The Sparrow

This will be the third time today I have tried to write this (sorry it's a little late). Last time it was about 5:00 and almost as soon as I had the text box open I leaned back and feel asleep. That reminds me of the first time I read the book, I was about 3/4 of the way through (maybe even a little farther--just when Emilio finds out nothing he sent back was published) when midnight brought with it the close of my favorite coffee shop--where I happened to be reading. I was, however, so involved in the book that I had to walk across the street to Village Inn (a classy version of Dennys) and finally finished around 2:00 in the morning (just in case you were interested).

What kept me involved then, and many of you have commented on, is the religious/spiritual journey of Emilio, Job, or, the man who God gave everything to and then took that plus interest. I too found this especially moving--being an atheist who was raised Catholic. My second reading through--for this class--however, forced me to pay attention to something Scott touches on briefly in his post and that is the question of the other. Schmitt makes an interesting note that the friend enemy distinction is not a question of beauty, and it seems Russel almost directly confronts the idea of how beauty impacts our perception of the other. There are numerous times on earth, before they leave where it is pointed out that a race which creates such beautiful music must be good. I wonder what Sandoz thinks now. Once they are on the planet again, there is an alomst deliberate deception by Russel to lul her characters into a false sense of security because of the beauty of the VaRakahti--particularly the Runa.
I believe Schmitt would find the book especially pleasing, not because Sandoz is hirribly raped, but because the order/the mission seemed to confuse astetics (beauty v. ugly according to Schmitt) with the political. And while I don't believe the book was intended in this manner it could be easily read as a Science Fiction play on the follies of liberalsim.

If we take the idea we expressed early in class about science fiction being a means with which to critique society without doing so directly, yet more explicitly, drawing parallels between some alien or futuristic story and the problems of the world today. One could not outwardly criticize the ideals of modern liberal pacifism where friend and enemy becomes confused with civilized and uncivilized, democratic and undemocratic, good and bad. But if you create an alien world and have a group of explorers confuse Beauty and Ugly with Friend and Enemy then the situation becomes far enough detached that those criticisms are possible. They explicitly make the mistake of confusing the two and are explicitly rebuked for it. Again, I don't think that was the point, but it's a pretty intersting line of thought anyway.