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mynameisgreg's review against another edition
3.0
I remember reading a review of Björk’s Medulla album where the reviewer asked would it not be possible to have all of the ideas and envelope pushing but with a few more catchy melodies. I’m paraphrasing. This is what I thought reading The Passenger.
I was absolutely amazed by the erudite descriptions of quantum physics. I eventually found a way to get on board with the surreal sections in italics (thinking of them like David Lynch dream sequences made me actually really enjoy them). The sheer number of tangents, each with their own concepts, agendas, styles was kind of fun. But the bits I enjoyed reading the most were the sections of really coherent narrative or clear dialogue. As a novel it’s just all a bit too much hard work. Essentially I just wanted a few more tunes.
I was absolutely amazed by the erudite descriptions of quantum physics. I eventually found a way to get on board with the surreal sections in italics (thinking of them like David Lynch dream sequences made me actually really enjoy them). The sheer number of tangents, each with their own concepts, agendas, styles was kind of fun. But the bits I enjoyed reading the most were the sections of really coherent narrative or clear dialogue. As a novel it’s just all a bit too much hard work. Essentially I just wanted a few more tunes.
monkeelino's review against another edition
5.0
"How do you know that the call of the coletit from the bracken is not really the lamentations of the damned? The world’s a deceptive place. A lot of things that you see are not really there anymore. Just the after-image in the eye. So to speak."
A philosophical exploration on grief and the state of America/humanity masquerading as a quasi-mystery/government conspiracy tale. I'm giving this five stars because I was delighted to pick it up each and every time, I kept thinking about passages whenever I put it down, and I found the dialogue magnetic (sharp, quick, wry, insightful). We start with a deep sea salvage job where our main character, Robert Western, discovers all passengers died in the crash but one is missing along with the aircraft's blackbox. Things grow murkier from there but the bigger tragedy is that Western lost the love of his life (his younger sister) some time ago and is treading water in a whirlpool of grief. It's an odd book in many ways as present-day chapters unfold alternated with flashback sections largely representing the schizophrenic dialogues and visions Western's sister had with a kind of subconscious ringleader known as the Thalidomide Kid. A colorful cast of secondary characters in Western's world facilitate diverse conversations ranging from advanced physics to gender identity.
Like many a McCarthy novel, we have a character who seems in conflict with the contemporary world---in Western's case, he is both at odds with the law and with his place in the world (romantically crippled, somewhat unfettered by monetary needs, and bright enough to excel at too many things; seemingly seeking a simpler existence with some lost connection to the physical and animal world). In Western's case, think almost an Adam cast out from Eden and placed in a contemporary Kafkaesque United States.
McCarthy's prose is often quite delightful in his paired down fashion that fosters the occasional lyrical flight: "In the coming night he thought that men would band together in the hills. Feeding their small fires with the deeds and the covenants and the poetry of their fathers. Documents they’d no gift to read in a cold to loot men of their souls." At times, I could almost hear Werner Herzog giving voice to the bleakest of lines such as "The bore of one’s life closes down like a collet. A final pin of light and then nothing." So what begins with a mystery submerged in the tangible world comes to feel symbolic of the ultimate unknowability of existence and the relativity of all relationships whose being and location are only in position to that of others. And all of it potentially reduced to a meaningless speck of dust when we're faced with a life robbed of one's true love.
----------------------------------
A SMATTERING OF MCCARTHY'S UNWIELDY DICTION
electomelic | lemniscate | prelates | suborner | mailcandler | gelignitionary | seanet | gracile mesomorph | hoydens | septic titpigs (best insult ever?) | scrannel | office | Chautauquas | pilchard | autoarchon | vergangenheitvolk | infelicitous | lissome | sanguinivorous | St. Matrix theory | chromodynamics | Geoffrey Chew | sarsenet | penetralium | heresiarch | tabac | Puddentain | coletit | bracken | avoirdupoiswise | hadal | mucilage | collet | alcahest | bolide
----------------------------------
Also: Quotable AF.
