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 tikitu-reviews | Dec 6, 2006 | 
This is an amazing book. The interweaving of the past and "present" to form one story; the cultural misunderstandings (both on earth and Rakhat) and thinking you "know" what happens as the story is slowly revealed make this a shocker. Loved it. (  ) calm | Oct 21, 2009 | Lots of moral questions raised, but what do you expect from a book about a Jesuit priest in space. Go ahead read it. (  ) ltyphair | Oct 11, 2009 | Fr. Emilio Sandoz is a broken man in the beginning of the novel - half-dead when he was found on the planet Rakhat and returned to Earth. He believes God abandoned him in a mission he so fully felt God had led him to do. The author deftly moves the story from present-to-past throughout the book - it is both wonderful to learn the hows & whys & successes of their mission to a planet far beyond the stars (hitching a ride on an asteroid!) and devastating as well when the horrors begin (like any foreign visitor, Fr. Sandoz and his friends introduced destruction into the environment without meaning too). The title comes from the book of Matthew, Chapter 10, verse 29 about how not one sparrow can fall to the ground without the Father knowing it -- but it is quietly pointed out deep into the book: But the sparrow still falls. There may be some who read this book who will abhor what happens to Fr. Sandoz near the end of his mission on the planet...while others will respect the honing of a man by God and pray may it never be so for them. (  ) patricia_poland | Sep 22, 2009 | Wonderfully philosophical science-fiction novel about a Jesuit-run mission to a distant planet, includes a musicologist among the missionary team. (James Wierzbicki) AMS_musicology | Aug 27, 2009 | Catholic Mission trips are not what they used to be. Imagine that some of your closest friends are priests. Working in Puerto Rico near the space listening radio telescope, your friends mention receiving broadcasts from Alpha Centauri. Soon a privately and Catholic funded mission trip consisting of some very likable characters board a near-speed of light "spacecraft" to investigate the new sentient world. Despite initial finding Eden-like conditions, events change. The story unfolds in fits of twists to reveal questions about atheism, agnosticism, and faith in general. In some way, this is an interesting work to consider along side _The Life of Pi_. But it's not all about faith, far from it. In the spirit of the best Science Fiction, interesting questions are posed about human nature; in this case questioning the definition and meaning of laughter. What is funny? Is a laugh tragic, comic, funny, or even horrific? Or is it comforting? ( )2  bikesandbooks | Aug 24, 2009 | I would call this a good book with flaws, but also moments of greatness. I think that the author is valiantly trying to address some very difficult questions, both religious and sociological. I think she has crafted an excellent story. For anyone wanting to question themselves deeper as to what they believe and why, this is the book. But I take issue with one theme on which the book rests. And I struggle with it myself. A main character suffers abuse and violence. Finding out the details of that violence is one the central plot hooks of the book. But by building it up and building it up, it feels to me that the author is trying to convey that what the character experiences is different or worse than what others have gone through. Particularly since the character is male, it feels very disrespectful to me of the centuries of violence that other people, particularly women, have experienced. I can't tell if the author was attempting to portray the character's experience as implying that any violence, to anyone, is a very serious thing. Which would be a worthy theme. But it comes across as somehow negating history, and the history of violence. I don't think this was at all what the character intended. I think it is part of a weakness of the story that all the main characters are so "extraordinary". But I still think the book is well worth the read. Very challenging and an honorable attempt to deal with very difficult topics. (  ) saraswati27 | Jul 24, 2009 | I thought this was good science fiction, not landing among the pantheon of the Greats, but worth reading. The entire story centers around a Jesuit mission to be the first to contact the inhabitants of a planet in the Alpha Centauri system. The author deliberately draws upon the parallels with the Jesuit missions to the New World three centuries ago. It is "soft" science fiction—less concerned with spaceships than with psychological issues—and I think it's entirely possible that the only reason it was science fiction at all was because there are no real "first contact" possibilities in the modern world and historical novels are too constrained by, well, the actual events of history. In fact, there's very little science in the story and the only effort you'll have to make is to move the dates of the story by a half-century or more in your mind (your call on the rate of technology progress). If you don't, you'll be wondering why you aren't reading about a few technological advances in today's newspapers...mining the asteroids, for example. For the rest, the author just sort of waves her hands at the mass driver for the spaceship and the hyper-efficient solar panels. Ms. Russell