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duderino_sama's review against another edition
challenging
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
grahamclements's review against another edition
3.0
The Passenger is a novel with a false plot. It is a plot that doesn't matter at all. Things happen and you think they may be connected but that connection is never substantiated. So, it is a frustrating novel for anyone who wants events to come together in the end.
What is it about then? It is about Bobby who has many regrets about his one true love, his sister Stella. She may have desired a sexual relationship which he shunned. She spends a lot of time in a mental institution before killing herself, and he regrets rejecting her and not being there when she died.
The novel consists of many long conversations between men who seem to be intelligent but delusional about the world around them and their place in it. Perhaps McCarthy is saying something about how deluded Americans have become in the Trump era.
In between conversations Bobby has many adventures, from racing car driver to deep sea diver, which starts to look like an improbable Forrest Gump type life. The adventures that don’t let him escape from his regret for his sister.
The novel frequently goes into the schizophrenic mind of Stella as she hallucinates conversations with the imaginery Kid who has been damaged by Thalidomide. The Kid tries to keep her amused by hosting not very good cabaret acts. Who knows why she chooses a character who had Thalidomide as the drug was never approved in the US, so they did not have the flood of babies born with its birth defects.
McCarthy continues his habit of no quotation marks and no attributions for dialogue, which may have not mattered much for his other novels, like the dialogue sparse The Road, but becomes a pain for this one with its masses of dialogue. I was frequently wondering who the hell was speaking and had to go back and re-read, but even then found it hard to track down who was speaking.
The passenger in the title might be Bobby's regret about not being there for his sister or it might mean that he has no control over his life and is just a passenger being taken wherever fate decides to take him. Or it might just be a reference to the plot red herring at the start of the novel where a passenger has disappeared from a crashed plane.
Overall, if you want a novel with a resolved plot, don't touch this. If you want a novel where you think you may be able to resolve the plot from clues in the book, don't frustrate yourself with this. If you want a novel that ruminates on America's delusions then this might be the novel for you.
What is it about then? It is about Bobby who has many regrets about his one true love, his sister Stella. She may have desired a sexual relationship which he shunned. She spends a lot of time in a mental institution before killing herself, and he regrets rejecting her and not being there when she died.
The novel consists of many long conversations between men who seem to be intelligent but delusional about the world around them and their place in it. Perhaps McCarthy is saying something about how deluded Americans have become in the Trump era.
In between conversations Bobby has many adventures, from racing car driver to deep sea diver, which starts to look like an improbable Forrest Gump type life. The adventures that don’t let him escape from his regret for his sister.
The novel frequently goes into the schizophrenic mind of Stella as she hallucinates conversations with the imaginery Kid who has been damaged by Thalidomide. The Kid tries to keep her amused by hosting not very good cabaret acts. Who knows why she chooses a character who had Thalidomide as the drug was never approved in the US, so they did not have the flood of babies born with its birth defects.
McCarthy continues his habit of no quotation marks and no attributions for dialogue, which may have not mattered much for his other novels, like the dialogue sparse The Road, but becomes a pain for this one with its masses of dialogue. I was frequently wondering who the hell was speaking and had to go back and re-read, but even then found it hard to track down who was speaking.
The passenger in the title might be Bobby's regret about not being there for his sister or it might mean that he has no control over his life and is just a passenger being taken wherever fate decides to take him. Or it might just be a reference to the plot red herring at the start of the novel where a passenger has disappeared from a crashed plane.
Overall, if you want a novel with a resolved plot, don't touch this. If you want a novel where you think you may be able to resolve the plot from clues in the book, don't frustrate yourself with this. If you want a novel that ruminates on America's delusions then this might be the novel for you.
hedvigvj's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
bmack's review against another edition
emotional
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
angus_mckeogh's review against another edition
2.0
Seems like I’ve waited a long time for a new McCarthy book, and an even longer time for a really good McCarthy book, something on par with All the Pretty Horses. The Passenger sounded like an epic mystery and possibly with an even more engaging narrative; unfortunately, that turned out to be merely my interpretation of the blurb. The mystery, about the submerged aircraft, was touched upon, forgotten, revisited, and then seemed to vanish in importance. I found the dialogue absurd. Nobody I know or that I’ve ever heard speak, talks like the characters in this novel. And it really boiled down to a narrative that revolved around one-on-one conversations between characters about random topics that were never mentioned again once I reached the next chapter. Just average and disappointing, considering the wait. As an aside, it has always driven me crazy that McCarthy uses the phrase “in the floor”. I’ve always been under the impression you put something “on the floor” not “in the floor”. Well, whatever.
