Nominee for Best Historical Fiction (2022)
1980, PASS CHRISTIAN, MISSISSIPPI: It is three in the morning when Bobby Western zips the jacket of his wetsuit and plunges from the boat deck into darkness. His divelight illuminates the sunken jet, nine bodies still buckled in their seats, hair floating, eyes devoid of speculation. Missing from the crash site are the pilot’s flightbag, the plane’s black box, and the tenth passenger. But how? A collateral witness to machinations that can only bring him harm, Western is shadowed in body and spirit – by men with badges; by the ghost of his father, inventor of the bomb that melted glass and flesh in Hiroshima; and by his sister, the love and ruin of his soul.
Traversing the American South, from the garrulous bar rooms of New Orleans to an abandoned oil rig off the Florida coast, The Passenger is a breathtaking novel of …
Nominee for Best Historical Fiction (2022)
1980, PASS CHRISTIAN, MISSISSIPPI: It is three in the morning when Bobby Western zips the jacket of his wetsuit and plunges from the boat deck into darkness. His divelight illuminates the sunken jet, nine bodies still buckled in their seats, hair floating, eyes devoid of speculation. Missing from the crash site are the pilot’s flightbag, the plane’s black box, and the tenth passenger. But how? A collateral witness to machinations that can only bring him harm, Western is shadowed in body and spirit – by men with badges; by the ghost of his father, inventor of the bomb that melted glass and flesh in Hiroshima; and by his sister, the love and ruin of his soul.
Traversing the American South, from the garrulous bar rooms of New Orleans to an abandoned oil rig off the Florida coast, The Passenger is a breathtaking novel of morality and science, the legacy of sin, and the madness that is human consciousness.
The best moments in Cormac McCarthy's last novel are dialogues that thread out different philosophies. They mingle the threat of nuclear war with fear of surveillance, weang physics and mathematics with literature and drama. It feels like a culmination of McCarthy's life's work, with thoughts on violence, friendship and major moments in 20th Century US history central to a story that is primarily about loss. The prose is addictively brilliant.
The beauty of the book culminates in a wonderful final section that is heartbreaking, and devastating, and perfect. It is a fitting half-farewell (accompanied by Stella Maris, released alongside this book).
At first this books seems like a dabbling in genre like The Road (oh, another post-apocalyptic story) but then, like The Road, you forget about that and get drawn in by the mood and evocative prose. It's almost all discourse, similar to the end of No Country for Old Men, challenging with the long dialogue (and topics ranging from the mundane to subatomic physics) and you really have to pay attention to keep track of who's saying what, but nevertheless absorbing. Story-wise, it may leave you unsatisfied, but you're at least left with a writing lesson and a desire to read the sequel/prequel.
This book is a minor miracle. (As I often do with a book this good, I read it in print and listened to the auido-book back to back.) It is just as beautiful and introspective as McCarthy’s best books, with fewer pretensions. (I find it interesting that McCarthy and Richard Powers—both men of immense linguistic ability—toned down the literary pretense as they aged, and perhaps got better for it.)
If you’re a plot person, this book may infuriate you. But I love its bold willingness to refuse to answer any story question, while trying along the way to answer so many things unanswerable.
Mercy is the province of the person alone. There is mass hatred and there is mass grief. Mass vengeance and even mass suicide. But there is no mass forgiveness. There is only you.
This book is a minor miracle. (As I often do with a book this good, I read it in print and listened to the auido-book back to back.) It is just as beautiful and introspective as McCarthy’s best books, with fewer pretensions. (I find it interesting that McCarthy and Richard Powers—both men of immense linguistic ability—toned down the literary pretense as they aged, and perhaps got better for it.)
If you’re a plot person, this book may infuriate you. But I love its bold willingness to refuse to answer any story question, while trying along the way to answer so many things unanswerable.
Mercy is the province of the person alone. There is mass hatred and there is mass grief. Mass vengeance and even mass suicide. But there is no mass forgiveness. There is only you.
Very literary. There is setting and character and relationships. That's it. The plot is interesting in that it is never really what you expect it to be. The main thrust of the novel is an exploration of the mind and spirit and mythology and state of being.
Only mature and focused readers will "get" this novel, but if they do, it's a real treat created to make them think and reflect. And of course, as always, McCarthy's prose is so very elegant. Loved it.
UPDATE: I can't stop thinking about this book. I changed my review from 3.5 to 4.75. it may be a 5-star review in another month of musing. It is just so good.
i will be the first to admit that the writing does feel a bit gratuitous. maybe that’s a projection because i had to look up at least three of the words in a single sentence, but also, come on. at the same time though i cant help but feel enveloped by the words, the imagery yes but also the choice of words itself creates its own imagery, a distinct mouthfeel, arcane and primordial with the tarnish of something long forgotten. i read his words and am commanded to my knees before this wizard of strange philosophical tangents - no, strange is not the right word because they are not strange they are it seems to me the most basic, the most universal, and all the more powerful for the new light or rather new darkness they show under his care. yup, i’m a fanboy. still.
i thoroughly enjoyed …
i will be the first to admit that the writing does feel a bit gratuitous. maybe that’s a projection because i had to look up at least three of the words in a single sentence, but also, come on. at the same time though i cant help but feel enveloped by the words, the imagery yes but also the choice of words itself creates its own imagery, a distinct mouthfeel, arcane and primordial with the tarnish of something long forgotten. i read his words and am commanded to my knees before this wizard of strange philosophical tangents - no, strange is not the right word because they are not strange they are it seems to me the most basic, the most universal, and all the more powerful for the new light or rather new darkness they show under his care. yup, i’m a fanboy. still.
i thoroughly enjoyed the new book. among many things he is a master of dialogue, using it as a core mechanism to convey the interrogations at the heart of this story, flickering candlelight on grief and meaning and the very notion of reality, unwaveringly existential. it’s clear he’s deep into the world of advanced mathematics and physics and while the glossing of that territory set an interesting context for the main characters it did feel a bit hard to relate to and went over my head. which i am willing to believe may have been an intention. the setting of new orleans in 1980 furthers the feeling of disjunction with time, descriptions of the old streets and tangled cultures and an unfortunately unmentioned indigenous homeland and the reader’s own knowledge of the destruction of katrina and it all takes on a new light in the line : all of history a rehearsal for its own extinction. then there is the obvious metaphor of western’s profession as a salvage diver, perpetually descending into the unknown darkness to recover fragments of knowledge or glimpses of the internal machinations of this world. he is gifted when it comes to math and physics and the mental realm but he is unable to plumb the depths of his own emotions, forever at the mercy of his own grief over the loss of his sister and the seemingly unrequited love they shared for each other. <spoiler> he is cast at certain times as an actor of ancient tragedy, living yet dead inside from the mortal wound of love aggrieved, but the lack of emotional growth is somewhat galling by the end when many years later he is still living as an ascetic in an ancient grist mill and he attempts again to write another letter to her and he wanted to tell her what was in his heart but all he can manage is i miss you more than i can bear. </spoiler> the distillate of grief, pure and consuming and unyielding. perhaps there is little relatability because it is not possible to relate to the actual essence of a thing, only its permutations. as for the titular passenger and the loose thread of a plot around the sunken airplane and missing passenger and vague government menace - i’m honestly not quite sure. it feels strangely undeveloped as a plot line, the initial source of tension and intrigue that is perhaps just a ramp up to the higher ground of deep philosophy. yes yes, the theme of the missing person, whether physically absent or lost inside of one’s self, but i cant help but get the feeling that this is a literary muleta, enticing before it vanishes and the reader is left with the cold truths of the world piercing between the shoulder blades. ole, ole.
