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4.16 AVERAGE
4.16 AVERAGE
An intense, provocative book. The author describes the central theme as "an exploration of the risks and beauties of religious faith," which is perfect.
Other great things she said that might make you want to read the book:
"You can't know the answers to questions of faith, but...the questions are worth asking and worth thinking about deeply."
"We seem to believe that if act in accordance with our understanding of God's will, we ought to be rewarded. But in doing so we're making a deal that God didn't sign onto...God gives us rules but those are rules for us, not for God."
Other great things she said that might make you want to read the book:
"You can't know the answers to questions of faith, but...the questions are worth asking and worth thinking about deeply."
"We seem to believe that if act in accordance with our understanding of God's will, we ought to be rewarded. But in doing so we're making a deal that God didn't sign onto...God gives us rules but those are rules for us, not for God."
This book hooked me on the horror and mystery aspect of it, on the question of what happened on Rakhat?
I loved the dual timeline, it added so much to the tension of the book. Getting to know all the characters and their relationships in complex detail, seeing them work and dream together, and the build up of the mission. Versus the future timeline, where we slowly unravel the mystery of what happened to them all.
The philosophical and religious discussions in this book definitely added to the quality and set it apart from a typical novel for me. That being said, I felt a little bogged down by it towards the end of the narrative. I kind of just wanted to focus on the story at that point and let the final pieces fall into place.
The ending and ultimate revelations were incredibly done. I truly had no idea what to expect, and I was shocked by it all.
I loved the dual timeline, it added so much to the tension of the book. Getting to know all the characters and their relationships in complex detail, seeing them work and dream together, and the build up of the mission. Versus the future timeline, where we slowly unravel the mystery of what happened to them all.
The philosophical and religious discussions in this book definitely added to the quality and set it apart from a typical novel for me. That being said, I felt a little bogged down by it towards the end of the narrative. I kind of just wanted to focus on the story at that point and let the final pieces fall into place.
The ending and ultimate revelations were incredibly done. I truly had no idea what to expect, and I was shocked by it all.
Not at all what I was anticipating. A story of pure friendship, a search for meaning, and the despair of having the core of your being turned against you.
CONTENT WARNING:
Things to love:
-The characters. You can't help it. They're all so great.
-The story structure. Watching it all unfold, with the prejudices and fears of hindsight, is great.
-The philosophical/religious discussion. I am nonreligious myself, but the questions of God, purpose, and self are still interesting to me. These were addressed so expertly and so neatly, that it never felt preachy or sarcastic. I loved the considerations.
-The non-physics science. The social sciences, medicine, biology, chemistry, all that were the highlights of this book and I, with my limited knowledge, found it at least believable. The linguistics especially were awesome! I really do love multi-lingual characters when they're well written.
-The dialogue. I could lump this in with the characters, but it's really more than that. So often dialogue feels like it's clearly a plot device, or that the author did not check that this is how a person would ever speak. The dialogue was so natural, even the times it was a plot device went unnoticed until the tie-in was revealed. Beautiful conversations.
Things that detracted slightly from my love of it:
-Marc the Frenchman (?). It is clear that the author, like her main character, does not speak French, and has not spent time with a bilingual Acadian, Quebecois or French speaker. In a book so spot on with other language use, this became glaring, though trivial to the story. Certainly in the confines of a ship, his regional loyalty would become apparent. I'm still confused where he's from.
-The pacing. There's a slow build, and then the big events are more or less rushed through. They were traumatic of course, so unpleasant to spend a lot of time on, but it was strange given the step-by-step progression of the rest of the book. I'd have liked to have spent more time with Sandoz and how he processed these events within his mindset then and now.
-Emotion and sex. It jarred me that the two women--an emergency surgeon/hostess extraordinaire and a brilliant systems programmer who also heals herself enough to love/offer affection--are deemed "all emotion" or "all brain." The also-multitalented men are viewed as a more balanced mix. Not buying it. And then sex and celibacy are over-discussed. I get how it's important, but those were the few times I thought to myself that I was sitting in a plot device.
It was a beautifully written tragedy. Or perhaps farce. Definitely worth a read if you can stomach the issues presented in the content warning and are okay reading about the Judeo-Christian ethics extolled or maligned.
CONTENT WARNING:
Spoiler
Extremely graphic and prolonged discussion of rape. Death of loved ones. Mutilation and torture.Things to love:
-The characters. You can't help it. They're all so great.
-The story structure. Watching it all unfold, with the prejudices and fears of hindsight, is great.
-The philosophical/religious discussion. I am nonreligious myself, but the questions of God, purpose, and self are still interesting to me. These were addressed so expertly and so neatly, that it never felt preachy or sarcastic. I loved the considerations.
