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A review by smithjasont01
Stella Maris by Cormac McCarthy
dark
funny
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
"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.