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3.87 AVERAGE
3.87 AVERAGE
I’m pretty sure I did not entirely understand this book. Especially because I found out that it is supposed to be read after “The Passenger”. Nonetheless it is beautifully written, it deals with incredibly complex concepts and ideas without being unnecessarily baroque. It’s only cocky to the extent that Alicia is.
I don’t this the book will stay with me…
I don’t this the book will stay with me…
Spoilers for both *Stella Maris* and *The Passenger*
*Stella Maris* consists of 7 sessions between a psychiatrist and Alice Western, a mathematics savant on an inevitable road towards suicide. This coda to *The Passenger* also recontextualizes that book: Alice tells her psychiatrist that her brother, Bobby, is in a coma after a racing crash. She believes he will never wake up, even saying that he is “brain dead” at one point. Did Bobby miraculously wake up? Or is the at-times dreamlike nature of *The Passenger* a reflection of Bobby’s comatose state, drifting towards death?
The book is entirely written in dialogue, and Cormac McCarthy’s dialogue dispenses with quotation marks or “he said” “she said”. Thankfully, Alice Western and Dr. Cohen have vivid voices. You can tell who is talking from a single sentence, which makes the book reasonably easy to follow, but is also a testament to McCarthy’s talent as a writer. This is a book of philosophical musings, some of which went over my head, but I think I got the gist.
Alice’s brilliant understanding of mathematics has not brought her peace or joy, but rather something closer to dread. Her intelligence has led her only deeper into despair, contemplating questions such as “When all trace of our existence is gone, for whom then will this be a tragedy?”
The passages in *Stella Maris* that discuss Oppenheimer and the atomic bomb were very interesting to me. The A-bomb represents a loss of innocence on a global scale, and a catastrophic result of mankind’s growing intelligence. “Anyone who doesn’t understand that the Manhattan Project is one of the most significant events in human history hasn’t been paying attention. It’s up there with fire and language.” This connects to Alice’s grim notion that “there was an ill-contained horror beneath the surface of the world and there always had been…And that to imagine that the grim eruptions of this century were in any way either singular or exhaustive was simply a folly.” When Alice dives deep into her subconscious, her deep thinking only leads her to a similar horrific presence, locked behind a gate: “The Archatron”. This hammers home something that McCarthy himself seems to be struggling with: there’s little joy to be found in a scientific/mathematical understanding of the world.
While all this is pretty bleak, I’m brought back to a line I marked in *The Passenger*: “Suffering is a part of the human condition and must be borne. But misery is a choice.” We can’t think our way out of despair — and indeed intelligence may lead us deeper into that hole — but we can still choose a different path.
*Stella Maris* consists of 7 sessions between a psychiatrist and Alice Western, a mathematics savant on an inevitable road towards suicide. This coda to *The Passenger* also recontextualizes that book: Alice tells her psychiatrist that her brother, Bobby, is in a coma after a racing crash. She believes he will never wake up, even saying that he is “brain dead” at one point. Did Bobby miraculously wake up? Or is the at-times dreamlike nature of *The Passenger* a reflection of Bobby’s comatose state, drifting towards death?
The book is entirely written in dialogue, and Cormac McCarthy’s dialogue dispenses with quotation marks or “he said” “she said”. Thankfully, Alice Western and Dr. Cohen have vivid voices. You can tell who is talking from a single sentence, which makes the book reasonably easy to follow, but is also a testament to McCarthy’s talent as a writer. This is a book of philosophical musings, some of which went over my head, but I think I got the gist.
Alice’s brilliant understanding of mathematics has not brought her peace or joy, but rather something closer to dread. Her intelligence has led her only deeper into despair, contemplating questions such as “When all trace of our existence is gone, for whom then will this be a tragedy?”
The passages in *Stella Maris* that discuss Oppenheimer and the atomic bomb were very interesting to me. The A-bomb represents a loss of innocence on a global scale, and a catastrophic result of mankind’s growing intelligence. “Anyone who doesn’t understand that the Manhattan Project is one of the most significant events in human history hasn’t been paying attention. It’s up there with fire and language.” This connects to Alice’s grim notion that “there was an ill-contained horror beneath the surface of the world and there always had been…And that to imagine that the grim eruptions of this century were in any way either singular or exhaustive was simply a folly.” When Alice dives deep into her subconscious, her deep thinking only leads her to a similar horrific presence, locked behind a gate: “The Archatron”. This hammers home something that McCarthy himself seems to be struggling with: there’s little joy to be found in a scientific/mathematical understanding of the world.
While all this is pretty bleak, I’m brought back to a line I marked in *The Passenger*: “Suffering is a part of the human condition and must be borne. But misery is a choice.” We can’t think our way out of despair — and indeed intelligence may lead us deeper into that hole — but we can still choose a different path.
dark
funny
reflective
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I can’t tell if I liked this or not
Alicia is interesting as is the therapy sessions format, but this is dark and repetitive and no one experiencing suicidal ideation should read it. NO ONE.
challenging
dark
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
I would characterize this novel as a "mind-fuck".
Cormac McCarthy's narrative is set in the year 1972, in a mental health facility in rural Wisconsin. The entirety of the novel is the dialogue of a patient, Alicia, being interviewed by her psychiatrist over several sessions.
McCarthy is a truly gifted writer. To capture the breadth of what he does in this very limited format (no setting, description, nothing - only dialogue) is a feat.
I wanted to read it over again, because the interviews reveal Alicia's views on mathematics, physics, the nature of reality, the question of God (or what lays beyond our perceived reality), the nature of madness, the darkness of humanity, longing, etc.
It's a lot. So dense I would often have to put the book down and return to keep reading.
But I'm obsessed with questions surrounding the nature of reality, so I loved it.
Cormac McCarthy's narrative is set in the year 1972, in a mental health facility in rural Wisconsin. The entirety of the novel is the dialogue of a patient, Alicia, being interviewed by her psychiatrist over several sessions.
McCarthy is a truly gifted writer. To capture the breadth of what he does in this very limited format (no setting, description, nothing - only dialogue) is a feat.
I wanted to read it over again, because the interviews reveal Alicia's views on mathematics, physics, the nature of reality, the question of God (or what lays beyond our perceived reality), the nature of madness, the darkness of humanity, longing, etc.
It's a lot. So dense I would often have to put the book down and return to keep reading.
But I'm obsessed with questions surrounding the nature of reality, so I loved it.
challenging
dark
A quick easy read but quite beautiful. The set up of dialogue kept me quite entranced. I finished in one day directly after reading the passenger this was a lovely way to cap off and interesting story
3.75. I would have been better served by reading the duet closer together, but I think it does a disservice to The Passenger to consider them equals in effort. Stella Maris is more of a chance for Cormac McCarthy to sneakily discourse on his fave mathematical theory arguments and while it's compelling to learn about, this novel simply doesn't have the beauty and bleakness that The Passenger did. Bobby was an explicable character and effortless voice for McCarthy to inhabit because he lacked complexity -- or much beyond a grief-stunned passivity; McCarthy, despite his immense talent, sometimes falters with the more active and existentially-complicated Alicia. There are some real gut-punch sentences in here that left me breathless, nonetheless.