-The non-physics science. The social sciences, medicine, biology, chemistry, all that were the highlights of this book and I, with my limited knowledge, found it at least believable. The linguistics especially were awesome! I really do love multi-lingual characters when they're well written.
-The dialogue. I could lump this in with the characters, but it's really more than that. So often dialogue feels like it's clearly a plot device, or that the author did not check that this is how a person would ever speak. The dialogue was so natural, even the times it was a plot device went unnoticed until the tie-in was revealed. Beautiful conversations.
Things that detracted slightly from my love of it:
-Marc the Frenchman (?). It is clear that the author, like her main character, does not speak French, and has not spent time with a bilingual Acadian, Quebecois or French speaker. In a book so spot on with other language use, this became glaring, though trivial to the story. Certainly in the confines of a ship, his regional loyalty would become apparent. I'm still confused where he's from.
-The pacing. There's a slow build, and then the big events are more or less rushed through. They were traumatic of course, so unpleasant to spend a lot of time on, but it was strange given the step-by-step progression of the rest of the book. I'd have liked to have spent more time with Sandoz and how he processed these events within his mindset then and now.
-Emotion and sex. It jarred me that the two women--an emergency surgeon/hostess extraordinaire and a brilliant systems programmer who also heals herself enough to love/offer affection--are deemed "all emotion" or "all brain." The also-multitalented men are viewed as a more balanced mix. Not buying it. And then sex and celibacy are over-discussed. I get how it's important, but those were the few times I thought to myself that I was sitting in a plot device.
It was a beautifully written tragedy. Or perhaps farce. Definitely worth a read if you can stomach the issues presented in the content warning and are okay reading about the Judeo-Christian ethics extolled or maligned.
A story about a Jesuit mission to an alien planet is not something I would usually gravitate towards (space joke). Sci-fi usually fluctuates between boring and baffling to me, but I tried to keep an open mind for the sake of my book club.
The first hundred or so pages I quite enjoyed - pretty strong character development, believable scientific developments surrounding the discovery of extraterrestrial life (singers from Alpha Centuri), and engagement with theological and anthropological questions that posed.
I didn't quite buy the motivation this group of friends supposedly had for making the 35-earth-year journey to reach this planet. Evangelism didn't seem to be one of them (apparently the Jesuits aren't fussed about that), some vague exploratory spirit perhaps? Really it just seemed like galactic equivalent of the squad piling into the minibus for a weekend away camping.
Even their initial arrival on the planet and first encounter with the creatures there I found relatively interesting. The first group they met were herbivorous in every sense, almost comically guileless and Edenic. However, the second group, the more human-like (in character if not in body), were obsessed with trade and social status and undertook mass slaughter of babies for reasons of social convenience.
But for me the pace really slowed when we started to get into the weeds of the aliens' lineages and interactions with each other, stuff that was neither central to our understanding of the humans (which is ultimately what sci-fi is about, right?) nor fun to read.
I completely commend the author's earnestness to include theological takes on things, and she'd certainly done her homework about Christianity and Judaism. But unfortunately I found a bit of it a little lightweight. Theodicy is obviously a pretty gnarly subject, and I found Russell's response to this was to tell rather than show - to have characters call out naive ascriptions of good to God, and evil to creatures. I felt like saying, Yes, but then what?
The parallel between this book and Endo's 'Silence' is not lost on me - I don't just read books about missionary expeditions to foreign lands, promise! For what it's worth, I found Endo's the far more convincing account of the existential crises and personal struggles the missionary vocation can entail.
The first hundred or so pages I quite enjoyed - pretty strong character development, believable scientific developments surrounding the discovery of extraterrestrial life (singers from Alpha Centuri), and engagement with theological and anthropological questions that posed.
I didn't quite buy the motivation this group of friends supposedly had for making the 35-earth-year journey to reach this planet. Evangelism didn't seem to be one of them (apparently the Jesuits aren't fussed about that), some vague exploratory spirit perhaps? Really it just seemed like galactic equivalent of the squad piling into the minibus for a weekend away camping.
Even their initial arrival on the planet and first encounter with the creatures there I found relatively interesting. The first group they met were herbivorous in every sense, almost comically guileless and Edenic. However, the second group, the more human-like (in character if not in body), were obsessed with trade and social status and undertook mass slaughter of babies for reasons of social convenience.
But for me the pace really slowed when we started to get into the weeds of the aliens' lineages and interactions with each other, stuff that was neither central to our understanding of the humans (which is ultimately what sci-fi is about, right?) nor fun to read.
