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3.86 AVERAGE
3.86 AVERAGE
Alicia Western, former child protégé, checks herself into a mental health clinic called Stella Maris (a reference to both the north star and Madonna). There she allows herself to be interviewed by a psychiatrist who has access to the files from her lifelong therapy sessions. The dialogue, which is the text of the novel, circles many people hemes including the idea that mathematics has no connection to reality and the frustrated sexual and emotional love Alicia has for her older brother Bobby.
Second book in series after The Passenger. The audiobook is really well done. I doubt I would have enjoyed the printed version as much (or finished it).
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
funny
reflective
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
"You resent people wanting to help you. I resent people wanting to fix me."
McCarthy's final novel and companion to The Passenger, we follow Alicia Western before she commits the suicide we learn about in The Passenger. She has arrived at the Stella Maris mental hospital because in her words, she has nowhere else to go. The story is told to us as the interview between her and her doctor. She has come back from Italy where she left her brother on life support in a coma. She is a math genius, graduating college before the age of 16. She also has meetings with people, the predominant one being a short, flippered person nicknamed the kid. Through the interview we see how she views life, which is wildly different from most. We touch on what life is, how the world sees life, love, and various other topics. She even explains how she decided not to drown herself once before by thinking through the whole process and coming to the realization that she would have to decide to die twice, once when she jumped in with an anchor and then again when the moment came to decide to breath in the water. The whole story is basically her trying to convince herself to keep living.
There are funny parts, the way she picks on the doctor throughout with wordplay, there are sad parts all over the place, and then philosophical parts that question life and meaning. We also see her struggle with the fact that her brother is the only person she loves and wants to love emotionally and physically and he doesn't reciprocate the feelings. It is a bit shakespearean in the fact that she thinks he is dead, comes back to the states, end up killing herself and ultimately he comes out of the coma.
A truly wild mind bending book in only the way McCarthy can write.
The last lines were so sad. I think our time is up. I know will you hold my hand. Hold your hand? Yes. I want you to. All right. Why? Because that's what people do when they're waiting for the end of something.
McCarthy's final novel and companion to The Passenger, we follow Alicia Western before she commits the suicide we learn about in The Passenger. She has arrived at the Stella Maris mental hospital because in her words, she has nowhere else to go. The story is told to us as the interview between her and her doctor. She has come back from Italy where she left her brother on life support in a coma. She is a math genius, graduating college before the age of 16. She also has meetings with people, the predominant one being a short, flippered person nicknamed the kid. Through the interview we see how she views life, which is wildly different from most. We touch on what life is, how the world sees life, love, and various other topics. She even explains how she decided not to drown herself once before by thinking through the whole process and coming to the realization that she would have to decide to die twice, once when she jumped in with an anchor and then again when the moment came to decide to breath in the water. The whole story is basically her trying to convince herself to keep living.
There are funny parts, the way she picks on the doctor throughout with wordplay, there are sad parts all over the place, and then philosophical parts that question life and meaning. We also see her struggle with the fact that her brother is the only person she loves and wants to love emotionally and physically and he doesn't reciprocate the feelings. It is a bit shakespearean in the fact that she thinks he is dead, comes back to the states, end up killing herself and ultimately he comes out of the coma.
A truly wild mind bending book in only the way McCarthy can write.
The last lines were so sad. I think our time is up. I know will you hold my hand. Hold your hand? Yes. I want you to. All right. Why? Because that's what people do when they're waiting for the end of something.
Kako tačno definisati knjigu koja je sedam poglavlja čistog metafizičkog dijaloga, koja samostalno stoji začuđujuće ok, ali funkcioniše najbolje kao ključna dopuna koja potpuno promeni svog prethodnika, Putnika? Koda, ili oporuka. Što uopšte definisati? Ako je nešto vredno čitanja, definisaće se samo čitaocu, a najbolje knjige to rade i kad za tako nešto nedostaju reči.
5
5
I loved and hated this book. I'm fascinated by maths and quantum physics and relished the conversations between Alicia and her psychologist. The whole book is dialogue, but that didn't bother me. What troubled me was the icky topic. I don't understand why Cormac McCarthy chose to write about it or what he wanted to say. I can't give a star rating to something so brilliant and yet so flawed.
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Now THIS is the Mccarthy I was missing from Vol 1. The conversational method here truly worked and I was all-in.
challenging
dark
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Among the most self-indulgent books I’ve ever read, but it mostly works. It’s generally up my alley with the philosophizing and real-time dialogue. And I think the overall plot device of the Kid works well too. I appreciated that it made no attempt to resolve book one.
In the end, it’s just a bittttt too much of an elederly man explaining how much he knows about the world through the mouth of a young woman. And incest :/
In the end, it’s just a bittttt too much of an elederly man explaining how much he knows about the world through the mouth of a young woman. And incest :/
Content Warnings
Graphic: Incest