@@feralhistorianonly way to be disappointed is to have expectations. Never grew up with any sense of "pretty is good". In fact I tend to be overly suspicious of anything that seems to want me to notice it. Dark forest of the soul I call it.
I can't help thinking that the personnel of a UN mission to an alien world would excoriate Emilio in this situation, I just think they'd deride him as a (failed) "colonizer" rather than a "whore." But thirty years ago, it wasn't clear that our culture would dive this deeply down this particular rabbit hole.
The ending of the Sparrow starts to make a whole lot more sense when you find out the author hates Jesuits and wanted to write a story about how they got their "just desserts".
You got me at first but when you describe what happens to "Emilio" I was like "Are you sure this is not a furry novel?" like is the novel to much detail on what happen to him?
@@oneproudbrowncoat Well, I mean...there are human individuals with all sorts of fetishes...even for inanimate objects let alone living things from the same ecosystem.
@@oneproudbrowncoat Not really. Fetish is just a label for what we deem outlying which is completely relative and subjective. Much like how a solitary, non-social human is an outlier but the norm for other creatures. The point is that it exists and if it can exist in one, it can exist in many.
I like this take compared to the take of my (favorite?) SF review, bookpilled. Idid find the characters of the story generally sufficiently plausible and interesting. Yes, I also noticed points in the story where I thought there was unnecessary details and events and implausibilities: kind of a mess, as this review says. The book would have been more satisfying if shortened. But overall I felt captivated and provoked to thought way more than by most fiction I read. Kudos to the author and this review.
I used to be very critical of The Sparrow. But I've since met certain people who have convinced me that people as clueless and naive as the characters in this book exist, and would make the same mistakes. So now I'm slightly less critical, but I still find it frustrating.
@@feralhistorian It's incredible, honestly. Blish was an atheist, but he understood the essence of pre-modern Christian Faith in a way most post-Enlightenment Christians currently don't. That's the beauty of the story-- our protagonist intellectualises his faith and almost misses the trap laid for him; a pious Catholic grandmother wouldn't have fallen for it to begin with.
Your description of the exploration of the Americas at 2:47 was replicated in Africa and was summed up by Cetshwayo the Zulu king by the statement “First comes the trader, then the missionary and then the red soldier.”
Review is absolutely on point. I could have said it. (Actually I did) What was missing was the meta-angle of all of this. The author's struggles with Christianity, going to atheism and ending into the arms of Judaism. It was shown in the book. The doubts and hope in the book were not the atheist way, but the ways of Judaism. I think this would elude a lot of readers. And this would be my final criticism of this book: in the end it revolves around criticizing something Christianity-related, and it traces back to Judaism, once again. I'm a little bit done with that to be honest.
Why do I have the feeling that people in animal costumes would be very happy about a first contact?!... *Hope no one ate anything while reading my comment.*
I was going to stop the video to avoid spoilers and buy the book because of the interesting premise. Thanfully I didn't because I have no interest in reading a fanfiction furry er0t!ca of "Silence".
Great analysis~and one that jogged memories. I read The Sparrow in the late-'90s, and liked it enough, but had enough gripes that off to the used bookshop it went. But your video reminded me of my annoyance with the whole "whore" condemnation angle; as well as other nitpicks--thanks!
I just finished reading *The Sparrow* for the first time and I found it to be an interesting story. I don’t find it to be all that flawed, as the underlying theme is the tendency that humans have to judge others based on their own experiences and perceptions rather than being able to fully see the truth in front of them. This theme appears all throughout the story, in the interactions between characters and in the plot points that guide the narrative through its journey. This is why the lies about Sandoz that Supaari told members of the second expedition led them to believe he voluntarily put himself into prostitution. They were set up to believe he’d had some drastic change of character during the mission. This is why they believed he intentionally killed Askama. The combination of missing information, misinformation, and Sandoz’s traumatized mental state upon his return played into prejudgments made by the Jesuits. It’s also explained in the opening chapters that the media’s speculation and sensationalism drove that conclusion to the world. We see this happen all the time in our modern world, and it’s only gotten worse in the time since *The Sparrow* was published. After finishing the book, I’ve read one harsh review on reddit and watched this video, both of which claim that the story is flawed in different ways. My impression is that, while there are certainly weaknesses given this is the author’s first novel, both of these harsh reviews are so busy taking themselves too seriously that they overlook pieces of the story that make it work. Perhaps I didn’t see these flaws because of how I interpreted the story. I could be missing something in that respect. Perhaps the reviewers didn’t pick up on some aspects of the story and that made it seem flawed. I don’t know anything about the personal backgrounds of these reviewers. All I have are their words, written or spoken. There are many conclusions I could draw based on my interpretation of their words. Some could be correct, and others not. Rather than go down that road, I’ll simply conclude by saying that perhaps we all need to look beyond ourselves to see the full picture. Much like the characters in this book.
The Sparrow, for whatever reason, is a very polarizing book. I've met one other person who shares my "it's overall good but also very flawed" take on it. Otherwise all the dozens of people I've ever discussed it with either love it or hate it. There's probably an insight into individual assumptions and worldviews in there, something the Sparrow brushed against without the author fully realizing it.
@@feralhistorian thanks for the reply. As I continue looking at other reviews and comments I’m definitely seeing that polarization. Not at all unexpected given the subject matter. Thanks for your interesting and well-produced video review!