Merged review:
"How do you know that the call of the coletit from the bracken is not really the lamentations of the damned? The world’s a deceptive place. A lot of things that you see are not really there anymore. Just the after-image in the eye. So to speak."
A philosophical exploration on grief and the state of America/humanity masquerading as a quasi-mystery/government conspiracy tale. I'm giving this five stars because I was delighted to pick it up each and every time, I kept thinking about passages whenever I put it down, and I found the dialogue magnetic (sharp, quick, wry, insightful). We start with a deep sea salvage job where our main character, Robert Western, discovers all passengers died in the crash but one is missing along with the aircraft's blackbox. Things grow murkier from there but the bigger tragedy is that Western lost the love of his life (his younger sister) some time ago and is treading water in a whirlpool of grief. It's an odd book in many ways as present-day chapters unfold alternated with flashback sections largely representing the schizophrenic dialogues and visions Western's sister had with a kind of subconscious ringleader known as the Thalidomide Kid. A colorful cast of secondary characters in Western's world facilitate diverse conversations ranging from advanced physics to gender identity.
Like many a McCarthy novel, we have a character who seems in conflict with the contemporary world---in Western's case, he is both at odds with the law and with his place in the world (romantically crippled, somewhat unfettered by monetary needs, and bright enough to excel at too many things; seemingly seeking a simpler existence with some lost connection to the physical and animal world). In Western's case, think almost an Adam cast out from Eden and placed in a contemporary Kafkaesque United States.
McCarthy's prose is often quite delightful in his paired down fashion that fosters the occasional lyrical flight: "In the coming night he thought that men would band together in the hills. Feeding their small fires with the deeds and the covenants and the poetry of their fathers. Documents they’d no gift to read in a cold to loot men of their souls." At times, I could almost hear Werner Herzog giving voice to the bleakest of lines such as "The bore of one’s life closes down like a collet. A final pin of light and then nothing." So what begins with a mystery submerged in the tangible world comes to feel symbolic of the ultimate unknowability of existence and the relativity of all relationships whose being and location are only in position to that of others. And all of it potentially reduced to a meaningless speck of dust when we're faced with a life robbed of one's true love.
----------------------------------
A SMATTERING OF MCCARTHY'S UNWIELDY DICTION
electomelic | lemniscate | prelates | suborner | mailcandler | gelignitionary | seanet | gracile mesomorph | hoydens | septic titpigs (best insult ever?) | scrannel | office | Chautauquas | pilchard | autoarchon | vergangenheitvolk | infelicitous | lissome | sanguinivorous | St. Matrix theory | chromodynamics | Geoffrey Chew | sarsenet | penetralium | heresiarch | tabac | Puddentain | coletit | bracken | avoirdupoiswise | hadal | mucilage | collet | alcahest | bolide
----------------------------------
Also: Quotable AF.
Merged review:
"How do you know that the call of the coletit from the bracken is not really the lamentations of the damned? The world’s a deceptive place. A lot of things that you see are not really there anymore. Just the after-image in the eye. So to speak."
A philosophical exploration on grief and the state of America/humanity masquerading as a quasi-mystery/government conspiracy tale. I'm giving this five stars because I was delighted to pick it up each and every time, I kept thinking about passages whenever I put it down, and I found the dialogue magnetic (sharp, quick, wry, insightful). We start with a deep sea salvage job where our main character, Robert Western, discovers all passengers died in the crash but one is missing along with the aircraft's blackbox. Things grow murkier from there but the bigger tragedy is that Western lost the love of his life (his younger sister) some time ago and is treading water in a whirlpool of grief. It's an odd book in many ways as present-day chapters unfold alternated with flashback sections largely representing the schizophrenic dialogues and visions Western's sister had with a kind of subconscious ringleader known as the Thalidomide Kid. A colorful cast of secondary characters in Western's world facilitate diverse conversations ranging from advanced physics to gender identity.
