Joan Haran wrote:
>>I'd be curious to know what other readers find in *The Sparrow*
that would convince them that it warranted The Tiptree Award.<<
Well, for me, it was the passage (from memory since I don't have the
book here) that described the Jana'ata trader as looking so similar
to the Runa trader that he could be her sister -- that's when all the
gender bells and whistles started going off for me.
Anyway, I also went up to the Tiptree Award web page
(http://www.sf3.org/tiptree/) to find the judges' remarks about "The
Sparrow." Find their comments below:
Mary Doria Russell, The Sparrow, Random House, 1996
Loved this novel-great old-fashioned science fiction in some
indefinable way, but with a modern sensibility. A very smart and
passionate book. I was initially concerned that the sexual content
was slight, but my enthusiasm finally swept these doubts away.
Although never quite defined as such, the transformation of the
protagonist takes place largely through sexual experience, from his
initial celibacy, to the middle of the book with his longings, to his
final climactic and terrifying journey offworld. [Karen Joy Fowler]
A fine first contact novel and a subtle exploration of the choices
people make in their lives, especially those concerning
self-definition, which always includes sexuality and gender roles.
[Richard Kadrey]
This novel haunted me for months; I kept thinking about it and
mulling it over, and the more I did, the more I found to think about.
The story centers on the spiritual crisis of Emilio Sandoz, a Jesuit
priest who has had his view of God (and, not incidentally, his
masculinity and his sexuality) challenged by his experiences on the
planet Rakhat. The story of this crisis is counterbalanced by the
stories of other priests, each with his own accommodation to
sexuality and celibacy. On a different level, in her portrayal of the
inhabitants of Rakhat, Russell makes fascinating connections among the
binary oppositions of male/female, person/animal, ruling
class/laboring class, pushing these connections in new directions. To
say more about this would be to give away spoilers-and this book is so
suspenseful that it wouldn't be fair to do that. Suffice it to say
that The Sparrow is rich and complex and provides a lot of food for
thought about power, gender, sexuality, and the connection between
body and spirit. [Janet M. Lafler]
The Sparrow is one of most haunting evocations of first contact I
have read in recent years-on this occasion the contact is between a
Jesuit-led team of scientists and some of the inhabitants of the
planet Rakhat. How does the novel explore and expand gender? Central
to The Sparrow is the examination of the importance of sexuality to
gender identity, specifically masculinity. Can you be celibate and
still be a man? At the same time the understandings of human
masculinity and femininity that dominate the thinking of the Jesuit
landing party make little sense in the face of the entirely different
gender models of the two alien races. I read this not unduly small
book in one sitting. I could not put the book down even though this
Australian judge was somewhat put out by an entirely unconvincing
(though mercifully brief) attempt at characterizing a 'typical'
Aussie bloke (pp. 122-123). [Justine Larbalestier]
Profoundly moving and upsetting and very much about cultural
constructions and difficult questions, including those of gender.
Russell's subjects are faith, religion, the structure and purpose of
the Catholic Church (or maybe just the Society of Jesus), and
saintliness. There's a gay Father Superior and a woman who (although
beautiful and petite) reads more male than many of the male
characters. There is an alien race whose genders are ambiguous to
humans, mostly because the females are larger than the males and the
males raise the children. The center of the book is the hero's
struggle to reconcile the fact that the aliens he had moved heaven
and earth to study have abused him terribly, with God's Plan,
celibacy, and his own macho upbringing. [Delia Sherman]
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