The Sparrow

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Summary: It's already been said
Review: Other readers have already made the points I would make. Suffice it to say that this first novel transcends genre to ask questions that should concern us all: the existence and nature of God, the relationship between God and the Creation, and the multiplicity of relationships within the Creation. Russell's writing is not without flaw, but this is still a powerful book, one that has stayed with me in the several months since I read it. As one reader pointed out, it is full of parallels with historical missions. In terms of fiction, specifically within the sci-fi genre, another work that comes to mind is Orson Scott Card's _Speaker for the Dead_, which also concerns lethal ignorance between alien cultures. I look forward to reading more from Mary Doria Russell

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Summary: A remarkable book which shouldn't be missed
Review: This is a truly remarkable book which may find itself shelved away in some dark corner of your bookstore as its not easily catalogued. It combines Science Fiction, Romance and great Comedy. But its a one of those rare books that makes you think

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Summary: So promising yet somehow just falls short
Review: I wanted to love this book...The concept,the story,were perfect a first encounter with other life forms wrapped up in the form of a Jesuit mission.And yet so much time was taken up explaining the technical details of the science required to journey to this new world that the wonderful part of the story..the meeting of the two races,their similarities and differences that you feel as if your slightly shortchanged..Just as your getting involved in that aspect of the story the book is finishing.If the author had developed this story more I think this book would have remained a bestseller for many years to come..all the elements were there...religion,science and a good mystery story.Definitly worth reading..but your left with so many unanswered questions .

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Summary: Come along for the ride - a metaphysical trip to the future!
Review: The Sparrow by Mary Russell Doria MT 10:29 Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin? Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father's knowledge. With what awareness does God watch our individual progress, love us into being, care about our path? This is the question at the core of The Sparrow, a novel set in the future in which the Society of Jesus sends a missionary expedition to a newly discovered planet in outer space. Rich in parallels with actual Jesuit missionary history, disturbing and persistent questions arise. Cultural naivete on the part of the missionaries unleashes events which delve into the dark and tortured side of human nature (Jakvat nature as well). The Jesuit expedition consists of three Jesuit priests (the head of the expedition, the linguist, and the artist) and four non-Jesuits (a woman doctor and her husband; the scientist who discovered the beautiful music wafting through the universe; and a brilliant young female logician). The novel gets off to a slow start. The author's technique of moving back and forth in time, combined with the introduction of the web of relationships among the characters, makes the first quarter of the book difficult. Once the expedition is under way, however, it becomes a great read, difficult to put down. The characters are rich in complexity and well intentioned. Celibacy is still a stricture for priests in this futuristic society, and the author explores the challenges and limitations of such a choice. The secular characters are fully fleshed out - particularly Anne, the 60ish doctor - affectionate, agnostic, no-nonsense. She is the perfect foil for the intellectual, elitist Jesuits - the Jesuit leader of the expedition falls ill soon after landing; the artist is ineffectual outside of his realm of specialization; and the linguist, our hero, for all his call to holiness, is reduced to the lone survivor, a victim of circumstance and tunnel vision. The author has some fun with stereotypes, particularly with the "Jesuitical" manipulation of the "inquisition"which the surviving Jesuit undergoes upon his return. There is some play of traditional Christian symbolism - our hero's hands are mutilated by the hosts on yon planet (stigmata?) He is dragged from imprisonment to one far worse - and humiliated in the streets (carrying of the cross?) This is the character who most poignantly feels the abandonment of God (My God, My God, why have you abandoned me?) The reward for his celibacy is sexual intimidation and rape. The culmination is ironic. The victimization of the protagonist and his subsequent humiliation in a court of his peers, who at first blush are unrelentingly unsympathetic, is given a lot of airplay. Yet when they discover that he had not turned to prostitution and murder of his own volition but was instead imprisoned and ruthlessly abused, they are shocked into sympathy, compassion, horror. Now they can fully understand his rage at God, his sense of betrayal, his unwillingness to cooperate in narrating his story. This makes for a good story line, but why is this treatment more shocking when a priest is the victim than it is for the millions of women and children throughout history who have suffered and continue to suffer this same fate? Not so different after all - and perhaps that is the author's point. There are humor, brightness, love and discovery in The Sparrow. With a true spirit of adventure, we journey with the Stella Maris through space, to God knows what end. Doria is a good storyteller, and she has a good story to tell in The Sparrow

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Summary: Unlike any sci-fi you have read before, rich, compelling.
Review: This book will captivate and compel you to read on. Characters are fully three dimensional and become friends much like you wish you had. The Sparrow does not bog down in techno-talk, but does pay dues to basic science of space travel and practical problems like running out of gas. Quick pace and always moving forward, the rich context of mystery, science, and spiritual settings will move you. No, honestly, it will

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Summary: A science fiction narrative with real flesh and blood
Review: This is a first-rate science fiction book which goes beyond futuristic technology and focuses on people (and aliens)- their hopes, fears, struggles, and joys. This is ultimately a story of the triumph of faith and redemption in the face of unintended tragic consequences

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Summary: A sensitive exploration of faith in a first contact setting.
Review: Thank God! At last a book that goes beyond standard cliches describing the religious life as life in the confessional! Mary Doria Russell has written an exquisite book that is deep, rich and intelligent. The Sparrow is the haunting story of a Jesuit priest searching for the basis of his own faith in a shocking and stunning first contact story set on an alien planet. This is no superficial science fiction story, but a brilliant exploration of the depth of friendship, the exhuberance of discovery, the pain of loss and love betrayed, and the anguish of decision making in a new context. You will cme to know these characters as your friends, real flesh and blood people. What happens to them out there feels very real and quite possible. Russell has given us a taste of what it means to be a missionary in a strange land. She shows us new worlds and a mirror for our souls. The Sparrow is a superb book, sensitive, wise, and exciting. A must read!