has succeeded at a type of plot structure that I think many authors fail at: the book starts with the present and then, in a series of flashbacks, tells you why the present looks the way it does. I usually find these somewhat boring; the author often fails to make the past anything but completely evident in the present and, so, why bother reading further? However, this book has done a good job of keeping up the suspense. The story opens with Emilio Sandoz, a Jesuit priest who is crippled and mentally unstable, being brought before the head of his order to explain what happened. Why is everyone else on the expedition dead? Why did the second expedition, who rescued him, accuse him of murdering a child in front of their eyes? Why have all the muscles on his hands been surgically removed? The mysteries go on and on and, by-and-large, are well answered. I say by-and-large because a few of the minor questions have unsatisfying answers, particularly those dealing with the harm inflicted directly on him, but I don't think these ruined the story. What did I like most about this? The aliens, for one. You get a sense of the fact that Ms. Russell is an anthropologist by trade. I didn't find them to be "humans in funny suits" or cardboard. I thought the action portions of the story also worked well in a John Carter of Mars sort of way. Perhaps it was the lack of science in the story, but there was a real feel of the Golden Age pulps to this. I particularly enjoyed the discussions about celibacy and sacrifice. What disappointed me? Mainly the spiritual side-story. What was intended to be the major theme here was Sandoz' search for faith and God. However, we never really experience it; we just hear characters talking about it. This was a classic case where you want to say, "don't tell me, show me." The result was that, while I liked him a lot as an individual, I wasn't invested in his spiritual struggle. I didn't get any sense of identification with him and his spiritual triumphs and failures didn't move me or even resonate that much. I felt Ms. Russell simply rushed through this aspect of the book, particularly in the final events on the alien world. In the end, it was a good science fiction story. It is extremely readable; you end up liking the characters...even the slightly corny ones...and caring what happens to them. It could have been a great one, but it failed to capitalize on its real strength: the spiritual journey of Father Sandoz. I think this one's got enough mass appeal that you might want to try it even if you aren't a real science fiction aficionado. (  )8 TadAD | Jul 23, 2009 | I liked the setting. It's something we may have to face (well, no one here right now, but mankind in general in the future). From what I was reading I thought the religion part would be more out there (no pun intended), but found it to be very subtle. It's there - boy finds God, boy wonders where God is when he needs him most and finds that god never left - like a good parent, God watches but lets us stumble to learn. ( ) koalamom | Jul 15, 2009 | "The Sparrow" is written by Mary Doria Russell, and simultaneously tells the story of Father Emilio Sandoz in two parts. The first part begins where an alien signal is picked up and a team is sent off to investigate the planet in which the signal originated from (the team contains Father Emilio, obviously), and the second part telling the disasterous results of this encounter of two worlds, where only Father Emelio manages to return from the original voyage, quite changed from his original self - he is apparently a murderer, a whore, and has lost his faith in God. Although it's an alien encounter novel, and the premise is pretty much identical to the millions of alien encounter stories you've read/watched before, Mary Doria Russel manages to do several things to make this a cut above the stereotypical alien-encounter story, which deserve a mention. The first aspect that is done somewhat differently is the two-eras aspect of the novel. One on hand, there is a sense of tension created that I probably would not have felt if I were simply reading one of many "people encounter aliens" stories that have been done so often before. Having Emelio explain what is occuring afterwards also clears up what would otherwise be quite confusing to read otherwise - his explanations of the likely motivations of the aliens, or what actually occured, take away any confusion that might exist. However, the main aspect of the dual-timeline aspect is that you want to see why Sandoz turned out the way he did, and yes, the novel is worth reading for these revelations alone. On the other hand, the dual-storyline aspect occasionally comes off as disjointed, as the second part has Emelio relating his story with little regard to chronology, which does create a bit of a headache trying to sort the story out properly. I'll chalk it up as a plus for the book, but I think Russell could have dealt with this better. If it were not obvious from the main character being a priest, Russell adds a religious aspect to the first-encounter idea, that is not considered as often, and has some interesting observations about religion and how an encounter with aliens might affect us in a religious sense. This was quite interesting, particularly the ending revelations about the new society that leads to Emelio losing his faith in God. It is only when you find