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4.16 AVERAGE
4.16 AVERAGE
I first heard about this from a sci-fi podcast. I’m not quite sure if I would consider it sci-fi, but it did peak my interest listening to the synopsis as described in the podcast. I don’t think I would recommend this book to any hard-core sci-fi readers. However, this does have an interesting spin on a religion and the meaning of the human existence mixed in with space travel. In the end, I didn’t feel like the book really had that much of an interesting story to tell. The book felt like it was more of an opinion on philosophy and what it means to exist in the infinite universe by telling a story of alien first contact. The book left me wanting more. I kept waiting for a big climactic event, but it left me with more of a feeling of disgust. With that being said, I will probably read the next book in the series if I find the time.
challenging
dark
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
"You know what's the most terrifying thing about admitting you're in love?" she asked him. "You are just naked. You put yourself in harms way and you lay down all your defenses. No clothes, no weapons. Nowhere to hide. Completely vulnerable. The only thing that makes it tolerable is to believe the other person loves you back and that you can trust him not to hurt you."
This passage becomes prophetic for the journey of Emilio Sandoz from Earth to Rakhat and his search for God. A Jesuit priest who's faith and love for God, lays forth a path to catalyze a mission (religious and scientific) that will take the first humans to a planet with evidence of intelligent, technologically advanced life. It is Emilio's journey to not only reach this new world, but to see how much of his God exists there or if he exists at all.
Easily in my top 5 greatest sci-fi books, Russell's world building is exquisite. In the vein of Le Guin, she mixes gender, religion, science, politics and the social structures of family to take a future earth on a speculative journey across time and space.
Structurally, the narrative flips back and forth within Emilio's journey: the time leading up to and making first contact on Rakhat and the time after his return from Rakhat facing damning allegations from his Jesuit brotherhood and the world as a whole. Spanning 40 years of relative earth time and only a little more than 17 years of Emilio's life (near light speed travel creating the time discrepancies) a story is told as to how Emilio came to be the only survivor of the mission, and what happened to lead to that outcome.
Immediately, the reader is shown a man who, upon his return, is broken, both physically, mentally and spiritually, unable to come to terms or describe what had happened on Rakhat as he is pressured to explain himself by his superiors in the Jesuit church. Then, the next chapter thrusts you back 40 years to when Emilio was full of love, hope and optimism as he and his close friends and family stumble onto the signs of another world with a divine drive to visit there and spread the love of humanity to these new brethren of man. The dichotomy of Emilio's persona in these two time periods flipping back and forth, slowly creeping towards each other in the story is central to the journey towards the middle, where Emilio is faced with events and realizations that force him to question if God, who he has loved all his life, loves him or if all his faith and love has been in vain.
Mary Doria Russell inserts her own dilemmas with religion, faith and how all these pieces fit together and fight against each other (Russell herself, an ex-Catholic who converted to Judaism). The kind, pragmatic, motherly (and often contrarian) character, Anne in The Sparrow is revealed in the author's notes as based on Russell's inner dialogue around the subjects.
Beyond these themes, the suspense and speculative science fiction she uses as a vehicle to move through these questions is so engrossing, it doesn't matter if you are religious or not, you are pulled into the story and empathize with the struggle the characters experience. Ultimately, it is a story about family and what it means to become vulnerable and defenseless to love. To know love's terrifying truths and believe in it despite them.
Solid 3.5 star reading experience for me, very well written and entertaining, I was compelled to keep reading. I found it a little bit difficult to maintain my suspension of disbelief. Loved the melding of science fiction with spirituality/religion, enjoy those two big areas getting tackled in an interesting way.
Wow, this book. Captivating, but heartbreaking. I loved Emilio's character as we come to know him slowly, making it all the more painful to see him in the "present" timeline, mentally destroyed. Not what I thought I was signing up for with a sci-fi space travel book!
So this is a real split review. Five stars for keeping me reading, for getting me involved with the characters, for generating tension even after giving away the ending. When I first read this book more than 10 years ago, I would have given it 5 stars unreservedly. However, my reading perspective has changed in the last 10 years.
One star for the Special Snowflake that is Emilio Sandoz.
This book is a strange hybrid. It has all the trappings of science fiction: space travel, aliens. But the book really isn't about the "what if" question that science fiction asks. It's about "what are?". What are people? What is God?
Russell is a great writer. Even after starting at the end instead of the beginning, she manages to generate tension. She makes you care about characters even though you know they end up dead. And even though they are sometimes annoying. Ann came across to me much more Mary Sue this time. And I never got the deal with Jimmy. He seemed entirely meh, and I couldn't see why Sofia would marry him, even if he was the last man on earth. And I couldn't see why he would make a better leader than either of the women.
Russell uses her anthropology background to think through an alien first contact scenario. I think that this would have actually worked better for me if the first contact was with humans instead of aliens. Aliens are... well... alien. You can't make any of the assumptions that seemed to have been made about culture when you're starting with an entirely alien brain and mindset. Of course, the mission found this out to their cost.
Where this book really shines is where the characters interact. But it came across as a bit gossipy to me this time. There's a conversation where D.W. finally admits that he's gay to Ann. Clearly this is meant to be a big deal, and we are meant to learn from Ann's mature reaction that his gayness is something to be accepted. Great, but I don't think you need to go to another planet to have that conversation. Same with Emilio and Sofia's non-romance. The idea of deciding on whether to be true to one's vows comes up all the time right here on Earth. I think a lot of the interaction between the characters could have taken place in Puerto Rico and we would have had the same themes. Some of the anthropological analysis comes across as almost racist to me now, although I thought it was intriguing at the time. The idea that Sofia had taken against Emilio because he looked Spanish and her background was Sephardic, for instance. Sofia's family had been living in Turkey for hundreds of years and she's still holding the Spanish Inquisition against him? I don't know.