Like many a McCarthy novel, we have a character who seems in conflict with the contemporary world---in Western's case, he is both at odds with the law and with his place in the world (romantically crippled, somewhat unfettered by monetary needs, and bright enough to excel at too many things; seemingly seeking a simpler existence with some lost connection to the physical and animal world). In Western's case, think almost an Adam cast out from Eden and placed in a contemporary Kafkaesque United States.
McCarthy's prose is often quite delightful in his paired down fashion that fosters the occasional lyrical flight: "In the coming night he thought that men would band together in the hills. Feeding their small fires with the deeds and the covenants and the poetry of their fathers. Documents they’d no gift to read in a cold to loot men of their souls." At times, I could almost hear Werner Herzog giving voice to the bleakest of lines such as "The bore of one’s life closes down like a collet. A final pin of light and then nothing." So what begins with a mystery submerged in the tangible world comes to feel symbolic of the ultimate unknowability of existence and the relativity of all relationships whose being and location are only in position to that of others. And all of it potentially reduced to a meaningless speck of dust when we're faced with a life robbed of one's true love.
----------------------------------
A SMATTERING OF MCCARTHY'S UNWIELDY DICTION
electomelic | lemniscate | prelates | suborner | mailcandler | gelignitionary | seanet | gracile mesomorph | hoydens | septic titpigs (best insult ever?) | scrannel | office | Chautauquas | pilchard | autoarchon | vergangenheitvolk | infelicitous | lissome | sanguinivorous | St. Matrix theory | chromodynamics | Geoffrey Chew | sarsenet | penetralium | heresiarch | tabac | Puddentain | coletit | bracken | avoirdupoiswise | hadal | mucilage | collet | alcahest | bolide
----------------------------------
Also: Quotable AF.
A philosophical exploration on grief and the state of America/humanity masquerading as a quasi-mystery/government conspiracy tale. I'm giving this five stars because I was delighted to pick it up each and every time, I kept thinking about passages whenever I put it down, and I found the dialogue magnetic (sharp, quick, wry, insightful). We start with a deep sea salvage job where our main character, Robert Western, discovers all passengers died in the crash but one is missing along with the aircraft's blackbox. Things grow murkier from there but the bigger tragedy is that Western lost the love of his life (his younger sister) some time ago and is treading water in a whirlpool of grief. It's an odd book in many ways as present-day chapters unfold alternated with flashback sections largely representing the schizophrenic dialogues and visions Western's sister had with a kind of subconscious ringleader known as the Thalidomide Kid. A colorful cast of secondary characters in Western's world facilitate diverse conversations ranging from advanced physics to gender identity.
Like many a McCarthy novel, we have a character who seems in conflict with the contemporary world---in Western's case, he is both at odds with the law and with his place in the world (romantically crippled, somewhat unfettered by monetary needs, and bright enough to excel at too many things; seemingly seeking a simpler existence with some lost connection to the physical and animal world). In Western's case, think almost an Adam cast out from Eden and placed in a contemporary Kafkaesque United States.
McCarthy's prose is often quite delightful in his paired down fashion that fosters the occasional lyrical flight: "In the coming night he thought that men would band together in the hills. Feeding their small fires with the deeds and the covenants and the poetry of their fathers. Documents they’d no gift to read in a cold to loot men of their souls." At times, I could almost hear Werner Herzog giving voice to the bleakest of lines such as "The bore of one’s life closes down like a collet. A final pin of light and then nothing." So what begins with a mystery submerged in the tangible world comes to feel symbolic of the ultimate unknowability of existence and the relativity of all relationships whose being and location are only in position to that of others. And all of it potentially reduced to a meaningless speck of dust when we're faced with a life robbed of one's true love.
