The Passenger - Cormac McCarthy BOOK REVIEW *SPOILERS*
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- Опубліковано 28 вер 2024
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This is, by far, the best review of the book on UA-cam. This might be McCarthy's most subtly complex novel and will reqiure a reread after reading Stella Maris. You've summed it up so well with, "It's like an explosion that signafies the end of the world, but beautiful." Very much like the explosion of the atomic bomb, I would say.
Agree 100 percent! Great review!
Love that characterization. The Passenger is a dialogue-driven descent into extinction. Knowing what he knows about history and science, Cormac’s seen “the end” coming for a while perhaps. Maybe he thought he’d have to live through it (see The Road). Keep in mind that The Passenger is set in the 1980s. We know humanity survives at least a few more decades. The apocalypse in The Passenger, though, is a cultural one which in 2023 feels like fact more than fiction.
I don’t think I’ve ever been so easily convinced to buy a book so quickly after watching a review before. Very well articulated, bravo!
I’m glad Cormac McCarthy was able to make another book. Just goes to show that you’re never too old to make art.
Lol I think he must've completed it ages ago since it was just lying like a skullbone in the desert at the publishers desk, at his request methinks but who knows, but yeah glad to have him kick out a not one but two pieces of work at long last before he kicks the bucket, long live McCarthy.
@@abhinvra 🤣 you have no idea how apt your skullbone analogy is if you've never read Hard Boiled Wonderland by Murakami. It shares some themes with The Passenger in relation to how subconscious works without us knowing it's occurring.
@@abhinvra Judging from how it was shortened from an original 800 pages and split in two, the last five to seven years have probably been spent in editing and cutting down.
@@abhinvra even still! he's in his 90s so even if we made the book 15 years ago... mid 70s is pretty impressive for yet another masterwork!
Yes Country for Old Artists
I understand why this novel is divisive. But it shouldn't be. It is a masterpiece. One of those books that divides your life in two--the time before you read it, and the time after.
If a masterpiece is widely accepted then it’s not one.
@@rishabhaniket1952 ehh disagree. I don't think "wide acception" and masterpiece" are mutually exclusive things. It's just most of the time the most interesting stuff is what divides.
@@rishabhaniket1952 I don’t understand that thinking. Just seems pretentious. You may think the masses aren’t intelligent but there are masses of people as intelligent or more so than you.
@@summerallthetime2616 Well you blabbered and projected your own insecurities without me even mentioning masses or intelligence. Don’t get so defensive, we all now understand you are a bit slow. Don’t worry there are special places and centres for people like you, it’s gonna be fine. Cheers!
Didn’t enjoy it. Found it frustrating. His only book that I disliked reading.
Did anyone else notice subtle nods to all his previous books? Certain words that were used like meridian, crossing, the road, refrences to a djinn (which the judge was suspected to be) and others. The brother sister relationship thing also reminded me of Culla and rinthy from outer dark.
the Thalidomide Kid!
I did. I viewed it as something of a greatest hits or a farewell tour.
“No, probably I don’t” is a quote in both No Country (from Bell) and the Passenger.” It’s subtle but I find it funny - maybe because I’m from Texas, I don’t know.
I just finished these books last week and now the man is gone and I am crushed. Phenomenal book.
Just finished them five minutes ago, and I agree.
Thank you for that desk review 😂😂 … oh, and death is the ultimate reconciliation. Our very energy is exchanged since it thermodynamically can neither be created or destroyed.
Great review on a life-changing book ... Random aside: Would be interested to hear your thoughts on Lydia Davis' fragments. She is certainly one of those writers who split your life into before you read her and after.
I appreciate you being straight up about everything getting taken away from us and how we will just be forgotten.
