The Sparrow & Children Of God
01.26.2009I was sent two books, one and its sequel, well over a year ago but I have only just finished them. These books were The Sparrow and Children of God, both by Maria Doria Russell. The gist of the story is that Arecibo picks up a radio transmission from Alpha Centauri of singing. (Very Hunt For The Red October, no?)
The Jesuits take it upon themselves to send out the first mission, this being what they do. See: New World. Eight people are selected, four priests and four lay.
The story is told in jumps, about two-thirds of which takes place after the mission, interviewing the sole survivor of the trip and the other third about the lead up to and the exploration of this alien world.
My overall take is that they have an interesting story that the writing got in the way of. There were way to many instances of:
“Why?” he asked hastily. But I’m in love with God. Why can no one else see this but me? Is there any other way to love God than the way I have? The priest rudely took a step back timidly and wondered colorfully about his place in life…
yadda yadda yadda…
It was an okay four hundred page book that could have been an excellent two hundred pages had the author externalized a lot of that writing. For instance, in my above paraphrase, we didn’t need asked with that punctuation. Second, ditch the adverb. It adds nothing. What does hastily mean? Did he snap? Did he bark? Growl? All more descriptive. Third, we don’t need him to think that stuff. His actions should have been proving it all along. A one line “He looked confused” with an apt metaphor would have sped things up. Fourth, way, way too many adverbs and they get confusing. Was he rudely taking a step back or timidly doing so? What does a timid step look like exactly? What’s the rest of his body doing? And then they mix actions within the same sentence. Put a period and move on to the next action.
It was fascinating the way the Russell set up the world. And it seemed very plausible, at least to me. And the time she took to set up another world with its biology and culture was really something amazing. Reading from an anthropological point of view, the work was a masterpiece of imagination. It was just unfortunate that the main characters were cardboard and the writing tedious.
An instance of the characters. Each had one trait and that trait was used to distinguish them in conversation and to give each a quirk. Then this trait was mentioned over and over again until you wondered, “Is there anything else to this character that might be interesting?” They each all had one mantra or life experience that seemed to inform their every move from then on out and was repeated over and over again until you wondered, “Really? One formative experience defines their whole life?”
For instance, there is a character in Children of God that ends each line of dialog with “Ace”. As in, “Not looking too good, ace.” Or, “We really blew that one didn’t we, ace?” Or even, “What do you want for lunch, ace?”
And it’s like that with every line he would speak. If you think the above was irritating then read the combined 700 pages and let me know what you think after.
Another character, perhaps the most compelling, named Sofia Mendez was a Sephardic Jew raised in Turkey after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492. Besides the fact that the expulsion took place over five hundred years before this story took place, it was referenced again and again as to why she had an “iron determination.” That and the line of thought “I am Mendez.”
Seriously.
Just that line. It would be interspersed after two hundred words of thought about her back story and why she would succeed in what ever venture inspired her to think back. “I am Mendez” was how she always resolved to keep going.
Look, maybe because I’m an American, but family history doesn’t really mean a whole hell of a lot. And her family name (she was an orphan) seemed like a lame sole reason to keep going on. After a point, wouldn’t it seem more natural to have a character find new motivations?
Still, I finished the books because I was interested in this world Russell had created and discovering how a totally new and different society might conduct its self. It was the polar opposite of a Star Trek alien society that seemed to take one aspect of humanity and make that the overriding personality trait of an entire species. It felt just as difficult and complex as our society might look to someone from another planet, a minefield of accidental slights and unintended insults. Normally, I don’t like reading about aliens because they fall into the Star Trek camp, but here (even if the individuals seemed to have only one thing on their individual minds) as a society they seemed very complex and contradictory in the way people are.
If you have the patience to slog through writing that should have been cut by any editor worth their salt and deal with one dimensional characters that seem more like charactatures, you will be rewarded with an amazing imagining of how a first contact may conceivably take place. I’m just not sure it’s worth it.