The Sparrow
★★★★★
A ragtag crew of Jesuit priests and their friends sets the tone for this amateur mission to an alien planet, landing without any real plan as if they’re on a weekend camping trip. Unsurprisingly, dropping a group of untrained and over-privileged adults into a sensitive first-contact scenario doesn’t go well.
The narrative has two strands, the chronological events of the trip itself, interwoven with the priesthood trying to understand what happened as it cares for the lone survivor who’s slowly coming to terms with the tortures he experienced. The result is heavy foreshadowing with a reveal that inches along interminably before hurriedly dumping its load in the last few pages - brutally shocking in contrast with the book’s bucolic atmosphere.
The first half of the book is a forgettable pre-amble as we’re introduced to an ensemble cast and their angst through endless rounds of folksy dinner parties and irritating smart-aleck banter. Meanwhile, the 2060s timeline is written engagingly, with much deeper characterisation of the priests who can’t just solve their problem with hugs. There’s far too much hugging in this book.
We skip over the rich potential of being bottled up for a multi-year journey, marking time with dinner party scenes as if they’re on vacation to a theme park and not the first humans to leave the solar system. Then we’re back to frustrating domesticity as the human’s homestead. So much pathos about so little with trite discussions of god, celibacy, and love triangles. In contrast, the aliens have interesting cultural dynamics, but the humans are maddeningly disengaged. Their eventual deaths are spread out and bafflingly recounted off-screen, squandering any narrative tension.
I’m glad I read to the end, which is so dark while the rest of the novel is so glib, and competently raises its questions about sainthood and missionary suffering. I can’t recommend it though - it’s too long with weak characters and a thin and lethargic plot. There are good ideas here about the dangers of cultural mixing, but wrapped in so much padding that as the crew died I just didn’t care.