I think that one of the very prominent themes of this novel is trauma from past wars. This novel exhibits similarities to No Country for Old Men, where Moss is a Vietnam veteran, and sheriff Bell is a WWII one. The Passenger, The Road, and No Country for Old Men show post 9/11 characteristics of fears of the unknown and the atmosphere of terror, and reflection. Ever since Western goes on the run, he often recalls his time at Los Alamos (if i understood that correctly), the Manhattan Project site, he mentions Oppenheimer, uranium...all that stuff... when his father and mother meet, they meet because of scientific work in atomic research. Western once says that he realized he owed his existence to Adolf Hitler, and this is traumatic for him, as well as the fact that his father helped flatten Hiroshima and Nagasaki... I think that both siblings find this to be the family tragedy and this is why they stray away from science... Bobby goes racing and whatnot, and Alicia just ends up straight up schizophrenic... This questioning of science is a challenge to the advancement of technology and how it threatens the world. I dont find this too preposterous that since McCarthy often refers to war and its inevitability, that this book is another memento of about war, and how it haunts us deep inside, as a second hand traumatic memory. Thanks for the video :)
I came to these new books only about a month after I discovered Blood Meridian-and was blown away by it. I don’t know if McCarthy’s other books follow the Blood Meridian pattern, but because of Blood Meridian I came to The Passenger and Stella Maris on high alert for cleverly hidden clues to DEVASTATING REALIZATIONS to come. I was ready to interpret characters partly as allegories. I was also looking for a momentous climax of some kind in the book’s last few pages, like in Blood Meridian.
Right now I judge the new books POSITIVELY: they tried something original and ambitious and arguably succeeded. But I can see a rational reader taking a NEGATIV PERSPECTIVE, which might be summarized something like this: “McCarthy is just vomiting up his pet philosophical musings through the mouth of a genius character in his story; the genius character is not realistic; the love story is not compelling.” I’ll mention one other specific concrete flaw in the books below, but now let me turn to my positive interpretation of the story.
The story can be said to be “about” multiple things, but let me start with the suggestion that The Passenger is about schizophrenia, or more broadly: ways we try to attribute meaning to the events of our lives. We are reminded in the text that there is a genetic component to schizophrenia. The sister is diagnosed with some kind of (atypical) schizophrenia. Meanwhile the brother discusses various paranoid theories with people he knows. To quote Nirvana, “just because you’re paranoid, don’t mean they’re not after you.” When The Kid comes to visit the brother, I saw that as a dramatic confirmation that the brother has a milder case of whatever the sister has. No magical (or quantum physical) explanations are required, since he has heard her describe The Kid in detail.
Two possible, hypothetical routes to some kind of salvation for the brother or sister appear in the story. One is their LOVE. In other works of literature, love is often presented as the purpose or meaning of life; and we are told that love conquers all. The brother and sister represent a deep and pure tragic love like that between Romeo and Juliet. The other potential path to salvation in the books is MATH, PHYSICS, PHILOSOPHY-some kind of intellectual or transcendental insight or mode of being that might “make it all worthwhile.” As I read I was looking for some way the two (love and math-physics) could be married to create some kind of consummation of their love, or redemption and peace, or something.
So now the story is not just about schizophrenia, and I would say it’s not really about math, or the atomic bomb, or the Kennedy assassination either. It’s about whether there is a way to interpret life that is not…nihilistic or absurd or tragic. At least for these characters.
We start with the puzzle of the missing passenger in the submerged plane. We realize that is not where we are going to get answers. These characters are also past looking for ultimate answers from organized religion. So we (they) are left with love, or modern physics and math.
Over the course of the story we are presented with various dreams and hallucinations that might be clues to some transcendental reality in which the lovers are able to fulfill Alicia Western’s impossible dream of having a child with her brother. We have Miss Vivian, the older woman obsessed with the screaming of babies-could she be some kind of future-past Alicia? We have the possibility that the pair did have sex but lied about it or repressed the memory. Maybe there was even an abortion, and the Kid is an image of that and mechanism for “not thinking about that.” We have some characteristically McCarthian passages describing dark creatures emerging from strange primordial demonic soups. Most dramatically to me, we have the moment where the Kid brings a trunk and inside the trunk is a doll and the trunk is labeled Property of Western Union but the Kid reads it as “PROGENY OF WESTERN UNION.”
Given that the siblings are named Western, “Progeny of Western Union” was like a slap in the face. On the next page Alicia is crying and saying she’s sorry to the doll. I thought that had to be a baby. The only thing that didn’t fit is that she said “I was only six years old.” What could that mean, I thought.
