So I just finished Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow. I bought it last August because it was supposed to be on the reading list for Aliens & Others, but it got cut.
Definitely think that was a poor choice on Prof Huang's part. Solaris should have been cut, because it sucked. I would've loved to hear the discussion our class would've had on The Sparrow. Especially since so much of it is about religion, and we had Grad Student Chris in our class, and he always had a vastly different opinion on religious matters than anyone else.
I also liked it because, while it did involve interplanetary travel and aliens, it wasn't half as much about "science" as it was about anthropology, linguistics, and religion, all of which interest me much more. The central character is a Jesuit linguist. It's kind of nice to get a priest character I can really like; it reminds me of when I was younger and actually liked my religion.
The book is also structured so that the chapters alternate between the beginning (the events leading up to, and then including, the voyage) and the end (after the ship returns from the voyage) and work towards the middle (where all the really awful stuff happens). It's very easy to do a structure like that wrong. Russell does it beautifully. The second story arc parallels the first one pretty well, with Emilio's development of being able to cope with and eventually share what happened, and enough serious other stuff is going on in the Church community that the I never felt like the author was just sort of drawing one or the other storylines out to avoid getting to the good part until she felt like it.
I also have to say, I really like a story where that many people can die without there being any real villains. Just mistakes. In reality, mistakes are far more common than villains. The Rakhat aliens that ran and frequented the harem were probably the closest thing, but they didn't even come in until the end of the book--not antagonists, merely the last awful thing to happen to Emilio. It's not even clear if they quite realized what they were putting him through. Father Voelker was more of an antagonist through most of the book, but he turns out not to be a bad man, just kind of a defensive asshole. And that, only when he didn't know what had happened.
Anne really annoyed me. And not in the "the author/all the other characters seem to think this person is awesome, but I think they're stupid/an asshole/unrealistic/not that fucking funny" way that "good guys" usually annoy me when they annoy me, or that she was underdeveloped (which is the other way characters tend to annoy me, good or bad). I don't THINK anything was wrong with her at all. She just annoyed me. Too much old people sex, maybe. Bleh. That she annoyed me so much probably says more about me than about the book, since she really was a very awesome and well-done character, so I'll shut up.
Also recently read The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Amazing book. Some parts of it hit very close to home, me being a wallflower and a bit of a basket case myself; other parts of it so alien to my own experience I didn't know how I was supposed to react. I can't tell if Charlie sounds a bit young even for a high school freshman, or if I have an overinflated sense of how articulate I was when I was fifteen, but either way, the childlike tone of his narration combined with some of the more adult things he was talking about somewhat disturbed me at times. I don't know if that was the point or not. I think it might have been the point in some places, but most of it's probably just me feeling weird because I've been able to use commas properly for years but I still don't talk about (or understand) these things.
Also, just in case I hadn't realized it already, my older friends in high school were boring. I made friends with seniors when I was a freshman and it was like making friends with younger people in a lot of ways, except with more vulgar language. Although I guess there's also a reason I ended up friends with them and not anybody else, because I try to imagine having a freshman year like Charlie's and my hands and feet go numb. I can barely deal with last year not having happened until last year, sometimes.
Meh. I wonder how I can like a book that upsets me this much. But this is what happens when you think too much: everything upsets me eventually. It's stopped being a reason to dislike things, or I'd have nothing. Or there's always the notion that what really upsets me is me, but I'm addicted to introspection, so I like stories that make me think about myself (apparently, upsetting myself does not bar me from being completely self-centered).
On a much lighter note, also read PTerry's Monstrous Regiment, which was hilarious, especially for a lifelong Alanna fan. It wasn't Alanna he was spoofing, since it's about girls dressing up as guys and running off to actual war, not years of knight training, but still.
Just ordered Cold Comfort Farm off Amazon. I have absolutely no willpower to abstain from buying books. None whatsoever. Such an expensive addiction, too. Oh well.
Definitely think that was a poor choice on Prof Huang's part. Solaris should have been cut, because it sucked. I would've loved to hear the discussion our class would've had on The Sparrow. Especially since so much of it is about religion, and we had Grad Student Chris in our class, and he always had a vastly different opinion on religious matters than anyone else.
I also liked it because, while it did involve interplanetary travel and aliens, it wasn't half as much about "science" as it was about anthropology, linguistics, and religion, all of which interest me much more. The central character is a Jesuit linguist. It's kind of nice to get a priest character I can really like; it reminds me of when I was younger and actually liked my religion.
The book is also structured so that the chapters alternate between the beginning (the events leading up to, and then including, the voyage) and the end (after the ship returns from the voyage) and work towards the middle (where all the really awful stuff happens). It's very easy to do a structure like that wrong. Russell does it beautifully. The second story arc parallels the first one pretty well, with Emilio's development of being able to cope with and eventually share what happened, and enough serious other stuff is going on in the Church community that the I never felt like the author was just sort of drawing one or the other storylines out to avoid getting to the good part until she felt like it.
I also have to say, I really like a story where that many people can die without there being any real villains. Just mistakes. In reality, mistakes are far more common than villains. The Rakhat aliens that ran and frequented the harem were probably the closest thing, but they didn't even come in until the end of the book--not antagonists, merely the last awful thing to happen to Emilio. It's not even clear if they quite realized what they were putting him through. Father Voelker was more of an antagonist through most of the book, but he turns out not to be a bad man, just kind of a defensive asshole. And that, only when he didn't know what had happened.
Anne really annoyed me. And not in the "the author/all the other characters seem to think this person is awesome, but I think they're stupid/an asshole/unrealistic/not that fucking funny" way that "good guys" usually annoy me when they annoy me, or that she was underdeveloped (which is the other way characters tend to annoy me, good or bad). I don't THINK anything was wrong with her at all. She just annoyed me. Too much old people sex, maybe. Bleh. That she annoyed me so much probably says more about me than about the book, since she really was a very awesome and well-done character, so I'll shut up.
Also recently read The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Amazing book. Some parts of it hit very close to home, me being a wallflower and a bit of a basket case myself; other parts of it so alien to my own experience I didn't know how I was supposed to react. I can't tell if Charlie sounds a bit young even for a high school freshman, or if I have an overinflated sense of how articulate I was when I was fifteen, but either way, the childlike tone of his narration combined with some of the more adult things he was talking about somewhat disturbed me at times. I don't know if that was the point or not. I think it might have been the point in some places, but most of it's probably just me feeling weird because I've been able to use commas properly for years but I still don't talk about (or understand) these things.
Also, just in case I hadn't realized it already, my older friends in high school were boring. I made friends with seniors when I was a freshman and it was like making friends with younger people in a lot of ways, except with more vulgar language. Although I guess there's also a reason I ended up friends with them and not anybody else, because I try to imagine having a freshman year like Charlie's and my hands and feet go numb. I can barely deal with last year not having happened until last year, sometimes.
Meh. I wonder how I can like a book that upsets me this much. But this is what happens when you think too much: everything upsets me eventually. It's stopped being a reason to dislike things, or I'd have nothing. Or there's always the notion that what really upsets me is me, but I'm addicted to introspection, so I like stories that make me think about myself (apparently, upsetting myself does not bar me from being completely self-centered).
On a much lighter note, also read PTerry's Monstrous Regiment, which was hilarious, especially for a lifelong Alanna fan. It wasn't Alanna he was spoofing, since it's about girls dressing up as guys and running off to actual war, not years of knight training, but still.
Just ordered Cold Comfort Farm off Amazon. I have absolutely no willpower to abstain from buying books. None whatsoever. Such an expensive addiction, too. Oh well.