TITLE: The Sparrow
AUTHOR: Mary Doria Russell
YEAR: 1996
IS THIS SF? YES, astronomy, Arecibo, asteroid mining in the belt, space travel, first contact, relativistic speeds…
PJE SYNOPSIS The first alien messages received at Arecibo are in the form of music! A team is assembled to travel to the not-so-distant planet and make first contact. Of course the government and business sectors move way too slow, so who better to make first contact than the Jesuits! Much back-story ensues. The novel is shaped around a kind of ‘confession’ so the story starts with the return of the main character, with every telling and re-telling (distant past and recent past) pointing towards the revelation at the end.
REALLY MUSIC? WHAT ABOUT MUSICIANS? Yes, really music. Though we often talk about how music is math, and vice versa, what separates music is it’s ‘human’ element—shifts in color and tone, dynamics and pacing, etc. Often this is what instead connects music to poetry (one of the ‘less-literal’ arts). Interpretation, presentation and sharing are key to a culture, and not necessarily is this shared to ‘aliens’. However, I don’t want to ‘ruin’ the ending for you… There is a musician/musicologist/conductor on board the trip, and everybody else seems highly interested in music. During their time traveling they rehearse different material, from the “Hallelujah” chorus to a Mozart String Quartet (!?), with Saint-Saens and Beethoven along the way.
WHY A MUSICIAN? Well, since they received music from the Aliens, its obvious that they should be ready to present music in return. This the full intention of their visit, and as such they are prepared to do so. An analytical based musician at Arecibo would have been more helpful, just on a personal note, as they were inspecting waveforms and time-points on a linear scale, whereas overtones and such become much more apparent on a logarithmic scale
RECOMMENDED? YES—well done, and perhaps even moving. A great story, and once everything catches up at the end it all ‘comes together’ in an interesting and unexpected way. The center of this novel is ‘catholic’ and all perceptions and motivations stem from that, and the great revelation at the end is really not as big a deal unless you’re caught up in ‘sin’ and ‘fate’. Instead of crying, you could end up laughing!
© 2023 Peter J. Evans, theorist