The Fall of a Sparrow

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Summary: the audio version
Review: I discovered this book by picking up the audio at my library & listened to it in the car and found myself wanting to pull over & just listen. I have ceased being ashamed to say I "listened" to a book anymore - I'm seeing it more & more as a return to some oral tradition that we all need. No one is embarrassed to say they went to a poetry reading.. Anyway - I loved the story. It's all over the place & probably too ambitious, but still well done. As a guitar player I loved Woody's thoughts on that (I too have looked lovingly at a National Steel in music shops) There are so many sub-plots here (the bats, for example) and yet it all holds together. I got the book now just to see how different it might be. If anything, it reminded me of BEACH MUSIC by Pat Conroy for the obvious and less obvious reasons.

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Summary: My top pick of the year
Review: I truly enjoyed Woody as a strong, passionate and troubled character. I've read the Sixteen Pleasures and find the Sparrow to a much stronger and complex work. I look forward to his next work of art.

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Summary: Life! As Human as it Gets
Review: This book about people comes alive and causes you to care about them as old friends. Even if you don't like what they're doing you can understand and sympathize. This book is not about solving problems. It's about dealing with what life gives us and doing the best with what we have. In other words a great people book. Reading it will help you understand another side of yourself and others.

Rating:
Summary: a great read by a great storyteller
Review: I read this book in one weekend. I couldn't put it down. So rarely do authors possess the skills of engagement that Hellenga does. The novel is seductive, well writen and does make you VERY hungry for great italian food.

Rating:
Summary: Kinda, but not quite...
Review: After hearing a rave review of this book on NPR, and reading other favorable reviews, I picked up Fall of a Sparrow with great anticipation. The book was OK, but hardly lived up to the expectations set by those reviewers. The disclosure of Woody's gradual healing of grief is quite realistic and poignant, but many other elements of the story seem terribly clumsy and contrived, the stuff of made-for-TV movies on midlife crises: the runaway wife, the loneliness of the empty nester, the fling with a much younger woman, quitting his job and running off to Italy. Woody's interests and abilities are entertaining-I particularly enjoyed the lavish decriptions of Italian cuisine (I became rather hungry and kept raiding the fridge!). But these sidelines are so several and so oblique that they came to dissipate rather than build the energy of the book. I kept watching for one of these figures to emerge as a unifying motif for the story, but none did. I also agree with the other reviewers here who found the emotionality of the novel detached and artificial. Hellenga also needs to be more aware of contemporary Catholicism, as his descriptions of Hannah's (Woody's wife) experience with Catholic spirituality and the convent seem to be drawn from the baldest stereotypes.

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Excellent
Review: Many of these many reviews are pompous and long-winded, but the book is not. It manages to educate as well as entertain, and is well-written and more than worth your time.

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Summary: A modern "family romance" , centering on loss & redemption.
Review: Not as good as SIXTEEN PLEASURES, which was sly,compact, piquant ,fugal , & subtle in the way it's "theme" --the inexorable attrition of all things aesthetic against our best efforts to hold back time's ravaging --this second(?) book by Hellenga is prolix, sprawling, far more "conventional" in theme & structure,and more heavy-handed in its ambition to enclose a wide swath of contemporary history within the romance of a family saga. I say second (?) book because The Fall seems to possess many of the faults of first novels: its reach oustrips its grasp-- too much "information" , too much eager "explanation" of the meanings intended, etc. Still, I'm confirmed in my admiration of the authjor's gifts: his extraordinary intelligence, ecumenical sympathies, catholic eye for beauty of all kinds, and adamant vote in favor of risk,as the hallmark of a fully lived life. A grownup writer presuming grownup readers Amazing!.Someone shld be sent to study the matter.

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Summary: A complex narrative that ventures to engage our intellect .
Review: Robert Hellenga offers us not only a well constructed tale of intrigue as played out on a family level, he has obviously spent time with his characters - developing people who are unique, memorable, understandable in their motivation, and well strung on his terse and tense rope of story telling. In the times in which we find ourselves it is refreshing to accompany Hellenga on his journey, his characters' self-exploration, all the while gracing his pages with allegory and metaphor, and the glory of not only the English language but also Greek, Persian, and Italian. The minor weaknesses of this book are so thoroughly compensated for by the sheer joy of his prose. This is a book to read slowly, think through quietly, and finish more enlightend about myriad details we skip in our too rapid daily routine.

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Summary: Love and death in an almost classical mode
Review: Hellenga takes the professor-sleeps-with-student genre and explodes it with tremendous pain, laugh-out-loud humor and classical allusions to fill a Joyce novel. A family whose dad teaches classics at a small Illinois college can't get ove the death of the oldest daughter in a terrorist bombing in 1980. In a quest that harks back to "The Odyssey" and the "Orestia," the professor breaks free of the pain he still feels as he leaves the comfort of St. Clair college and finds his destiny in Italy. Meanwhile, his middle daughter tries to find her way in the depths of Chicago. Ultimately, it's the stories that count -- the stories the professor embellished for his children, and the stories that guide and inform our lives. The book will leave you crying.

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Summary: Life amidst chaos, love in spite of hate; forgiveness heals
Review: He quotes Wordsworth early in the book, I think in the first chapter; "To me the meanest flower that blows can give thoughts that do often lie to deep for words." I was struck by this statement and said "wow" and hoped to see flowers throughout the rest of the book. Our hero is a classics prof, his daughter has been killed for political purposes, his wife joins a convent; why is the best he can do with it is "Love is greater than all?" If we love, (as defined in this book love means having a job we are passionate for, family we have wonderful memories with and friends who are intellectually our equals) we will find ourselves in the midst of the pain and confusion? At least he's consistent. All the stable people appear to be stable because of love of home/family/friends. And when those are betrayed, it is the memory of those we love (plus some energetic theraputic sex) that carry us over till we are able to love again without agonizing hurt. (Am I right so far, Professor?) Oh, and there is no way I could believe some of the sexual situations these people get into and get out of with everyone virtually unscathed. Nope. If we choose to forgive, choosing love, we can go on. How does he explain this if the intellect and emotion are shut down with pain, without dealing more with spirituality? I have never met a person who, lacking any spiritual guidepost was capable of so completely overcoming past hurt, or a person who had fogiven completely being without a core spirituality. I think he combines intellect with emotion to create a psuedo-sentimental- spirituality--and I thank him for it! It made for some interesting personal inventory and cross-referencing and I haven't had to think this hard over a book in a long time. Ok, truthfully, I haven't read a book in a long time, but this was an enjoyable experience.