Are the flaws in the characters or are they in an understanding of how characters would act? Who won the war with the Jihadists? Both in the book and in real life?
The flaw is more structural. My impression is the whole whoring angle was there at the initial concept of the story, became increasingly less relevant as the story was developed, and made it to the final edit as a vestigial remnant of the original concept. Several supporting characters seem to go out of their way to hold that conclusion without any real reason to. Jihadists don't lose. They just regroup and come back a generation or two later.
Oh I loathe this book. I read this because I saw that discussions centred around ‘Silence’ by Endo Shusaku would frequently mention it, and they have a similar theme and narrative regarding the deconstruction of one’s faith. Unfortunately, I think the author had a beginning and end in mind, as well as some plot points and favourite characters, and everything else was written to facilitate that, resulting in several leaps in logic. It would have worked better as a fantasy (and with some more editing). Also, I can’t believe capitalism cat-man told us to ‘sell high, buy low’.
@@feralhistorian The first 11 chapters of the first book was about nothing. A lot of time was lost this way. It could have been used for relevant character (and world) building and preparation, whilst keeping the suspense through ongoing revelations about the music without revealing the plot. Good old hindsight :)
Thanks for this. I appreciate the creativity of the author but I just cannot read this book. I will never understand why people obsess about faith, sex, and mutilation all together. I can understand it in a 14th century context, but not in the world where people have a modicum of choice and access to more than one book.
To be fair, the UN was basically founded to coordinate the deployment of german slaves, i mean "conscripted workforce" after WW2 across the world, so it isnt particularly strange for them to cover up a horrific sex crime on a foreign planet
Do you want to read an interminable three-hundred pages about how tired a priest is before any action starts? (But he can't tell you why) Do you want to read clunky, poorly-written prose where unlikeable characters fall about with laughter in response to their own wit, even though nothing funny was said? Do you want to be reminded a few more times, every other chapter, about how oh-so-very-tired that priest was, in case you'd forgotten? (But he still won't tell you why) Do you want to read about the most profoundly existentially important voyage to have ever occurred in the entire history of human civilisation, but to which the characters are completely matter-of-factly indifferent? (The priest is really tired, by the way. Just making sure you know. Can't say why.) Do you want to read about a bunch of people woefully underequipped for travel to an alien planet, do just that, while making an endless series of entirely implausible errors of judgement and scientific caution over and over again? Then this book is for you! In the final pages you find out why the priest was so tired. You won't like it though, and you'll need to wash your brain out with soap. Were you shocked? Yes? Good. The End.
Absolutely. Not to mention all the preparation for the first interstellar travel ever was totally unplausible, given anything resembling our current technology. At one point they even say "it's ONLY four years light away, it's very close!". Well, no. It isn't. And yet, the group of friends virtually decide to go there and lay out the blueprint for solving what arguably was the biggest technological challenge our civilitation had ever faced the very first night Jimmy Quinn tells them about the music. It needed not be hard science fiction but, c'mon, at the very least make it credible.
Ugh, the character interaction made me grit my teeth. It was extremely saccharine, clearly trying and doing so too hard to make the characters both likable and have great chemistry, and failing. The marriage also irritated be because really, they were the last two characters I could imagine getting together. The only reason I could think of for it was that the author was trying to deepen the contrast between the happy times and the hell times, but it was not well done in my opinion. I did enjoy the whole "first-contact gone wrong" scenario, and I have to hand it to Mary Dorsia Russel: she is excellent at keeping you regularly shocked through various scenes and conversations during the novel. But building good, likable, and believable characters? Especially ones that all somehow gel together (though lets be honest that's not the most interesting kind of dynamic)? Not so much.
This is a nearly perfect summary of the book. Except you didn't put enough emphasis on the fact the priest was really tired and that we get about 57 in-depth scenes describing him not telling anyone why. I just finished it yesterday. I wasn't shocked by the ending at all. I'd figured it out except that I guessed wrong about why he hurt a friend.
It's grass. One of the many perils of shooting solo in the field, sometimes I don't know what's in frame until I start editing. Also a lot of grasshoppers buzzing the camera in this one.
I've just read this book. I enjoyed it. However there was a lot of God in it. This is holding me back from buying the 2nd book, children of God. I love sci fi but the Jesuit content was too much for me. Is it worth reading the 2nd book?
I don't recommend The 2nd book. It struck me as double everything wrong with the Sparrow and half of everything good about it. It has a lot of illogical things that happen solely because the plot needs them to and all around is a bit of a mess, culminating with an ending that leaves you asking "wait, this is a good thing now?"
Couldn't take this book seriously, really people are in shock at the revelation that the father was graped?? Well it seems as you said that those very trusting people were the target of this book, as naive as the father thinking God is an alien Michael Jackson until he gets his private room in Neverland, too many coincidences that I though maybe the aliens are influencing the voyage, after hearing the summary of the second book I baffled as how this can be considered a masterpiece.
@@feralhistorian An older couple in my hometown visited the USSR a few years before its demise. We couldn't imagine why they'd want to go THERE (he was quiet and thrifty, she was sweet and plump, and both very religious), if they were brave or crazy. They returned home safe, sound, and ... with not much to say that I recall.
