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3.87 AVERAGE
3.87 AVERAGE
Quite good - interesting story and way to tell it. Intrigued to try out more McCarthy
Vielen Dank an Netgalley und den Argon Verlag für das kostenlose Hörbuch-Leseexemplar.
Nachdem ich für das Hörbuch bestätigt wurde, realisierte ich, dass es ein zweiter Teil ist. Weil ich dachte, ich müsste "Der Psssagier" zuerst lesen, habe ich dieses Hörbuch gekauft und zu hören begonnen. Leider kam ich mit dem Passagier überhaupt nicht klar und gab es zurück.
Mit Stella Maris hatte ich von Anfang an ein viel besseres Hör-Erlebnis und hatte nicht im geringsten das Gefühl, dass mir etwas fehlte, da ich den ersten Teil nicht kannte.
Dennoch fand ich den Psychiater und seine Fragen wirklich nervig. Ständig wiederholte er Alicias Aussagen in Frageform. Oder frug endlos "Warum?". Da wir hier nur diese beiden Charaktere haben, hätte mir eine "Full-Cast-Audio-Produktion" wohl besser gefallen.
Abgesehen davon beinhaltete die Geschichte viele interessante Denkansätze. Dreieinhalb Sterne von mir.
#argonverlag #StellaMaris #NetGalleyDE
Nachdem ich für das Hörbuch bestätigt wurde, realisierte ich, dass es ein zweiter Teil ist. Weil ich dachte, ich müsste "Der Psssagier" zuerst lesen, habe ich dieses Hörbuch gekauft und zu hören begonnen. Leider kam ich mit dem Passagier überhaupt nicht klar und gab es zurück.
Mit Stella Maris hatte ich von Anfang an ein viel besseres Hör-Erlebnis und hatte nicht im geringsten das Gefühl, dass mir etwas fehlte, da ich den ersten Teil nicht kannte.
Dennoch fand ich den Psychiater und seine Fragen wirklich nervig. Ständig wiederholte er Alicias Aussagen in Frageform. Oder frug endlos "Warum?". Da wir hier nur diese beiden Charaktere haben, hätte mir eine "Full-Cast-Audio-Produktion" wohl besser gefallen.
Abgesehen davon beinhaltete die Geschichte viele interessante Denkansätze. Dreieinhalb Sterne von mir.
#argonverlag #StellaMaris #NetGalleyDE
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
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
I made a pretty stupid mistake in reading this. I picked it at random, having enjoyed the other McCarthy books I’ve read. I was enjoying the book despite being a bit confused at times and found it as well written as I expected it to be.
It ended so abruptly and without resolution though that I was honestly left dumbfounded. An immediate google search informed me that this is a follow up to an earlier release which I imagine would have shed a whoooole lot more light on this book. Silly, silly error.
So I’ve gone for a neutral 3-stars for now until the time I can read the first book to (hopefully) give more context.
It ended so abruptly and without resolution though that I was honestly left dumbfounded. An immediate google search informed me that this is a follow up to an earlier release which I imagine would have shed a whoooole lot more light on this book. Silly, silly error.
So I’ve gone for a neutral 3-stars for now until the time I can read the first book to (hopefully) give more context.
Can't think of another book I've read that's been all dialogue without being a play. When I started, I knew it was a companion to The Passenger but hadn't known the other was about this one's protagonist's brother. Lots about the history of math (wish I knew more of it so I'd know where the fictional parts started), child prodigies, schizophrenia, synesthesia, music, war, and the perception of reality.
Alicia felt very real to me and I liked hearing her monologue about her life and philosophy since she comes off as angry and authentic, which is almost impossible for me to dislike. The actual words used are written poetically. It did bring me out of it that she's so self aware and says she stopped apologizing for herself years ago, yet when asked how many books she's read estimates 10,000 (which is possible but still seems a bit ridiculous even for a genius) and then naively says "is that a lot?". There's also a dynamic that I did not get where she and the therapist are both constantly throwing out a small lie that the other accurately calls out, which shows how they're testing each other but was hilarious to me since it's not a way I've ever talked to another person and I did not see any of the lies coming.
A line that got me:
Alicia felt very real to me and I liked hearing her monologue about her life and philosophy since she comes off as angry and authentic, which is almost impossible for me to dislike. The actual words used are written poetically. It did bring me out of it that she's so self aware and says she stopped apologizing for herself years ago, yet when asked how many books she's read estimates 10,000 (which is possible but still seems a bit ridiculous even for a genius) and then naively says "is that a lot?". There's also a dynamic that I did not get where she and the therapist are both constantly throwing out a small lie that the other accurately calls out, which shows how they're testing each other but was hilarious to me since it's not a way I've ever talked to another person and I did not see any of the lies coming.