Maybe the answer is in the unread letter in The Passenger. Nope. (Spoiler answer: she was six years old; the doll was just a doll. “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”)
I was also carefully noting the allusions to physics and math. The main way I could see modern physics contributing to actualizing their love would be through the phenomenon of ENTANGLEMENT, whereby distant parts of a quantum system can be in instantaneous interaction no matter how far apart. Interestingly, this central concept in quantum physics was not really discussed explicitly but only hinted at for example when Alicia says she’d like to discuss BELL’S THEOREM in Stella Maris. In Stella Maris we also get references to the possibility of loops in time, and the possibility that “simulation” will be the real “afterlife.”
Will the final pages reveal that they had sex and a baby? Or that their love created a quantum baby “made purely of light” that needed to be protected in some platonic realm? Or that Bobby’s life was just a simulation his brain created in a coma? Or that they are their own parents and that somehow that’s why Bobby or Alicia or maybe their mom is the missing passenger in the plane? (That last one isn’t even coherent, I don’t think.)
No. We get a bit more about sex-talk and dreams between them, but no consummation nor any baby. I don’t think we get any far-out modern physics interpretation such as Philip K Dick might have written. No, the “boring” interpretation of the story works just fine: they had a forbidden love, they were miserable, and they died lonely and apart. They were preoccupied with things that could never solve the real problem: we’re all dead in the end.
None of the potential “reveals” I could imagine as a reader would really solve the existential problem the characters face. But if the book did end with a reveal like that, that would give us as readers a sort of satisfaction that the characters can’t access-and neither can we in real life.
So if there is an articulable point to the story, it might be a sort of warning to us newfangled atheistic types who get intoxicated by the apparent profundities of math and physics-that although they might appear to give us alternatives to traditional religion for making sense of the world, and making it appear benign or intelligent (as in the line in Stella Maris where she says the issue is whether the universe might be intelligent)-we might trick ourselves into thinking science offers an alternative optimistic worldview-but no. This book is a smack in the face to wake us out of our smug scientist-minded worldview.
So ultimately, we pass THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS LIKE ALICE AND LEWIS CARROLL, BUT END UP BACK IN THIS BLEAK WORLD WITH SCHOPENHAUER. In Schopenhauer’s view the universe does have a mind, but it’s not conscious except in us and other animals. The mind of the universe is a blind will to exist that leads to different parts of the universe eating each other not realizing they are eating themselves. So everything lives according to urges we don’t understand, suffers more or less, and disappears with no lasting trace.
Aside from the many funny parts in The Passenger (perhaps unexpected in such a dark story), the faint happy notes in the story result from human connections, such as the holding of hands at the end of Stella Maris. One other point I have not seen mentioned by others is THE RED SASH that Alicia’s body is wearing at the start of The Passenger. In Stella Maris she says she wants to be completely erased from existence and not found, but in the Passenger we are told explicitly that she wore a red sash “so that she’d be found.” So maybe she had developed her relationship with Dr. Cohen enough that she wanted to reestablish a connection with the rest of humanity-if only after her death.
In summary: the worst spoiler for this story is: there are no spoilers. What appear to be spoilers are decoys. There are no spoilers because there are no satisfying answers that can be revealed, to the problems faced by the characters-or us.
Final note regarding an apparent flaw: the author uses “dubious” multiple times when he appears to mean “doubtful.” This is not so minor because the characters are supposed to be hyper-intelligent and hyper-educated, and they make a habit of correcting others’ pronunciation and grammar. So it broke the spell for me (to some extent) when it turned out they don’t know the difference between DUBIOUS and DOUBTFUL.
John Sheddan is the funniest character since Harrogate, though in a totally different way. McCarthy doesn't get enough credit for his humor.
The boxed set of both books comes out a few days before my birthday. Can't remember last time I was so looking forward to my birthday!
Fuck yes, I've been waiting for this review. Cormac McCarthy is my literary hero and he's the main reason I got into reading, I can't wait to read these back to back!!