Merged review:
Seems like I’ve waited a long time for a new McCarthy book, and an even longer time for a really good McCarthy book, something on par with All the Pretty Horses. The Passenger sounded like an epic mystery and possibly with an even more engaging narrative; unfortunately, that turned out to be merely my interpretation of the blurb. The mystery, about the submerged aircraft, was touched upon, forgotten, revisited, and then seemed to vanish in importance. I found the dialogue absurd. Nobody I know or that I’ve ever heard speak, talks like the characters in this novel. And it really boiled down to a narrative that revolved around one-on-one conversations between characters about random topics that were never mentioned again once I reached the next chapter. Just average and disappointing, considering the wait. As an aside, it has always driven me crazy that McCarthy uses the phrase “in the floor”. I’ve always been under the impression you put something “on the floor” not “in the floor”. Well, whatever.
Merged review:
Seems like I’ve waited a long time for a new McCarthy book, and an even longer time for a really good McCarthy book, something on par with All the Pretty Horses. The Passenger sounded like an epic mystery and possibly with an even more engaging narrative; unfortunately, that turned out to be merely my interpretation of the blurb. The mystery, about the submerged aircraft, was touched upon, forgotten, revisited, and then seemed to vanish in importance. I found the dialogue absurd. Nobody I know or that I’ve ever heard speak, talks like the characters in this novel. And it really boiled down to a narrative that revolved around one-on-one conversations between characters about random topics that were never mentioned again once I reached the next chapter. Just average and disappointing, considering the wait. As an aside, it has always driven me crazy that McCarthy uses the phrase “in the floor”. I’ve always been under the impression you put something “on the floor” not “in the floor”. Well, whatever.
Merged review:
Seems like I’ve waited a long time for a new McCarthy book, and an even longer time for a really good McCarthy book, something on par with All the Pretty Horses. The Passenger sounded like an epic mystery and possibly with an even more engaging narrative; unfortunately, that turned out to be merely my interpretation of the blurb. The mystery, about the submerged aircraft, was touched upon, forgotten, revisited, and then seemed to vanish in importance. I found the dialogue absurd. Nobody I know or that I’ve ever heard speak, talks like the characters in this novel. And it really boiled down to a narrative that revolved around one-on-one conversations between characters about random topics that were never mentioned again once I reached the next chapter. Just average and disappointing, considering the wait. As an aside, it has always driven me crazy that McCarthy uses the phrase “in the floor”. I’ve always been under the impression you put something “on the floor” not “in the floor”. Well, whatever.
Merged review:
Seems like I’ve waited a long time for a new McCarthy book, and an even longer time for a really good McCarthy book, something on par with All the Pretty Horses. The Passenger sounded like an epic mystery and possibly with an even more engaging narrative; unfortunately, that turned out to be merely my interpretation of the blurb. The mystery, about the submerged aircraft, was touched upon, forgotten, revisited, and then seemed to vanish in importance. I found the dialogue absurd. Nobody I know or that I’ve ever heard speak, talks like the characters in this novel. And it really boiled down to a narrative that revolved around one-on-one conversations between characters about random topics that were never mentioned again once I reached the next chapter. Just average and disappointing, considering the wait. As an aside, it has always driven me crazy that McCarthy uses the phrase “in the floor”. I’ve always been under the impression you put something “on the floor” not “in the floor”. Well, whatever.
Merged review:
Seems like I’ve waited a long time for a new McCarthy book, and an even longer time for a really good McCarthy book, something on par with All the Pretty Horses. The Passenger sounded like an epic mystery and possibly with an even more engaging narrative; unfortunately, that turned out to be merely my interpretation of the blurb. The mystery, about the submerged aircraft, was touched upon, forgotten, revisited, and then seemed to vanish in importance. I found the dialogue absurd. Nobody I know or that I’ve ever heard speak, talks like the characters in this novel. And it really boiled down to a narrative that revolved around one-on-one conversations between characters about random topics that were never mentioned again once I reached the next chapter. Just average and disappointing, considering the wait. As an aside, it has always driven me crazy that McCarthy uses the phrase “in the floor”. I’ve always been under the impression you put something “on the floor” not “in the floor”. Well, whatever.