these out that you see all the hints that were left there that might lead to such a conclusion, but were looked over when you first read the book. Also quite interesting is the society Russell creates for the aliens in question. The aliens are humanoid, in that they are bipedal and have forearms for the manipulation of tools and the like, but their society and ideas are quite alien to ours - the way they behave and interact, the way they talk, their social systems. However, the book does come off in several ways that make it seem like many other "land on an alien planet and find the inhabitant" stories. The planning for the mission, voyaging to the planet, landing and making initial forays on the planet feature problems similar to what many authors have previously dealt with. Russell does write about this well and quite convincingly, but you've seen it before and also have the T-shirt. While the book occasionally comes off as following a set formula, on the whole, Russel has created an interesting alien-encounter book, with quite a few religious overtones, and a writing style and methodology that makes "The Sparrow" well worth reading. (  )1 rojse | Jul 8, 2009 | Hauntingly intriguing. A very gut-wrenching, in some parts disturbing, book. I could not put it down and found it stayed with me long after I finished reading it. I loved it! But I know someone who hated it. Not for everyone, I guess. Great book for fascinating discussion. ( )1 janiep | Jul 7, 2009 | A thought provoking and intriguing read. The novel poses questions about faith and the human condition and soul. ( )1 angry-muppet | Jun 28, 2009 | Please be aware that there are a few spoilers below. When an astronomer discovers intelligent life in space, the Jesuits launch a mission to make first contact. I've abandoned a lot of books in my time. Usually, it's because they bore me. The plot doesn't engage me. I don't feel anything for the characters. The writing doesn't pull me in. The setting leaves a bad taste in my mouth. This one was different. The premise was interesting. The plot was nicely developed through a series of flashbacks. I wasn't quite invested in the characters, but I could feel myself getting there. The writing was lovely. There were some fascinating things going on with the whole idea of goodness and faith. I'm sure that, had I finished it, I'd have given it at least four stars. But I just couldn't. This is the very first book I've had to put down not because I didn't like it but because it disturbed the hell out of me. The book is told in flashbacks, so we quickly learn just how the main character ends up. His hands are mutilated, he's forced into prostitution and he loses his faith. I have issues with hand mutilation. Hardcore issues. I'd probably have been able to deal if Russell had let us imagine the mutilation for ourselves, but I just couldn't make it past the scene in which Emilio described what was done to him. I honestly could not see myself reading forward to see how it all came about. Strange as it sounds, I didn't have nearly enough invested in him to watch him go through that. If I'm going to read about a character who goes through hell, I have to really, really care about them. I have to hope against hope that things will be better for them, someday. I couldn't care about Emilio like that. I didn't want to subject myself to any more, regardless of how good the book was overall or how small a part the mutilation played in the bulk of the story. I abandoned it a little over two hundred pages in, and I doubt I'll ever return to it. xicanti | Jun 12, 2009 | I enjoyed this one. A story of priests in space always sounds a bit out there to me, but it's handled well here. It's a journey of one priest (and his friends) who travels space and finds a whole new world, thinking he is guided by God. What he finds there is worse than Hell, and Emilio must reexamine the God he thinks he knows and come to terms with why God leads him there, if at all. We jump back and forth in time, with Emilio recounting what happened to him and his friends when he left Earth, and although we know from the get-go that there is only one survivor, the story retains its potency -- the journey is important, but it is much more as you flip through the pages knowing that it rests under the weight of a terrible conclusion. The only question that remains is why? The story flows seamlessly from beginning to aftermath and Russell's new world is vivid and real and very alien, with an interesting power structure. It is an interesting concept that is, for the most part, well executed. My only problem is that for crafting such a great story, some of Russell's characters feel more like caricatures than characters at times -- like the woman with the tragic dark past whom everyone seems to fall in love with. ( ) seraphitta | Jun 12, 2009 | A rich, thought-provoking, and deeply spiritual story of one man's quest for his soul and what it means to live. Beautiful and heartbreaking and harrowing and exquisite. ( )1 mangochris | Jun 10, 2009 | I never would have heard about this book if not for LibraryThing. However, it was noted in a comparison to another book I really enjoyed so I decided to try it out. The genre is not my usual (sci-fi), but I really enjoyed the 'what-ifs' presented by the book. It is not so far out as to be totally absurd, so the reader can really ponder such themes as our place