Your review is very good and I happen to agree w/ you. I'm 99% certain this prose is my favorite of all I've ever read. I really disliked the entire lack of resolution of all of the hanging loose ends, but perhaps that is the point. My favorite character to read is John Sheddan--love to "hear" him speak, even his ghost. Looking forward to Stella Maris. Always my best, Joe
First time watching a review from you, and you crushed me when you said you hadn’t read No Country. The movie (while very close) misses a key moment later in the novel that truly matters.
Rest In Peace, Mr. McCarthy.
Great review! Those damn feds, I wish Bobby found Billy Ray.
Please mind, mild spoilers ahead.
I read “The Passenger” about 3 and a half months ago and, just yesterday, came across a realization - or revelation, if you will. The fact that the story could be perceived as nothing more than the gradual descent of our protagonist’s psyche into a clinical state of schizophrenia, much like what happened to his sister, years prior. As it’s commonly known, underneath the schizophrenic condition’s roots, lies atavistic factors, making the put forth hypothesis considerably credible.
The proposition only gains strength when reminiscing some episodes presented in the book, for example, one of the main plot levers: the governmental persecution of Bobby. Persecutory deliriums are one of the main symptoms found in clinical schizophrenic cases, which led me up to another moment of the book with similar thematic: the oil rig chapter, where Bobby beieves he’s trapped with someone inside the rig, in the midst of a tempest, thus casting ever crescent paranoia that culminates in being nothing at all? The fact that, while reading it, I hadn’t even considered the veracity of these events as questionable is astounding to me - Alicia was right, “doctors (and people, in general) don’t seem to take in consideration the cautiousness in which the insane’s world is constructed”.
Also, reading the book with this in mind made its “disjointed” structure and some linguistic components and choices, somewhat logical. Hermetic and chimerical passages of the book, recurring in Bobby’s visions and dreams, could be allusions to the cryptic manifestations of language present in linguistical alterations of the aforementioned condition. This, allied with the scatological atmosphere that permeates the entire book, is just top notch wordsmanship.
I think that, if I re-read it, more evidence of this interpretation would be conjured up while reading it. The fact that I only achieved this notion in such a long period after the first read, fascinates me. To imagine that it was just seating there, patiently waiting in the depths of my conscience for the right moment to come forth and present itself to me. It aligns with Cormac’s own subconscious interests in that way.
Finally, I just want to clarify that I do not intend to reject other interpretations of the book. There’s also a lot more to it and I just thought I would share this with the sole purpose of hopefully resonating with someone else’s experience of the story.
Congratulations on this review!! I really appreciate your channel and always look forward to hearing your take on books!! Thank you
There seems to be a positive correlation between age and personality. For example, Cormac McCarthy. We'd think his genre of books and consistent dark themes would have an effect to shorten his lifespan. But, it doesn't look that way. I wonder if depression comes in different forms. If that's the case, what's the best sort of depression... you know, to increase the lengthy of life? With regards to better health and longer life, perhaps, writing is better than food. Perhaps, best selling novels, are better than food.
I'll watch this later, I ordered the box set, it's coming early next month.
McCarthy says everything one needs to understand his works is on the page...or not on the page.
If we disappeared, would there be evidence we ever existed? Perhaps there would be a strange empty seat out of place in an otherwise packed auditorium...
The physicist is a kind of prisoner to physical reality, whatever may come...
The mathematician, on the other hand, is "limited" to abstractions existing only within the confines of the mind.
They are, both of these, confined and also limitless. What is inspiration without a composer, and what is a creator without a dream?
Thanks for a great review it felt like we were just having a conversation. Got a question for you if the kid is just a hallucination why does Bobby meet him on the beach as well. Also I disagree with you on not having reconciliation. You say you have looked into these big questions and you seemed to want to say more on the topic but didn't (only so much time I know) I hope you explore these questions from all perspectives even if you may not believe in them...
So good a book, I read the last page and started it over to re-read. I'm holding off on "Stella Maris" as a special treat. Why? Because I'm kind of afraid McCarthy is approaching his advanced later years and may possibly never write another novel. I hope I'm wrong. No matter, because all his books are worth reading over again, like enjoying old letters from friends and re-listening to albums from years back. Interesting review style. Thanks,
This book was phenomenal. It will stick with me for a long time. Great review.