A line that got me:
My guess is that you can only be so happy. While there seems to be no floor to sorrow. Each deeper misery being a state heretofore unimagined. Each suggestive of worse to come.
challenging
reflective
After the news of Cormac McCarthy’s death was announced a couple of weeks ago, I felt compelled to pick up his final novel from my ‘to be read’ pile. I mentioned after I read ‘The Passenger’ (McCarthy’s penultimate novel) that it felt like his last. Stella Maris offers what few authors really get – an apt literary finale.
The novel is a companion piece to The Passenger which was published a few months previously. While that novel focused on Bobby Western, this one is about his sister, Alicia. Set in 1972, years before the events of The Passenger, this novel takes the form of Alicia’s conversations with her therapist after she commits herself to the Stella Maris psychiatric facility. A child prodigy and mathematical genius, Alicia arrives with a bag full of cash and her schizophrenic hallucinations, including the leader of the group, an unsettling, deformed dwarf known as the Thalidomide Kid. She believes her brother Bobby is brain dead in Europe after a terrible car accident (not the case, as we discovered in The Passenger). Without family, and disillusioned with her promising career in mathematics, Alicia is a doomed protagonist, comfortably destined to self-destruct (and thanks to The Passenger we know how her story ends.) The novel isn’t so much a story as a study in Alicia’s unravelling as she discusses philosophy, science and mathematics.
Nothing can take away from McCarthy’s craft as a writer, but this novel is nowhere near as good as its companion. This is McCarthy’s first female protagonist, and we can understand why he’s left it so late to try – he can’t write women. Alicia’s voice is ridiculous really and the conversation between her and her therapist is esoteric and cerebral to say the very least. She’s a helpless, mad victim, secretly in lust/love with her older brother – tropes so often seen in McCarthy’s depiction of women. I’m not saying that he is a misogynist, but I just don’t think he understands women at all. Alicia feels like an idea machine rather than a real person and because of that she is a difficult character to connect with. It feels more like a vehicle through which McCarthy offers his own reflections on the agony of existence as he stares down the end of his.
The novel is a summation of so many of the themes and ideas the McCarthy has grappled with in his fiction over the years and what we have loved him for, but in concentrate I didn’t enjoy it as much as so many of his others. Perhaps my expectations were heightened knowing that it was his last shot. All of that said, the final lines of the novel convey so much of the experience of reading these last two novels that I became quite emotional:
I think our time is up.
I know. 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.
Despite his flaws, McCarthy was an amazing writer, and his loss is a great one for literature.
The novel is a companion piece to The Passenger which was published a few months previously. While that novel focused on Bobby Western, this one is about his sister, Alicia. Set in 1972, years before the events of The Passenger, this novel takes the form of Alicia’s conversations with her therapist after she commits herself to the Stella Maris psychiatric facility. A child prodigy and mathematical genius, Alicia arrives with a bag full of cash and her schizophrenic hallucinations, including the leader of the group, an unsettling, deformed dwarf known as the Thalidomide Kid. She believes her brother Bobby is brain dead in Europe after a terrible car accident (not the case, as we discovered in The Passenger). Without family, and disillusioned with her promising career in mathematics, Alicia is a doomed protagonist, comfortably destined to self-destruct (and thanks to The Passenger we know how her story ends.) The novel isn’t so much a story as a study in Alicia’s unravelling as she discusses philosophy, science and mathematics.
Nothing can take away from McCarthy’s craft as a writer, but this novel is nowhere near as good as its companion. This is McCarthy’s first female protagonist, and we can understand why he’s left it so late to try – he can’t write women. Alicia’s voice is ridiculous really and the conversation between her and her therapist is esoteric and cerebral to say the very least. She’s a helpless, mad victim, secretly in lust/love with her older brother – tropes so often seen in McCarthy’s depiction of women. I’m not saying that he is a misogynist, but I just don’t think he understands women at all. Alicia feels like an idea machine rather than a real person and because of that she is a difficult character to connect with. It feels more like a vehicle through which McCarthy offers his own reflections on the agony of existence as he stares down the end of his.
The novel is a summation of so many of the themes and ideas the McCarthy has grappled with in his fiction over the years and what we have loved him for, but in concentrate I didn’t enjoy it as much as so many of his others. Perhaps my expectations were heightened knowing that it was his last shot. All of that said, the final lines of the novel convey so much of the experience of reading these last two novels that I became quite emotional:
I think our time is up.
I know. 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.
Despite his flaws, McCarthy was an amazing writer, and his loss is a great one for literature.
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes