Reviews with content warning for Incest - The Passenger

Reviews tagging 'Incest'

The Passenger by Cormac McCarthy

15 reviews

boring_samizdat's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

A bleak and masterful study on grief, existence, and the nature of reality. Often dialogue heavy, swapping back and forth between the main character's sister (whose sections are all italicized, making a jarring start to the story) and different sequences in the protagonist's life, which are told on a non-linear timeline that often shifts without warning, sometimes mid-chapter or even paragraph. It really benefits from a second reading of it and the companion/sequel Stella Maris, as lots of context and sequences of events are given out slowly throughout the course.

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k1ng_dippy's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This is McCarthy's swan song. A fitting goodbye to a literary great. It is wrapped in darkness and big questions along with the certainty that some answers cannot be found.

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unboxedjack's review against another edition

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challenging emotional funny reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

I've been thinking on why I liked this book, as perplexing as it is to read. McCarthy's narrative is not really a narrative, from how I see it. Rather, it feels like a selection of asides we're invited to eavesdrop in on, not fully understanding the undertones of dialogue or plot. They're more like a literary academician's version of "The Moth", where not much happens, but we're still dragged along. In a sense, McCarthy is making us the passenger, leaving us with no option but to stay with the story and his characters' navigation of the events unfolding. Well, no: there is the option to DNF, but I think McCarthy reflects on that with the death of the protagonist's sister.

McCarthy's obviously meditating on the mindless and possibly meaningless minutiae of existence here. He seems to propose that we're passengers in life in general, being torn from one life event to the next without much rhyme or reason. The protagonist is thrown around from situation to situation, seemingly without any actual will. If we have no control over our lives, then what is the point? This could be a nihilistic view, but I disagree. McCarthy is offering us an opportunity to be engaged in the passenger role. We can choose to focus on the things outside of our control and despair. We can focus only on the hedonism of living only in the moment. Both those perspectives make us passive passengers in life. To be active is to embrace the dialectic that the mindlessness & meaninglessness can be both a source of pain, but brilliance, too.

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kieranyes's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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emmonsannae's review against another edition

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challenging dark reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Reading this book felt like watching a looped youtube video of an especially grisly car crash at half speed from different angles. I laughed when I realized the central setting is a place called Pass Christian. C.M. asks a lot of questions he doesn’t answer. How are the sins of the past handed down to be weighed? How should we bear up under the weight of our own sin? What does it mean for our protagonist to stumble across a great sin he doesn’t understand and does not choose, and to be consumed because of it? C.M.’s meditations on the legacies of history and self recall Flannery O’Connor’s observation that if the American South is not Christ-centered, it is certainly Christ-haunted. (And yes—there is not a quotation mark to be seen for miles and miles.)

“In their recollections dream and life acquire an oddly merging egality. And I've come to suspect that the ground we walk is less of our choosing than we imagine. And all the while a past we hardly even knew is rolled over into our lives like a dubious investment. The history of these times will be long in the sorting, Squire. But if there is a common keel to our understanding it is that we are flawed. At our core that is what we know.”

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othersociologist's review against another edition

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reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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travisslater's review

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challenging dark funny reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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knorkemann's review against another edition

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Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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ivan_tw's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective medium-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

2.5

I almost feel like I shouldn't rate since it's really only 2/3 of the story, but I'll review just based on the book itself.

The Passenger is a good but not exceptional McCarthy novel that has a lot of references and callbacks to his previous work (Outer Dark, No Country for Old Men) while unfortunately never being as strong as those works. The characters are mostly fine, though a few of them - Long John, the Thalidomide Kid - are extremely obnoxious. I eventually started skimming Alicia's chapters because the Kid was so irritating. The story is nice and kept me engaged, though it's unfortunate that the central "mystery", such as it is, becomes such a nonentity. I wasn't expecting it to be solved or anything, but it's pretty much forgotten about 50 pages in. The relationship between Bobby and Alicia is strong and intriguing, but it's sort of a shame that this will probably be McCarthy's last novel and it's mostly him nicking ideas from The Sound & The Fury.

Still curious to read Stella Maris, but this duology may end up one of McCarthy's minor works, which is too bad.

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stebooks's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

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