I wonder if this book has a meaning way beyond what we think, tying in science and metaphysical with a grander meaning
Patiently awaiting the box set in the mail.
Hey guy - just found your channel. Am from Tampa and feel Cormac is probably the greatest living writer. Am working on a couple novels myself. Not sure if you'll see this but hi and I look forward to checking out your past reviews.
Look at the shape of the snake’s head to get a good judge if it is poisonous or not. I’m in Austin, Texas and get them going into my sprinkler valve boxes often.
I've read exactly one CM book but from that, I take exception that we've never seen humor from Cormac before. Suttree has some hilarious bits to it. Harrogate humping watermelons. Harrogate showing up at Sut's boat is prison clothes, which turns out to be his head stuck through the crotch of an enormous pair of boxers and his arms through the legs. Harrogate chasing and killing a pig. Lol. So yeah, lots of humor with Harrogate in Suttree.
The way I see the Alicia moments with the kid is equations we’ll never understand. We’re given the structure of the equations, the variables, and sometimes what we’re solving for. It’s just sometimes the math doesn’t add up. Those segments also felt like a nod towards David Lynch.
Been waiting for this one. Great review!
Now I wait for No Country for Old Men...
You've got me interested in buying a current book...thanks!
This is a good channel. Glad I found it!
I need to reread it. I thought it was just ok, but I had to read Blood Meridian three times before it really started to sink in
Rereading my favorite's of McCarthy's and then revisiting this. I thought this novel was totally hilarious, but was somewhat disappointed with it by the end. I remember the final 100 pages being very heartbreaking, like when Bobby has his girlfriend read the last letter from his sister for him then tell him what it says and he walks in after giving her some time to read it and she is just bawling and he starts apologizing to her. So sad.
I think this novel is almost as funny as Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
Maybe after you finish Stella Maris, Cliff, you can discuss Cormac Mc C. 's fascination with taboos. Interested to hear your take.
Terrific discussion of a much different style. Listened to every word. I finished reading The Passenger myself a week or so ago and loved it. Stella Maris will be here soon. Thank you for the breadth of this coverage. Yes, there are spoilers, but sometimes we need a summary to be sure we're really reading what we think we are. Especially when this book starts out with one of Alicia's episodes. I thought I was in for some tough sledding, but once I got the framework figured out, I found the whole book thoroughly enjoyable. Better than that. It's a masterwork.
Great review Cliff! Not to spoil it for you but I think between the two sibling books, Stella Maris is the real prodigy. Both books and their qualities complement the intelligence of their respective protagonists.
Excellent review, amigo. Gutes arbeit!
My dinner with Andre in book form with some weird love story involving real historical figures? Sold.
Cliff said “my wife” in the first 60secs and I was like “what?!” Somehow I never imagined him as being married.
Haven't read the book so won't watch the video but quick question: do ur reviews usually contain spoilers? I'm guessing mostly not from what I've seen.
You'd love the book Vurt by Jeff Noon
HOLY HELL THIS BOOK. blood meridian who?! haha! can’t believe mccarthy topped himself at 89years old…but of course he did! the man is a legend and i feel blessed as fuck to be alive for his (maybe?) final masterpiece. this book absolutely destroyed me. loved all the silliness of The Kid and the fantastic stretch of trying to write about physics-messy and hard and just perfect. the critics’ mixed reviews of this are so dumb and laughable. mccarthy crushed it.
I have the exact same silver shelves!
I agree with you on their bond being because they were born into this, dare I say cursed family. Who else could see the world the way they do. I wonder ( I haven't read Stella Maris yet) if she had been molested by her father, and then, of course, by psychiatrists. Alas, I will be back after I finish S. Thanks for your honesty on the writer's selfish road to success.
Loved this book. Loved this review.
Where should one start with Cormac McCarthy?
The Road is a great place to start. It’s a relatively easy read and you will be introduced to some of Cormac’s central themes.