in the universe. The characters are well-developed and recognizable. All in all, a good read that is very thought provoking. ( ) grimbo | May 27, 2009 | This is my absolute favorite book ever. Besides the emotional draw that compels you to fall in love with the characters, this is a great tale of cultures colliding--and what happens when they do. ( )1 Acebo | May 26, 2009 | I am only 3/4 of the way through the book as I write this. Though I haven't finished, this book is already one of my favorites ever. I cannot critique it in any way; the story was phenomenal, as was the whole idea of the book. The characters are relatable, tug at my heart and make me wish I could really know them. The idea of making contact with aliens is so mainstream now, but a novel about it is hardly done with finesse. The Sparrow, however, has dealt with this eloquently and masterfully. ( )2 Maggie_Rum | May 23, 2009 | I'm not ready to review this yet. Still too overwhelmed. ( ) MarthaJeanne | May 21, 2009 | Wow. Dark. Heartwrenching. Very human. ( )1 iceT | May 17, 2009 | Just got back from the Sci Fi Book Group at my local Borders. I decided to head along this month because the book intrigued me – The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell. I told my housemate about it and she came up with the wonderfully precise but inaccurate description “Jesuits in spaaaaaace”. This would be a really bad summing up of the book. A group of people, lead, including and funded by the Jesuits is sent to investigate and communicate with a newly discovered alien culture. Only one member returns with the best reports suggesting a major disgrace on his part. The action alternates between the debreifing of Emilio and the action leading up to the mission and the mission itself. The first thing to say is that although we all seemed to enjoy it, we all had different criticisms of it. I read the whole thing in pretty much just one weekend. I fell in love with the characters and the story gave me new perspectives on things. And it's another story with a linguist main character I love (the other being [[China Mieville]]'s [The Scar]). In dealing with the criticisms I will be introducing spoilers, so if you care about that, stop reading about now and come back after you've read the book. But do go and read the book. -- http://www.penwing.me.uk/node/199 ( ) penwing | May 5, 2009 | I actually audibly breathed "Wow" as I closed the book. Stunning. Cataclysmic. I was engrossed through the whole thing, but the ending. Powerful. Gut-wrenching. I do not have enough adjectives in my vocabulary to adequately describe my reaction to this book. Spectacular. I am blown away. ( )1 dainenyu | Apr 29, 2009 | Great book by Russell. Jesuit priest and a team of people sent to an alien planet inhabited by two different species of aliens. Major issues of faith in god are explored. This book covers religion, betrayal, love and extreme anguish over why god allows things to happen the way they do. Circumstances cause the priest to question his faith. ( ) curlysue | Apr 3, 2009 | amira | Mar 12, 2009 | I was totally blown away by this book. It amazes me that a single human being can come up with something with so many layers, so much depth, so much food for thought. This is one of those books that you either want to read all in one sitting to find out what happens, or over a period of many months because you know the ending is going to be painful and you want to savor the happy moments. The human characters are lovable and incredibly vivid. The alien world is startlingly original and believable. In addition to exploring the unpredictable results of humans' first contact with aliens, the book also tackles major issues of faith. Does God exist? Does he work in our lives? Russell does an amazing job of exploring all sides of theology - exposing the hypocrisy of the Catholic hierarchy without condemning them, presenting both sides of arguments for and against belief, showing both the joys and sorrows of both belief and unbelief. Every chapter of the book is worthy of contemplation and discussion, and Russell leaves the interpretation open - I was afraid that at the end the book was going to turn out to be either very pro- or very anti-religion, but it sits very neatly in the middle, showing the beautiful and ugly aspects of both worldviews. ( )3 Gwendydd | Mar 7, 2009 | It took me about six months to read this book, which is ridiculous, but let me explain. From the beginning, you know that this Jesuit space mission has only one survivor, and Father Sandoz has returned to Earth a broken broken man. As the book goes back to the establishment of the team, as they get to know each other, you get to know and love them and to know that they are all going to die - it's a little intense. But this book is amazing. There are surprising and heartwarming and heartbreaking twists throughout the whole book, but the last fifty minutes really pack a punch. I read it sitting in the middle seat on an airplane and I was trying to pretend that I wasn't crying. But I totally was. ( )3 vegetarianlibrarian | Jan 28, 2009 | |
Abebooks |
Russell is using the science-fictional setting of first contact with an alien race to dramatise an age-old question: how can we reconcile the notion of a loving God with the existence of evil? If nothing can happen without God intending it to, how can a loving God intend bad things to happen?
