The Sparrow

The Sparrow by Doria Maria Russell and the Problem of Suffering

One of the reasons to read science fiction - apart from not getting any dates in High School - is that it is a genre that allows the author to explore the great issues of the human condition in a fairly direct manner. By confronting their characters with some nonhuman civilization, science fiction authors can often talk about what makes us human, and what it means to be human. It has been this way since Gulliver's Travels.

Based on an off-hand quote about Jesuits in science fiction, Orrin Judd [who obviously knows his s.f.] recommended the Arthur C. Clarke Award winning book The Sparrow by Doria Maria Russell. The Sparrow appears to be a “first contact”story, which pits different cultures against each other. In this case, the cultures are a group largely composed of Catholic Jesuits who travel to Alpha Centauri lured by the SETI [Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence] reception of songs from that source. The story is set twenty and sixty years into the future, as it brackets, with due concern for time dilation caused by travel at close to the speed of light, the parties' experience on the extraterrestrial planet of Rakhat.

Apart from one character, every other character is either a Catholic or a lapsed Catholic. The main character is Father Emilio Sandoz who as a gifted linguist is a logical selection for an expedition to an extraterrestrial planet. Sandoz himself returns maimed by the alien and an emotional wreck because of his stint in an alien brothel, the death of his exploration comrades, and his seemingly pointless murder of an alien child. The circumstances behind Sandoz' conduct are not cleared up until the last twenty pages.

Normally, in books of this kind, the focus is on the alien culture. The culture, its worldview and limitations are developed in the context of the clash of cultures. C. J. Cherryh - is a master of this form, particularly the Faded Sun Trilogy.. Russell, though, doesn't appear very interested in the culture of her aliens. The reader does learn some tantalizingly interesting facts - there are two sentient species on the planet, one a predator species, the other its traditional prey - but the implications of these details are not developed, and they seem to be tossed out for shock value.

Russell is a gifted writer. Her characters were interesting and largely sympathetic. She also seemed sympathetic to the Jesuits. But the intent of her book was unclear until the end. I had thought it was about first contact. It wasn't. In fact, the book was about the meaning of meaningless suffering. This is clear at two places. The first is when a party member simply dies. The agnostic doctor asks why God gets the credit for good things that happen, but not the blame for the end.

The second place is the end of the book when we learn that Sandoz' spiritual collapse - he clearly blames God for treating him as a cosmic joke - is due to the fact that all of his friends on the exploration team are dead, he has been brutalized, and he has killed an innocent, and to his way of thinking there was no meaning for any of it. The author interview at the end makes it clear that Russell's intent was to communicate that message. Russell herself is a convert from Catholicism to Judaism and she explains that in selecting Judaism one knows two things: first, being Jewish can get you killed, and, second, God won't rescue you. She also describes Sandoz' experience as a kind of holocaust. One may therefore assume that she views suffering as a meaningless experience, explained in some way by a story told by one of her Jesuit characters about a Jewish story that in order to make creation God had to remove himself from that part of the universe, so something other than himself could exist. Sandoz felt abandoned by God on Rakhat because he was.

It is here that I have my criticism of the Sparrow. Russell's avowed intent was to write a Black Robe among the stars. The Jesuits who suffered in the New World didn't share Sandoz' view. They felt that their sufferings had some meaning. There has been some discussion among various blogs about the problem of suffering. As John DaFiesole at Disputations points out the Catholic tradition ascribes evil to an absence of goodness, or an attraction to that which is not good, and that God may be the author of suffering that is intended to punish. The New Gasparian notes the tradition of suffering as causing growth by learning not to be attached to the temporal. Heart, Mind & Strength - Blog Admin Panel emphasizes the disciplinary function of suffering; suffering is like a leg brace. These answers all seem to be in line with the traditional understanding of the significance of suffering set forth in Salvifici Doloris aka The Christian Meaning of Human Suffering. In Savifici Doloris, Pope John Paul II acknowledges suffering as a mystery with dimensions in justice, growth, love and charity. On that last, he writes:

The parable of the Good Samaritan belongs to the Gospel of suffering. For it indicates what the relationship of each of us must be towards our suffering neighbor. We are not allowed to “pass by on the other side” indifferently; we must “stop” beside him. Everyone who stops beside the suffering of another person, whatever form it may take, is a Good Samaritan. This stopping does not mean curiosity but availability.


Religion is important because we are all going to suffer. Even if we never suffer material or psychological deprivation, we suffer when we contemplate our finite existence in this world. Religion offers a meaning for that existence, and thereby lessens that suffering. Father Sandoz' had a deep tradition to understand his suffering. He could have viewed his suffering as punishment for the sin of pride - heading out four light years, then landing on an alien planet without reconnoitering at the very least implicates the sin of pride, if not stupidity. He could have viewed his suffering as a form of love and sacrifice. He could have looked at it as charity in bringing Christ to an alien planet. However he viewed the experience, viewing himself as abandoned was not part of that tradition. Even if Sandoz reached a point of nihilistic desperation, it seems that he should have known something about this rich understanding of the meaning of suffering.

And that's the criticism. If Russell wanted to write a book where the main character was a Jesuit, it just seems reasonable for her to acknowledge the philosophy which that group shares. It seems that she was as uninterested in developing the Jesuit culture as she was in developing the Rhakat culture.