I like Suttree better as a slice of life story. Still have to read Stella Maris.
Paperback copies ?
They did him dirty with that cover art. Holy trash that is ugly. Looks like a self pub book.
Not going to watch w spoilers, but kept the 👍
All good, thank you and hope you enjoy after you finish.
I absolutely love you. Have you read the magus? I am very interested to watch your review of it if you can take this request ❤️
Not likely I would qualify as "avid reader" but I have discovered some awesome novels thanks to your reviews/recommendations ..
..anywayz .. i just wanted to be the first one to comment .. lol ..
I can’t help but read all the dialogue in Tommy Lee Jones voice still great tho
Have you done Confederacy of Dunces?
Since Cormac's passing, who's the last great living American author?
Don de lilo
Please read John Steakley's "Armor" please.
Anyone know Philip Caputo? Horn of Africa is as good as McCarthy. Please check it out if you like Cormac.
Hey excellent review. To be honest……..I’ve had to reread it twice. I wasn’t sure if it was the most prophetic well written prose ever penned or it was a flop.
It’s definitely the first one. Love your stuff. Have you ever read br Yeager? I’d love a review
I didn’t watch this video but I did tag you in mine. My most recent one but idk if I did it right or not.
My final thought when finishing this book was. Yes one day i will die, but not today...
idk Suntree was pretty funny. I go back and read the episode of the kid trying to hide his daddy's body sometimes.
I like your comment on this being an incredibly verile book by a rather aged author. I was especially taken aback by the inclusion of the transgender character Debbie. Though McCarthy has written some great female characters I never expected one like this, and yet his depiction of a young person transitioning felt so true and uncritical.
Pensacola in da house!
Looking forward to reading this....That said, one has to wonder what it is with Cormac McCarthy and relations between brother and sister (which has shown up as a subject in at least one other book).
Great review! Really enjoyed? (I read this book during the past 3 weeks, while my father in law passed).
As a big McCarthy fan I wanted to add (as you already did in the video) my personal interpretations. I feel this really is his Swan Song, the guy is going to be 90 this year. It has a lot of bits and pieces from his personal life and his novels. You already pointed The Kid, I can add that he did live in Ibiza, the incest concept (Outer Dark), the persecution aspect (No Country..). The surname Western, the horses as metaphors for the Four Hoursemen (The Crossing), the wide range of colorful characters (Suttree and his personal life). I can go on and on.
29:31 you're describing Adam and Eve and God
Hell yes
I think there is something wrong with him...and that is all...
The Ad lasted forever
I read it (OK, I listened to the audiobook because that's the only thing that keeps me from jumping in the industrial trash compactor at work) I didn't really enjoy it outside of one or two of the conversations and the last chapter. I have not read Stella Maris yet but I definitely will as I found the Alicia sections much more interesting than the Bobby sections.
come on, mate. he's the greatest OVERwriter in modern letters. cue the brilliant send-up of his massive pretentiousness in The Royal Tenenbaums.
I love this novel, but The Road is not the best novel of the past 16 years. There has been novels better than The Road published since and after.
Meh, not his best imo
In a way this felt like Cormac's Brothers Karamazov in that you have a (presumably) final novel that encompasses themes and signposts from everything in his career.
Brilliant novel by Cormac, brilliant review by Cliff. Whereas some reviewers just simply didn't get it or, and I truly hate this, expected and/or wanted a different type of novel by the author, Cliff sliced through the pages and was able to convey McCarthy's thoughts and meaning with his review, the truly most insightful review of this great book I've read.
I was fascinated by this book. Like so many, I thought the synopsis was what this story would be about, but I was pleasantly surprised by how it really wasn't. One might think the passenger refers to the person missing from the plane, but I posit that Bobby is the passenger, just riding along through his life. My review doesn't cover as much as you do here, but I do talk about how some of the relationships in this book create the story. This book is going to be poured over for years.