Now there's a fairly persistant anti-religious theme running through a lot of science fiction, and there are plenty of novels who answer that question by explicitly denying either the existence of the benevolence of God. There are also plenty of examples of the flip side, where the climax of the plot brings the hand of God explicitly into the picture and reveals the eventual reasonableness of His plan for us. (The sequel to The Sparrow, Children of God, takes this step, to my disappointment.) What I enjoy so much about The Sparrow is that it takes neither path. We get exactly what we get in this world: joy and sorrow and love and pain, and the opportunity to frame this with religious faith or religious despair.
When I say "religious despair", I mean either "God doesn't exist and our existence is therefore meaningless" or "God exists and is malevolent or uncaring." The humanist option, finding meaning without God, isn't given any airtime, but this is a novel about faith and submission. The mission establishing first contact with aliens is a Jesuit mission (in itself a brilliant move, and one that seems almost inevitable when looked at historically), the central character is a Jesuit priest, and the exploration of faith is via his experiences. Those experiences (the bulk of the plot) are definitely of the faith-based variety.
I won't summarise that portion of the plotline, because it would trivialise it, but I will say that the question of the benevolence of God is for that character far more than a theological point of argument. The whole plotline exists to place him in an extreme crisis of faith, and given that Russell obviously weighs in on the Catholic side for the answer, I think it's greatly to her credit that she leaves it as open as she does. (Although like I said, the sequel drops a clanger as reverberatory as the Hand of God blessing the atomic missile and blowing up all the bad dudes at the conclusion of Stephen King's The Stand. Oh, sorry, that should have come with a spoiler warning. Oh well, you just saved yourself six hours of buildup.)
That for the theological theme, but there's more to like about the novel. The alien culture and biology is handled with a pleasantly light touch, free of info-dumps but with all the information we need whenever we need it. Like the religious theme, it steers a middle path between two clichés: the totally inscrutable and incomprehensible things, and the people-in-funny-costumes of Star Trek and similar. The aliens of The Sparrow have a different psychology and a very different sociology, but both we and the characters are nonetheless capable of identifying and sympathising with them. That the mission nonetheless ends in tragedy is not due to the fundamental impossibility of interspecies understanding, but comes down to luck and probability: there are too many possibilities for misunderstanding, despite all caution there are too many assumptions on both sides, and some of them turn out to be important. Again, it's a note-perfect extrapolation from so many real historical moments of cultural contact... only with tails and two opposable thumbs on each hand.
There's another feature to The Sparrow which I enjoyed, but which is definitely open to criticism. The characters are, one and all, heroic. I don't mean that they are flawless, and I certainly don't mean that they are flat. But they have passions not emotions, and deep loves and abiding friendships not acquaintances, and so on. Even their jokes are faster and subtler and wittier and more self-deprecating than normal mortals attain.
There's some defence for this. On the level of skills, I'm quite happy to accept that our central character is a supremely skilled linguist (in both the technical sense and the quantitative sense -- a guy who speaks fourteen languages idiomatically). He's on the mission partly for that reason, after all. The same, more or less, goes for the strength and depth of the religious feelings being described. It's important for the plot and for the themes Russell wants to explore, so sure, she can have it. What grates a little more is the personal saintliness of the characters, and the overbright character of their interactions. We're given shots of several dinner parties, apparently a nonstop stream of wisecracks and bonding, which on the one hand makes us love these characters so much more elemental than ourselves, but on the other hand bears a tragic resemblance to the scripted hilarity of a sitcom. Not that it's sitcom-level humour, but it's nonstop and extreme and therefore slightly unreal.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I dwell on it because it's likely to put some people off. Think of Captain Corelli's Mandolin, or Ender's Game, or anything by David Gemmell, or movies shot in technicolor. If these give you shivers (in conjunction, I mean, beyond their various individual failings) then The Sparrow probably isn't for you.
If you can accept or enjoy the heroic, though, and if you're open-minded on (and interested in) theology, I recommend it. I don't know how obvious it will be from this review, but I'm an atheist myself. I enjoy God-bashing in fiction, and I enjoy religious fiction, but I dislike both when they assume they're on the right side rather than making a case for it. The Sparrow has an agenda, and one I happen to disagree with, but it's polite enough to leave it stated as an option, not as received truth. And in doing so, it delivers an intense and thought-provoking story.
With tails and two opposable thumbs on each hand. I mean, that's got to count for something, right?