t o d d w a r n e r's review of The Passenger

t o d d w a r n e r reviewed The Passenger by Cormac McCarthy

Cormac McCarthy: The Passenger (Hardcover, 2022, Knopf)

Nominee for Best Historical Fiction (2022) 1980, PASS CHRISTIAN, MISSISSIPPI: It is three in the …

Morose and thoughtful and McCarthy

5 stars

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.

Fardels Bear replied to t o d d w a r n e r's status

@tw The only Cormac McCarthy novel I've read is Blood Meridian, a look into the dark and cruel heart of the westward expansion of America. Judging from that, he probably doesn't do happy clappy, but he does make you think.

t o d d w a r n e r replied to t o d d w a r n e r's status

Quote from this Nation article... www.thenation.com/article/culture/cormac-mccarthy-late-style/ Billed at once as the culminating pinnacle of McCarthy’s career and an unexpected departure from his earlier work, The Passenger and Stella Maris are sibling novels about incest, mourning, mathematics, salvage diving, schizophrenia, New Orleans, theoretical physics, Knoxville, the invention of nuclear weapons, car racing, suicide, vaudeville theater, the weight of history, the sins of the father, psychiatry, the crisis of the European sciences, and the moral decline of the West. At once intricate and beautiful, challenging and moving [...]