I apologize; I'm usually a great deal more punctual about this blog posts but for once I was waiting for someone to post first. I spent the weekend reading both The Sparrow and Children of God (a huge mistake for my personal well-being and any feelings of optimism I was privately cherishing) and I'll have to confess Sparrow was at once one of the most horrifying and enlightening books about alien contact that I have ever read. I've often speculated about the insertion of religious elements into alien contact, particularly after we read Grass, and here we see what happens when the sacred and profane intersect and it is fascinating--and terrible.
Andrew and I were talking over Facebook, briefly, about the elements of music in a religious context and how they related to the book (at which point I obliquely spoiled part of it, for which I apologize profusely). I mentioned that I thought it was incredibly interesting how, having come from a religious background myself (closer to Sofia Mendes' mode than Emilio's), we associate music with something pure and sacred. In this book, however, we find out that those musical messages, those songs we've been hearing from across the stars, are actually the account of something pretty profane--basically pornography. And the fact that, after twenty-nine years, Sandoz's celibacy is ended at the beginning of his tenure as a Jana'ata sex slave is just heartbreaking. But it represents something I've been consistently worried about: the difficulties in interspecies communication.
With the Runa, linguistic understanding seems to be more clear--the scientists and missionaries spend a significant period of time among them and it seems to be part of their MO to learn different languages and interpret in order to facilitate trade. But because of the way Jana'ata culture is set up and the way Emilio (rather blunderingly) explains his role as a priest and his understanding of celibacy, it's implied that he gets sold in sex slavery because of a misunderstanding. And the same with Mendes--she interferes with the structure of society because she interprets it from a human perspective, which results in what is essentially a massacre.
I wish I could talk about this more intelligently but I'm still thinking it through.
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No harm done on the spoiler Morgan - in the end, it's incomprehensible what the songs are to us. Profane would be one explanation, but I feel as though it doesn't completely encapsulate what they were. I share your feelings though - I'm certainly still thinking through the book on a personal level, and haven't gotten the guts up to post anything yet. When I finished that book, I too had a strong urge to vomit. A very, very strong urge to vomit.
ReplyDeleteI plan to post before class tomorrow, so no worries on that end, maybe we can have something to bounce off of finally. I think class discussion is going to have to rise above the raw emotion of the book - the book is almost too emotional to handle directly in an academic setting. I only hope no one takes for granted what occurred though.
On a final note, I find our own "turtle on a fence post". Note that we have finished this book in the midst of AU's reaction to what some consider an inflammatory editorial in The Eagle regarding rape. While I don't consider the editorial a proper topic for discussion in class, I'll still reflect the nature of true violation of a sentient being, in light of what I've read in fiction and in reality.