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3.87 AVERAGE
3.87 AVERAGE
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I read this shortly after finishing The Passenger which was published just before Stella Maris but is set after. Though the two books share characters and story line, they are written totally differently. While The Passenger is structured as a conventional novel, Stella Maris is essentially a two-character stage play. I'm not sure there is anything other than dialogue in the entire book, similar to McCarthy's Sunset Limited. And such dialogue! Genius mathematician Alicia Western has committed herself to Stella Maris mental hospital for her schizophrenia in the 1970's. In a series of taped interviews with her therapist. which constitute the chapters of the book, together they explore life, death, philosophy and mathematics. Upon finishing this book, I went straight back to the beginning for a second helping. The audiobook narrators, Julia Whelan and Edoardo Ballerini, did a phenomenal job.
challenging
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
4.5 - This was such a better read than The Passenger for me. I see where The Passenger might be a prerequisite, but also that it could stand alone as just a character study isolated for the former. Witty, cynical, and just a tad full of itself.
dark
funny
mysterious
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
reflective
slow-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
What a book to sign off with. Couple of books in fact. An Escher staircase of a mystery, a love story, and philosophical inquiry into the nature of reality. To quote Alice when speaking of Spengler, but is also true of McCarthy: "As with the general run of philosophers—if he is one—the most interesting thing was not his ideas but just the way his mind worked."
There are some utterly profound and also terrifying passages in Stella Maris. Alice's description of drowning oneself in cold deep water is brutally vivid and not recommended reading in the dead of night. If I could do it again for the first time it would be at a time closer to lunch.
[SPOILERS AHEAD]
It may not have been McCarthy's intention for the reader to solve the mysteries and paradoxes therein, but that's not going to stop us from trying. It seems to me the most probable explanation is that The Passenger is Bobby's fever dream while in a coma from his racing car accident.
The way McCarthy leaks names and echoes previous works in the narrative is just how the subconscious mind would behave. The missing passenger from the plane is one of those logical dead ends you often get in dreams. Oiler is Euler, The Kid, the main protagonist from Blood Meridian. Debussy?? Well, just search for Bussy and you'll see. John Sheddan is a friend of McCarthy's in real life. It's all very meta. He's having fun with these books. But more importantly, it is logically impossible for the stories of Alice and Bobby to exist within the same universe. Or topos to use mathematical terminology. And this lines up with the philosophical monologues of Alice in Stella Maris who argues that the imagination is a kind of reality, maybe the only reality. The whole thing is very self-referential, which feeds into the idea that the siblings are fundamentally entangled. A+B. Like two electrons connected across vast distances. As Alice says, "If space contained a single entity the entity would not be there. There would be nothing there for it to be there to."
There are so many talking points in these books. So many intriguing concepts and mysteries to unravel. I will be thinking about it all for a very long time.
There are some utterly profound and also terrifying passages in Stella Maris. Alice's description of drowning oneself in cold deep water is brutally vivid and not recommended reading in the dead of night. If I could do it again for the first time it would be at a time closer to lunch.
[SPOILERS AHEAD]
It may not have been McCarthy's intention for the reader to solve the mysteries and paradoxes therein, but that's not going to stop us from trying. It seems to me the most probable explanation is that The Passenger is Bobby's fever dream while in a coma from his racing car accident.
The way McCarthy leaks names and echoes previous works in the narrative is just how the subconscious mind would behave. The missing passenger from the plane is one of those logical dead ends you often get in dreams. Oiler is Euler, The Kid, the main protagonist from Blood Meridian. Debussy?? Well, just search for Bussy and you'll see. John Sheddan is a friend of McCarthy's in real life. It's all very meta. He's having fun with these books. But more importantly, it is logically impossible for the stories of Alice and Bobby to exist within the same universe. Or topos to use mathematical terminology. And this lines up with the philosophical monologues of Alice in Stella Maris who argues that the imagination is a kind of reality, maybe the only reality. The whole thing is very self-referential, which feeds into the idea that the siblings are fundamentally entangled. A+B. Like two electrons connected across vast distances. As Alice says, "If space contained a single entity the entity would not be there. There would be nothing there for it to be there to."
There are so many talking points in these books. So many intriguing concepts and mysteries to unravel. I will be thinking about it all for a very long time.