I completely commend the author's earnestness to include theological takes on things, and she'd certainly done her homework about Christianity and Judaism. But unfortunately I found a bit of it a little lightweight. Theodicy is obviously a pretty gnarly subject, and I found Russell's response to this was to tell rather than show - to have characters call out naive ascriptions of good to God, and evil to creatures. I felt like saying, Yes, but then what?
The parallel between this book and Endo's 'Silence' is not lost on me - I don't just read books about missionary expeditions to foreign lands, promise! For what it's worth, I found Endo's the far more convincing account of the existential crises and personal struggles the missionary vocation can entail.
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The Sparrow is a great example of "The love was there. It didn't change anything. It didn't save anyone. There were too many forces against it. But it still matters that the love was there." It's a true tragedy that stayed with me and will stay with me long after I read it.
It's got everything: Jesuits in space, the inherent violence of first contact, anti colonialism, the horror of being stranded in a wholly alien world (in more ways than one), acts of hubris they will not survive, crises of faith.
I knocked off a bit of a point because of the underdeveloped romance that boiled down to "well I guess we're the only two available people left on this mission" which was disappointing considering how well developed everything else was. Also being able to tell who the author insert is kinda took me out of the story a couple times.
Overall an amazing book which I will be rereading in the future.
It's got everything: Jesuits in space, the inherent violence of first contact, anti colonialism, the horror of being stranded in a wholly alien world (in more ways than one), acts of hubris they will not survive, crises of faith.
I knocked off a bit of a point because of the underdeveloped romance that boiled down to "well I guess we're the only two available people left on this mission" which was disappointing considering how well developed everything else was. Also being able to tell who the author insert is kinda took me out of the story a couple times.
Overall an amazing book which I will be rereading in the future.
Equal parts brutal and beautiful, this story of Jesuits in space will stick with me.
Deeply depressing.
The core conflict is one of the central issues all monotheists have to confront at some point. The author's own encounter is revealed (in an interview at the end of the book) to come from her conversion to Judaism: "being Jewish can get you killed, and God will do nothing to save you."
The core conflict is one of the central issues all monotheists have to confront at some point. The author's own encounter is revealed (in an interview at the end of the book) to come from her conversion to Judaism: "being Jewish can get you killed, and God will do nothing to save you."
dark
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I wasn't too interested in this book, the religion aspects made me wary. But it fulfills my needs for a good sci-fi book, woman author, character development trumping science, first contact, alien environment. So I read it anyway. The religions are interesting and handled from an analytical pov, even from within the characters own minds.
Thinking back I'm not sure the book managed to pass the Bechdel test, and there were several moments when I got side-railed by an inauthentic female voice. I mean, yes, the main story involved priests, but there were two significant female characters that just seemed to fall into lover, mother ideals.
The shine wore off the book slightly when in the author notes Russell appears to sympathize with Columbus and denounce "revisionist history" and sort of make a, "those men were doing the best they could" hand wave. I'm fairly certain that she wasn't talking about genocide, but the Jesuit priests. Unclear.
Throughout the book the first contact group makes a series of horrifyingly obvious mistakes. They had years to train, and make choices that any recreational reader of sci-fi would avoid. There are a lot of cultural and biological assumptions made. Which I guess was intentional to play into the New World/Missionary parallel.
Overall, I enjoyed this book. I read it pretty much straight through, good pacing, interesting story. Enjoying it less now that I wrote this review.
Thinking back I'm not sure the book managed to pass the Bechdel test, and there were several moments when I got side-railed by an inauthentic female voice. I mean, yes, the main story involved priests, but there were two significant female characters that just seemed to fall into lover, mother ideals.
Spoiler
The big crushing secret that broke Emilio is a stay at an alien brothel where he was repeatedly raped. I found it a bit gimmicky. There's a lot of talk about choice, and sin. In contrast to the handling of the female character's stint as an actual prostitute. Which is not mentioned except for how she deals with it stoically and privately. It also makes her frigid. You know, until she falls in love and gets pregnant.The shine wore off the book slightly when in the author notes Russell appears to sympathize with Columbus and denounce "revisionist history" and sort of make a, "those men were doing the best they could" hand wave. I'm fairly certain that she wasn't talking about genocide, but the Jesuit priests. Unclear.
Throughout the book the first contact group makes a series of horrifyingly obvious mistakes. They had years to train, and make choices that any recreational reader of sci-fi would avoid. There are a lot of cultural and biological assumptions made. Which I guess was intentional to play into the New World/Missionary parallel.
Overall, I enjoyed this book. I read it pretty much straight through, good pacing, interesting story. Enjoying it less now that I wrote this review.