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Summary: Russell's touch is masterful. Sparrow absorbing, disturbing.
Review: Sparrow reminds me greatly of The Doomsday Book, by Connie Willis. The central characters in both books run a gauntlet of death and despair, and are left to wonder what, if anything, it could all mean. Russell takes this search for meaning further, into the arena of faith. "Where is God in all of this?" is the question that reverberates throughout the journey of Father Sandoz, the spacefaring Jesuit priest who travels from Earth to Rakhat, hope and despair, and back again. Sandoz and his fellow travlers are well-realized characters, totally engaging and full of life, making the failure of their mission all the more devasting. Both Russell and Willis set up a juxtaposition of past/present/future that provides a sense of inevitability--while somehow gripping us in terrible suspense. The ambivalent ending of Sparrow, although true to life, will leave many readers unsatisfied. I suspect that those who loved Doomsday Book will find Sparrow well worth reading. Anyone who has struggled with the existence of God in the face of pain and despair will appreciate this book. Just don't read it expecting catharsis. The age-old problem of evil, it seems, will defy easy resolution even unto the 21st century.

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Summary: "A soul, searching for God."
Review: While The Sparrow may never become a science fiction classic, it epitomizes the best of the genre. It creates characters you care about and goes beyond escapism to raise serious philosophical questions. The Sparrow contains two narratives of a Jesuit-sponsored mission to investigate extraterrestial music detected by radio telescope. The narratives, written 20-40 years apart, weave together the story of the mission and the struggles of Emilio Sandoz, its sole survivor. At first blush, such a plot seems mundane. But Sandoz is a Jesuit priest struggling with his faith and searching for God and the meaning of God. While The Sparrow suffers some logical flaws, it raises and leaves the reader to contemplate deeper questions. At times disturbing, the books is, in the words of one character, the story of "a soul, looking for God."

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Summary: A tremendous book from every conceivable angle
Review:
From the rec.arts.sf.reviews newsgroup:
The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
Reviewed by Earnest Lilley ([e-mail])

"After the first exquisite songs were intercepted by radio telescope, U.N. diplomats debated long and hard whether and why human resources should be expended in an attempt to reach the world known as Rakhat, when there were so many pressing needs on Earth. In the Rome offices of the Society of Jesus, the questions were not whether or why, but how soon the mission could be attempted and whom to send.

"The Jesuit scientists went to Rakhat to learn, not to proselytize. They went so that they might come to know and love God's other children. They went for the reason Jesuits have always gone to the farthest frontiers of human exploration. They went for the greater glory of God.

"They meant no harm." From THE SPARROW.

It's not unusual for scientists to reach a point in their lives where they decide to put pen to paper or electrons to glass and talk about their work in the context of science fiction. Many of the best hard SF author have come to us this way. Usually they are physicists or astronomers and their love of science eclipses their characters. Mary Doria Russell, Ph.D., Biological Anthropology, has shamed them all. Having gotten fed up with Academia, she has written THE SPARROW, her first literary work. From every conceivable angle, it is an extraordinary book, worthy of all the praise it will doubtless receive. The hand of the cultural and physical anthropologist is clear in human and alien construction alike, while the Techno-SF components are diamond hard and thoroughly convincing. Yet all this fine craft merely builds the stage for a compelling search for love, faith and redemption on a distant and alien planet.

THE SPARROW is written in two narratives that pace each other through the book, some 40 years apart. One tells the story of the discovery of radio signals from the region of Alpha Centauri, and the Jesuit mission launched to investigate them. The other follows the painful recounting of the failure of the mission by its sole survivor, a gifted priest and linguist who, in exploring Rakhat, discovers also "the outermost limit of faith and, in doing so, located the exact boundary of despair."

Reading THE SPARROW, knowing that its mission ends in tragedy, is a very odd thing. The two narratives dovetail beautifully as they exchange adventure and discovery with terror and despair. The book is so well written and the characters so engaging that I felt as though I was watching someone I loved go through a car wreck-- horrified but unable to look away. The author wrote this book, I am sure, in part to express and examine her own views of faith. Like the best of such searches, the book answers nothing but the questions it asks cannot be ignored.

Mary Doria Russell writes clearly in her own voice but the timber is not unlike Clarke with resonances of LeGuin. A tremendous book, to be followed by a sequel, CHILDREN OF GOD, which I look forward to eagerly.

Earnest Lilley, Sept. 18, 1996