess what happened to Sandoz while he was in prison on Rakhat.
The naivete and intellectual arrogance of the characters makes it very hard to feel sorry for them. It's like a three year-old who complains of a stomach ache after you told him not to eat all the cookies in the jar. I told you to only have one cookie, didn't I?
Of course, the Jesuits share some of the blame. They should not have let the mission go off half-cocked like that any more than a parent should stand by and let a toddler gobble down a whole plate of cookies. The Father General himself commented on how Jesuit missionaries were greeted over the centuries by indigenous people when first contacted -- and these were all humans we're talking about! Here, we are dealing with aliens. Or, rather, the people from Earth are the aliens. It's a wonder they weren't all clubbed to death the first day.
I'm not giving anything away to say that every person in the Rakhat mission, except Sandoz, dies in one way or another (or is assumed to be dead). It's clear from the opening of the book that he's the sole member to make it back to Earth. This may seem tragic for a group that, while extremely naieve, was basically harmless and well-meaning, but I don't see the deaths as tragic. In a strange way, I believe that each character, except Sandoz, whose story continues, gets their own happy ending before their death. Yarborough, another Jesuit who never should have become a priest, gets to be the patriarch of the mission's makeshift little family when he never thought, because of his vows and his homosexuality, that he would ever be a father to a family. The Edwards find new purpose and die within a short span of each other, the way they would want. The musical expert gets to hear Rakhatian music first-hand but dies before the music he cherishes is exposed as profane. The priest who has a long-standing problem with his flesh finally renounces the flesh in an altogether different way and finds redemption in that choice, even though it's a choice that leads to his death. Jimmy Quinn (the character I most despised; I wanted to read through the pages and smack him) finally marries the love of his life (although I would call Sofia the object of his relentless, stalkerish obsession) before he dies. And, finally, Sofia finds empowerment by leading a rebellion of the natives on Rakhat. In this way, she is able to rise above the victimization of her childhood and take a sense of personal control.
As I and many others have mentioned, the book drags on in places. You have to fight the urge to scream at the author, "Oh, just get on with it already!"
In the end, I can't say, despite all my frustrations with the plot, theology, dialogue, characters and pacing of the book (you know, the little things) that I didn't find the book moving. After all, the author has chosen the time-honored Shakespearian framework of killing everyone at the end.
I also applaud the author for trying to do something different. I never read Blish, so I can't say how closely she copied his plot. But, at the very least, this book tackles questions of faith and science for this present generation, and that's important in its own right. More SF should take on matters of faith. What will faith look like in the centuries to come?
I just hope that the authors who examine these questions will take the time to accurately portray the faith they are writing about. In the end, Ms. Russell really doesn't know what she's talking about.
More about voyeuristic persecution than an exploration of faith It's been a long time since I was so completely irritated by a novel. Even for a sci-fi novel, the plot contrivances are a bit much (systems analysts who can maneuver a retrofitted asteroid without any flight experience, etc.). Notwithstanding the interesting premise, the novel is for me fatally flawed because the "test of faith" experienced by Emilio Sandoz is so outrageous, so over the top, that it overshadows any nuanced or complex discussions that can be had about the nature of faith and an individual's relationship to God. *SPOILERS AHEAD* It is not enough that Sandoz suffers the loss of his spiritual father and mother in a brutal attack at the hands of a strange race on an alien planet (which alone could be the underpinnings for his crisis of faith); the Jesuit then sees the rest of his friends murdered, manages to partake in cannibalism, is savagely raped, unwittingly consents to ritual mutilation for himself and the only other surviving crew member (who then dies), and to top it all off, mistakenly kills the alien child he had come to love like a daughter. Back at home, he suffers great emotional and physical pain, is treated as a pariah by a society that is quick to jump to judgment without having all the facts, and is subjected to a humiliating inquest at the hands of his peers. All this to support the author's contention (from the conversation at the back of the book) that "even if you do your best you can you can still get screwed." For this brilliant insight, and presumably to punish Sandoz for daring to imagine a personal relationship with his God, the author eviscerates the Sandoz character physically and mentally. The "seduced and raped by God" trope was sophomoric on a literary level, and tasteless on every other one. As for character renderings, the author Mary Sue's herself shamelessly in the smug character of Anne Edwards, and has the aforementioned super super brilliant systems analyst recoil from Sandoz because he has, in the 21st century, a goatee that reminds her of the Spanish Inquisition. Ultimately, I am most troubled by the fact that I skipped studying for the bar for this. I am hopeful I will still pass, I even have faith that I will. I suppose I will be decimated sometime soon.
Anything Goes Trivia
Last Kiss
Megaton Man
Trevor
