The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The Sparrow is told from the primary point of view a Jesuit priest and translator, Father Emilio Sandoz, and covers the time periods of both Sandoz’s expedition to the inhabited planet Rakhat and the aftermath of the disastrous journey.
The novel begins with the discovery of music broadcasted from Alpha Centauri and continues with the build up to the first expedition to the broadcasting planet. The middle deals primarily with Sandoz’s coming to grips with the aftermath of the events on the planet, the loss of his crewmates, and the apparent loss of his faith, while flashbacks to the planet deal with the crews’ initial run in with the planet’s natives and their attempts to survive and understand this alien culture. The ending solves the mystery of the crews’ fates and sheds light on Sandoz’s torture in the hands of an alien culture.
I believe this story is about how a good man can attempt to do what he believes is right and still meet with catastrophic consequences. Other reviews have attempted to say this novel is classified incorrectly, that it is not Science Fiction, but a philosophical text exploring right and wrong and the laws of unintended consequences. I’ll brush that off now and just say that this is indeed Science Fiction. It’s just really good Science Fiction. Far too many critics are ignorant of how great speculative fiction truly attempts to explore the human condition.
This is a thought provoking novel, even for someone who doesn’t believe in God. It’s difficult enough to have faith in your own actions when the lives of your loved ones are on the line, but it must be even more trying when your belief system surrenders certain portions of your will to a power you believe to exist outside your self. And I believe that this is the heart of The Sparrow. To what degree are we accountable for our own actions when the intentions of everyone involved were nothing but morally good?
The Sparrow is a thinking person’s Science Fiction novel. It will appeal to the reader who wants to explore morality and what it can mean when coming into contact with other cultures. It’s also an exploration into the meaning of faith and what it means to follow the will of God. Overall, I enjoyed The Sparrow. Russell did an excellent job of creating a believable alien culture not too different from our own, but balanced in such a way that adding human influence had planet changing consequences. Her primary characters are sympathetic and dimensional. Her critique of faith and church are challenging, but fair and compassionate.
This isn’t a five star book because I did find it a little slow and I’m not sure the structure of the plotting really worked as well as Russell probably hoped. I had a difficult time allowing myself to build to great an attachment to characters who I knew would be dead at some point in the story. Additionally, I wasn’t entirely convinced that the actual expedition would be built of this coincidental gathering of characters, but I do believe that was required to show how this must have been the will of God. I don’t believe these coincidences took too much away from the story, but I did find myself many times saying that it was quite convenient that a particular character had just the trait necessary to accomplish these particular goals—in other words, I thought Russell was too easy on the characters in some respects, and yet when it came time to meeting with their death’s, the characters where helpless in a way that was less than satisfying.
Overall though, I found The Sparrow to be an enjoyable read and mentally stimulating. It was definitely the type of novel I will remember long after I’ve read it. It also goes on my list of Science Fiction novels for people who claim to not like Science Fiction.
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