book rec: The Sparrow
Mar. 18th, 2008 02:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
purleweSam recommended and then dropped off his copy of The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell. I just finished it today at lunch. WOW and WOW. I won't ruin the story for you but I wil say that it alludes to a catastrophic ending, so you have plenty of time to abort and decide you don't really want to know.
I liked it. altho I would say as much as I wanted to keep reading it I am glad I did it in small doses. I think if I had sat down and read this all in 1 or 2 sittings I would be bereft. Super well done and Sam says there is a sequel. hurrah!
From her website:
From The Sparrow
It was predictable, in hindsight. Everything about the history of the Society of Jesus bespoke deft and efficient action, exploration and research. During what Europeans were pleased to call the Age of Discovery, Jesuit priests were never more than a year or two behind the men who made initial contact with previously unknown peoples; indeed, Jesuits were often the vanguard of exploration.
The United Nations required years to come to a decision that the Society of Jesus reached in ten days. In New York, diplomats debated long and hard, with many recesses and tablings of the issue, whether and why human resources should be expended in an attempt to contact the world that would become known as Rakhat when there were so many pressing needs on Earth. In Rome, the questions were not whether or why but how soon the mission could be attempted and whom to send.
The Society asked leave of no temporal government. It acted on its own principles, with its own assets, on Papal authority. The mission to Rakhat was undertaken not so much secretly as privately--a fine distinction but one that the Society felt no compulsion to explain or justify when the news broke several years later.
The Jesuit scientists went 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 furthest frontiers of human exploration. They went ad majorem Dei gloriam: for the greater glory of God.
They meant no harm.
I liked it. altho I would say as much as I wanted to keep reading it I am glad I did it in small doses. I think if I had sat down and read this all in 1 or 2 sittings I would be bereft. Super well done and Sam says there is a sequel. hurrah!
From her website:
From The Sparrow
It was predictable, in hindsight. Everything about the history of the Society of Jesus bespoke deft and efficient action, exploration and research. During what Europeans were pleased to call the Age of Discovery, Jesuit priests were never more than a year or two behind the men who made initial contact with previously unknown peoples; indeed, Jesuits were often the vanguard of exploration.
The United Nations required years to come to a decision that the Society of Jesus reached in ten days. In New York, diplomats debated long and hard, with many recesses and tablings of the issue, whether and why human resources should be expended in an attempt to contact the world that would become known as Rakhat when there were so many pressing needs on Earth. In Rome, the questions were not whether or why but how soon the mission could be attempted and whom to send.
The Society asked leave of no temporal government. It acted on its own principles, with its own assets, on Papal authority. The mission to Rakhat was undertaken not so much secretly as privately--a fine distinction but one that the Society felt no compulsion to explain or justify when the news broke several years later.
The Jesuit scientists went 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 furthest frontiers of human exploration. They went ad majorem Dei gloriam: for the greater glory of God.
They meant no harm.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-03-18 06:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-18 06:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-18 07:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-18 08:04 pm (UTC)