I think everyone and everything is a passenger. He mentions passengers often in the book. The flight's missing passenger, the Kid talking of passengers on the bus, the bombing victims of Nagasaki had a reference to passengers. Theres a couple more. The truth is: we're all in for a ride and no one can possibly pin down what the hell we're riding in or how or when or where or why. Like a diver in the cold dark depths of a river, the deeper you plunge into the depths of the quantum universe, the more you surrender yourself to a void world you were not in any way able to acclimate yourself
Like the passenger from the crash, Bobby is a lost soul trying to find his way home but it’s an impossible journey.
Stella maris is a title of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Also, McCarthy's Stella Maris is being released on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. Which I find very interesting.
Star of the sea! The Goddess is rising, the father and son have had their say!
@@trumurray8033 Not quite. The Son will do all things, but wouldn't dream of doing them without His Mother there beside Him every step of the way.
@@ignotus_amicus forget about the Son and the Mother, there is only ONE GOD.
@@richardwestwood8212 I did not deny there’s one God. Of course there is.
@@richardwestwood8212 prove it or shut up… there’s only mystery, and that I can 💯 prove
I hate to say that this will probably be the last thing that McCarthy gives the world. But what a note to go out on. Bless that man. I hope I am wrong. Pure genius. The Passenger was unlike anything I’ve ever read, it’s one I’m definitely going to have to re read. I’m reading Stella Maris atm and like you said Cliff, I’m sad that it’s going to come to an end so quickly. I’ve been trying to take my time and not rush through them, because I agree I haven’t wanted them to end. McCarthy is the greatest living author, and when he passes, the world will have lost something truly special. The state of literature is in a depressing place. And once him and Pynchon, Delillo die, it will be dead for a time. Until some people who have truly been inspired by the masters rises from the ashes and gives us something true. Which I feel is inevitable, there is so much to write about these days, but no one is doing it. But it will come. I have faith. It has to. Until then, I will continue to go on read masters like McCarthy. God bless you sir.
The last book I didn’t want to end was “ FreshWater for Flowers” a French author Valero Perrin. Check it out.
Beautifully written.
He died 6 days ago, so yeah, you were correct.
"You can find meanness in the least of creatures, but when God made Flexispot the devil was at his elbow. A table that can do anything. A drawer you can attach to the bottom. And another drawer you can attach to the drawer. And evil that can run itself a thousand years, no need to tend it.”
Finished this book about a week and a half ago and it hasn’t left my mind since. I’d probably rank it above Suttree but below Blood Meridian in my top 3 McCarthy. Really any combination of those is hard to argue with though. Would love to see you do a ranking of his works once the Stella Maris review drops!
I didn't know Cormac Mccarthy had a new book, appreciate the heads up. I was so engrossed in The Road I read it in one night. Blood Meridian, No Country For Old Men......there's no one in the history of American Letters that comes close imo. He is awe inspiring.
Edit: Got the books last week. Finished Passenger. Theres a lot here. A lot of stuff is overlooked by reviews. Hes a diver. The book is about how quantum physics is a dark horror that we DIVE into. Right? All of us Passengers on a ride we never asked to be ferried with through a life we have no exact control of. The passage about crying babies lining up with the overall theme of a "They or Them" that is after us. An unknown agent in the dark mysteries of the universe that is coming for us and they WILL get us eventually. I could go on for a while about this book. So much there. Not as great as Blood Meridian, but its in his top three, easily.
Since your tastes line up with mine more often than any other book reviewer out there, this is such a relief to see. So many people have been labeling this book as a disappointment, or simply mediocre. I won't watch this yet for spoiler reasons, but will be back when I finish The Passenger
The Kid. He never answers a question and Alicia rarely follows up. I know she says they are extremely real to her, but the interaction has that dreamlike quality where nothing works quite the way you expect.
I haven't quite decided yet but this might end up being my favorite book of McCarthy. Currently it's a tie between Suttree and The Road. However, this book is just incredible. Can't wait to start Stella Maris. Thank you for this amazing review.
Pretty high on my list. The dialogue is perhaps the best of his career, the Judge's monologues aside or BM's characters narrating the Judge's actions (I'm thinking of the 'making gunpowder' scene here, specifically'.
Want to watch this so bad but haven’t read it yet (ordered the box set which doesn’t arrive until December)!!! Have a like anyway.