Merged review:
Seems like I’ve waited a long time for a new McCarthy book, and an even longer time for a really good McCarthy book, something on par with All the Pretty Horses. The Passenger sounded like an epic mystery and possibly with an even more engaging narrative; unfortunately, that turned out to be merely my interpretation of the blurb. The mystery, about the submerged aircraft, was touched upon, forgotten, revisited, and then seemed to vanish in importance. I found the dialogue absurd. Nobody I know or that I’ve ever heard speak, talks like the characters in this novel. And it really boiled down to a narrative that revolved around one-on-one conversations between characters about random topics that were never mentioned again once I reached the next chapter. Just average and disappointing, considering the wait. As an aside, it has always driven me crazy that McCarthy uses the phrase “in the floor”. I’ve always been under the impression you put something “on the floor” not “in the floor”. Well, whatever.
cunningba's review against another edition
4.0
Enjoyed it a lot. The 4 stars is because it is really just half a book. [b:Stella Maris|60526802|Stella Maris (The Passenger, #2)|Cormac McCarthy|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1658241766l/60526802._SX50_.jpg|95478000] is the other half. The end is not the end. Lots of stuff unresolved. He just lifted his foot off the gas, pushed in the clutch, and is changing gears (books).
McCarthy's writing style poses a few problems until you get used to it: lack of quotes (occasionally confusing, but no worse than Austen or Joyce), idiosyncratic apostrophization (contractions, foreign words), shifting stream of consciousness (a little confusing during when encountering first hallucinations, but you figure out the pattern), shifting timeline, large history of science and math info dumps (I rather enjoyed these actually since I was already familiar the subjects and there were no cringe worthy errors that I find all too common with other authors).
Characters were weird but engaging. Language and view verging on poetic. There is a mystery involved, which is left hanging at the end of this volume. (Hence the "half a book" comment.) But I wonder if the mystery is not really the point, similar to the "mystery" in [b:The Brothers Karamazov|4934|The Brothers Karamazov|Fyodor Dostoevsky|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1427728126l/4934._SX50_.jpg|3393910].
McCarthy's writing style poses a few problems until you get used to it: lack of quotes (occasionally confusing, but no worse than Austen or Joyce), idiosyncratic apostrophization (contractions, foreign words), shifting stream of consciousness (a little confusing during when encountering first hallucinations, but you figure out the pattern), shifting timeline, large history of science and math info dumps (I rather enjoyed these actually since I was already familiar the subjects and there were no cringe worthy errors that I find all too common with other authors).
Characters were weird but engaging. Language and view verging on poetic. There is a mystery involved, which is left hanging at the end of this volume. (Hence the "half a book" comment.) But I wonder if the mystery is not really the point, similar to the "mystery" in [b:The Brothers Karamazov|4934|The Brothers Karamazov|Fyodor Dostoevsky|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1427728126l/4934._SX50_.jpg|3393910].
nichughes's review against another edition
2.0
I tried so hard to enjoy this book and it is painful to give it such a low rating. I started out intrigued and looking forward to how it would unfold... and I'd start to get disillusioned, then he'd pull me back in briefly... but ultimately, it was not an enjoyable read. I get the myriad themes he laces throughout and Bobby/Alice are both characters that you want to know more about. But there's so much overdone dialogue and superfluous detail about things that don't end up mattering. This took too much intense concentration with very little payoff in the end.
Merged review:
I tried so hard to enjoy this book and it is painful to give it such a low rating. I started out intrigued and looking forward to how it would unfold... and I'd start to get disillusioned, then he'd pull me back in briefly... but ultimately, it was not an enjoyable read. I get the myriad themes he laces throughout and Bobby/Alice are both characters that you want to know more about. But there's so much overdone dialogue and superfluous detail about things that don't end up mattering. This took too much intense concentration with very little payoff in the end.
Merged review:
I tried so hard to enjoy this book and it is painful to give it such a low rating. I started out intrigued and looking forward to how it would unfold... and I'd start to get disillusioned, then he'd pull me back in briefly... but ultimately, it was not an enjoyable read. I get the myriad themes he laces throughout and Bobby/Alice are both characters that you want to know more about. But there's so much overdone dialogue and superfluous detail about things that don't end up mattering. This took too much intense concentration with very little payoff in the end.