Bonsoir tout le monde:
I have to say that I felt much better about the book having sat through the discussion. I really enjoyed Chris' points about the literary issues in several areas (that kind of helped me assign "blame" for some of my dislike for the book) - even though I might not dislike it as strongly as he did. On the other hand, I rather enjoyed some of the upsets in the book (not too many because of the foreshadowing, but still): the Carlos kidnapping of Emilio made me unhappy, but was still well played through and through; I may have even tipped my proverbial hat at the author when I got to that point.
Now, there was a seeming consensus about Emilio getting a really rough deal and not too much in return; if you'll allow me to play Devil's advocate for a moment, I might disagree. I feel that although Emilio had an extremely difficult time, it is almost exclusively the dealing with and/or finding meaning in these more difficult times in life that truly allow a person to grow, and defines their character. By no means am I saying that this level of difficulty is needed by any person in order to show strength of character; however, based on both the explicit reactions of DW and other Jesuits about the probability of Emilio's status as a saint, and then taking his actions and thoughts in the aggregate, I would argue that he does in fact make some meaning out of his suffering. The music as a consolation prize is one of the things we spoke about today that I didn't find myself agreeing with; rather, his saving of the Jana'ata child and later reunion with his own daughter strike me as divine intervention into a soul marred and tarnished by so much death, through the very personal circumstances of bringing about and saving the lives of children (also the soothing factor, given the fate of Askama). I also think that both Issac and Nico played roles in this rehabilitation of Emilio's humanity [again, given his removal from his to-be-wife]. Overall, I still liked the Sparrow much more, thats for sure.
En francais, parce que je peux
-Mike
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3 comments:
Well, my argument extends beyond the literary elements to say that the plot itself suffers profoundly from Russell's piss-poor writing in this book.
I think you're actually playing God's Advocate, also a former actual position (though again not confined to the Jesuit order)... You're taking this all from the false assumption that Emilio Sandoz is a Catholic saint, not just a "saint" of a person. I'll agree with the latter, but not the former. And he still could have been a "saint" if he could just have been happy with Gina. The impression Sandoz's internal monologue gave me is that he was only really satisfied when he was in love with Sofia, Anne, and Gina, but he could never consummate his love with the first two.
Going back to a literary standpoint, deus ex machina is a mark of really bad writing. The novel wraps itself up too neatly. It bludgeons the reader over the head with its message; there's about as much subtlety as a Hitler speech. Sandoz's end in The Sparrow was ambiguous and you could draw a lot from it; his ending at the end of this book is just too neat.
Finally, you're projecting meaning onto the suffering. That's what we're supposed to do, which is why people keep saying it through the novel - those parts we labeled as Nietzschean. The underlying point, though, is that there is no meaning to any of it - that there was no divine intervention, but to create meaning we add it. Which is another reason why the deus ex machina is a horrible ending.
I don't care about Sandoz as a person. I care about him as a literary invention. That entity had a thematically better ending in the first novel. I would go so far as to say that the events of the second book betray the events of the first, making Children of God one of those sequels that's so bad that it ruins the original.
*shrugs* My problem withe whole "without evil we'd not have much meaning," argument is that its a bit presumptive. its always people who have a relatively alright position in life. Victims of Rwandan genocide aren't about to say "suffering is great!" Nor is Mccain about to exalt the meaning of his torture.
To me I feel like we simply dedicated too many brain cells to trying to figure out why Russell did what she did in this book. It's bad, the end.
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