It’s a short read, but would you consider doing a review of Cormac McCarthy’s essay “The Kekulé Problem”? It’s about how language and the unconscious mind interact.
Apparently the ideas present in TKP had been bouncing around McCarthy’s mind for years and years, but he only finished it in 2017. When I revisited The Road it was fascinating to read through the dream sequences again and discover these connections to this short scientific article that he’d written more than ten years later.
I’m really curious about whether these same sorts of ideas show up in The Passenger, maybe changed a bit because McCarthy crystallized them during the writing of The Kekulé Problem. Were dreams discussed at any point, either their contents or their interpretations by the characters? That was a big thing in The Road and the main point of connection to TKP that I found within it.
Yes! After reading The Passenger, I went back and reread The Kekule Problem because the passenger reminded me so much of what he discusses in that article. Some ideas and thoughts of the Kekule article are nearly quoted word for word in the book. So if you're into that you will love this book guaranteed. However, I would tell you to expect waking-dreams, perhaps Deluzee's version of schizophrenia instead of traditional dreams, though those are mentioned too.
Halfway through your review but gotta run out for a while - can't wait to watch the rest when I get back! Loving it so far.
The last section of this book was a kamikaze fist to the floating ribs. Gorgeous.
Also, might be worth your timing checking out the chapter-by-chapter analysis on the McCarthy subreddit! Definitely helped me piece together some of the more perplexing aspects of the book.
7:21 if you're looking to skip that ad
I'm sorry, I don't want to bitch, but that cover is cheesy, so cheap. The book looks like some self-help crap or a religious book. As of now I can only judge by the cover, because I haven't read this one yet.
The UK cover is fantastic.
This is a GREAT review. I love the format, thanks for sharing!
My favorite parts from the book:
1) Every interaction between Alicia & The Kid. Even with The Kid's juvenile sense of humor (which made me laugh, idc) and the fact that half of what he says is gibberish, this is amazing writing.
2) The entire JFK discussion w/ Kline
3) Sheddan's deathbed letter to Bobby. The last paragraph had me in tears, and then the last line made me laugh out loud. A wonderful roller coaster. I agree with the video, Sheddan has the best dialogue in the entire book.
It's interesting, he's a fan of Faulkner and he also had a disabled child character who spoke "gibberish" in The Sound and the Fury. Great writing there too.
I agree. Sheddan's letter was so touching and beautifully written.
Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the stream
Merrily merrily, merrily, merrily
Life is but a dream
Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the stream
Merrily merrily, merrily, merrily
Life is but a dream
Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the stream
Merrily merrily, merrily, merrily
Life is but a dream
Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the stream
Merrily merrily, merrily, merrily
Life is but a dream
I’m about 100 pages into ‘Blood Meridian’ in the space of a few days. It’s absorbing. Can’t wait to buy these two novel; I really appreciate your review. From Ireland! 🇮🇪
This is really fucking scary. I was in the middle of watching this when I saw that Cormac McCarthy had died. Fuuuuuck.
I found the themes from other Cormac Books showing up in the Passenger was very fascinating. For example the manner of Alicia’s death is very similar to the wife’s death in The Road. There’s also the exploration of an incestous relationship like in Outer Dark. Maybe it’s something in Cormac’s life that he hasn’t reconciled or maybe they’re such raw and untouchable topics that they fascinate him to the end.
I've been meaning to pick this up as my first McCarthy
Just finished my copy tonight. You nailed it, guy. Great review. Better than The Road but not as good as Blood Meridian (I mean, you can't really get any better). Worthy of multiple reads and rambles with other literary friends.
I don't buy the Thalidomide Kid and the Blood Meridian Kid connection. But hey, I'm no New York Times critic.
I've never felt so satisfied with an ending that shrugs its shoulders at the whole thing before exiting the stage.
The Kid, and someone else in the novel, emphasize the idea that one can only see something if one notices it. Otherwise, one misses it entirely. Great video, Cliff.
Astute. Much like those basketball videos with the big hairy gorilla in it that everyone overlooks while counting basketball bounces.