The Jesuits came across as more prurient than therapeutic to me this time. And the therapy, such as it was, seemed more dramatic than ethical. I had a hard time believing that people coming across Emilio in the desperate state he was in would believe that he was voluntarily locking himself in a room, allowing himself to be sodomized so painfully that he was covered in blood, and had all but the bare tendons picked off his hands. Somehow this was his fault? He enjoyed it? Unbelievable.
And when it comes right down to it, the story of Emilio was this: Emilio is a Special and Sensitive Saint, and when he Suffers, it is Significant. Yes, what Emilio went through was utterly horrible. But the tight focus on him belies the 'God sees every sparrow" argument. Sofia was raped repeatedly as a child. But her suffering was not explored. Filipe Reyes lost his hands, but that wasn't important. It was all about Emilio. And really, what it came down to, more than physical suffering, was that he had thought that he was special to God, and thus didn't understand why God didn't spare him. Well, Emilio, that one's answered in the New Testament. You may have read it. In seminary.
For all the philosophical delving, it seems to me that the book's conclusion is the old clockwork universe theory. God made the universe, but now it's all hands-off for him. He may see the sparrow fall, but he won't stop it, because that's not what he does. Many may differ with this interpretation of God. In fact, I'm pretty sure that the Catholic Church does. What it comes down to, is all the other death and loss in the book is meant as fuel for Emilio's suffering. Sofia's turning away from him was all about Emilio, not what that loss might have meant to her. The death of the child was painful for Emilio, and wasn't shown to affect anyone else. I don't think that's seeing the sparrow for itself at all. Or maybe Emilio was the only sparrow in this book.
One star for the Special Snowflake that is Emilio Sandoz.
This book is a strange hybrid. It has all the trappings of science fiction: space travel, aliens. But the book really isn't about the "what if" question that science fiction asks. It's about "what are?". What are people? What is God?
Russell is a great writer. Even after starting at the end instead of the beginning, she manages to generate tension. She makes you care about characters even though you know they end up dead. And even though they are sometimes annoying. Ann came across to me much more Mary Sue this time. And I never got the deal with Jimmy. He seemed entirely meh, and I couldn't see why Sofia would marry him, even if he was the last man on earth. And I couldn't see why he would make a better leader than either of the women.
Russell uses her anthropology background to think through an alien first contact scenario. I think that this would have actually worked better for me if the first contact was with humans instead of aliens. Aliens are... well... alien. You can't make any of the assumptions that seemed to have been made about culture when you're starting with an entirely alien brain and mindset. Of course, the mission found this out to their cost.
Where this book really shines is where the characters interact. But it came across as a bit gossipy to me this time. There's a conversation where D.W. finally admits that he's gay to Ann. Clearly this is meant to be a big deal, and we are meant to learn from Ann's mature reaction that his gayness is something to be accepted. Great, but I don't think you need to go to another planet to have that conversation. Same with Emilio and Sofia's non-romance. The idea of deciding on whether to be true to one's vows comes up all the time right here on Earth. I think a lot of the interaction between the characters could have taken place in Puerto Rico and we would have had the same themes. Some of the anthropological analysis comes across as almost racist to me now, although I thought it was intriguing at the time. The idea that Sofia had taken against Emilio because he looked Spanish and her background was Sephardic, for instance. Sofia's family had been living in Turkey for hundreds of years and she's still holding the Spanish Inquisition against him? I don't know.
The Jesuits came across as more prurient than therapeutic to me this time. And the therapy, such as it was, seemed more dramatic than ethical. I had a hard time believing that people coming across Emilio in the desperate state he was in would believe that he was voluntarily locking himself in a room, allowing himself to be sodomized so painfully that he was covered in blood, and had all but the bare tendons picked off his hands. Somehow this was his fault? He enjoyed it? Unbelievable.
And when it comes right down to it, the story of Emilio was this: Emilio is a Special and Sensitive Saint, and when he Suffers, it is Significant. Yes, what Emilio went through was utterly horrible. But the tight focus on him belies the 'God sees every sparrow" argument. Sofia was raped repeatedly as a child. But her suffering was not explored. Filipe Reyes lost his hands, but that wasn't important. It was all about Emilio. And really, what it came down to, more than physical suffering, was that he had thought that he was special to God, and thus didn't understand why God didn't spare him. Well, Emilio, that one's answered in the New Testament. You may have read it. In seminary.
For all the philosophical delving, it seems to me that the book's conclusion is the old clockwork universe theory. God made the universe, but now it's all hands-off for him. He may see the sparrow fall, but he won't stop it, because that's not what he does. Many may differ with this interpretation of God. In fact, I'm pretty sure that the Catholic Church does. What it comes down to, is all the other death and loss in the book is meant as fuel for Emilio's suffering. Sofia's turning away from him was all about Emilio, not what that loss might have meant to her. The death of the child was painful for Emilio, and wasn't shown to affect anyone else. I don't think that's seeing the sparrow for itself at all. Or maybe Emilio was the only sparrow in this book.
This is one of my all time favorite books. I picked it up randomly at a Goodwill and was hooked after the first page. I've since read more of Russell's books and have not been disappointed.
adventurous
challenging
dark
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
emotional
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I loved the concept, but the execution didn’t really work for me
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This was a beautifully written and compelling journey... And absolutely gutting. It's so full of joy and deep platonic love, but you know what it's building to. And when it gets there, it just hollows you out.