----------------------------------
A SMATTERING OF MCCARTHY'S UNWIELDY DICTION
electomelic | lemniscate | prelates | suborner | mailcandler | gelignitionary | seanet | gracile mesomorph | hoydens | septic titpigs (best insult ever?) | scrannel | office | Chautauquas | pilchard | autoarchon | vergangenheitvolk | infelicitous | lissome | sanguinivorous | St. Matrix theory | chromodynamics | Geoffrey Chew | sarsenet | penetralium | heresiarch | tabac | Puddentain | coletit | bracken | avoirdupoiswise | hadal | mucilage | collet | alcahest | bolide
----------------------------------
Also: Quotable AF.
Merged review:
"How do you know that the call of the coletit from the bracken is not really the lamentations of the damned? The world’s a deceptive place. A lot of things that you see are not really there anymore. Just the after-image in the eye. So to speak."
A philosophical exploration on grief and the state of America/humanity masquerading as a quasi-mystery/government conspiracy tale. I'm giving this five stars because I was delighted to pick it up each and every time, I kept thinking about passages whenever I put it down, and I found the dialogue magnetic (sharp, quick, wry, insightful). We start with a deep sea salvage job where our main character, Robert Western, discovers all passengers died in the crash but one is missing along with the aircraft's blackbox. Things grow murkier from there but the bigger tragedy is that Western lost the love of his life (his younger sister) some time ago and is treading water in a whirlpool of grief. It's an odd book in many ways as present-day chapters unfold alternated with flashback sections largely representing the schizophrenic dialogues and visions Western's sister had with a kind of subconscious ringleader known as the Thalidomide Kid. A colorful cast of secondary characters in Western's world facilitate diverse conversations ranging from advanced physics to gender identity.
Like many a McCarthy novel, we have a character who seems in conflict with the contemporary world---in Western's case, he is both at odds with the law and with his place in the world (romantically crippled, somewhat unfettered by monetary needs, and bright enough to excel at too many things; seemingly seeking a simpler existence with some lost connection to the physical and animal world). In Western's case, think almost an Adam cast out from Eden and placed in a contemporary Kafkaesque United States.
McCarthy's prose is often quite delightful in his paired down fashion that fosters the occasional lyrical flight: "In the coming night he thought that men would band together in the hills. Feeding their small fires with the deeds and the covenants and the poetry of their fathers. Documents they’d no gift to read in a cold to loot men of their souls." At times, I could almost hear Werner Herzog giving voice to the bleakest of lines such as "The bore of one’s life closes down like a collet. A final pin of light and then nothing." So what begins with a mystery submerged in the tangible world comes to feel symbolic of the ultimate unknowability of existence and the relativity of all relationships whose being and location are only in position to that of others. And all of it potentially reduced to a meaningless speck of dust when we're faced with a life robbed of one's true love.
----------------------------------
A SMATTERING OF MCCARTHY'S UNWIELDY DICTION
electomelic | lemniscate | prelates | suborner | mailcandler | gelignitionary | seanet | gracile mesomorph | hoydens | septic titpigs (best insult ever?) | scrannel | office | Chautauquas | pilchard | autoarchon | vergangenheitvolk | infelicitous | lissome | sanguinivorous | St. Matrix theory | chromodynamics | Geoffrey Chew | sarsenet | penetralium | heresiarch | tabac | Puddentain | coletit | bracken | avoirdupoiswise | hadal | mucilage | collet | alcahest | bolide
----------------------------------
Also: Quotable AF.
Merged review:
"How do you know that the call of the coletit from the bracken is not really the lamentations of the damned? The world’s a deceptive place. A lot of things that you see are not really there anymore. Just the after-image in the eye. So to speak."
A philosophical exploration on grief and the state of America/humanity masquerading as a quasi-mystery/government conspiracy tale. I'm giving this five stars because I was delighted to pick it up each and every time, I kept thinking about passages whenever I put it down, and I found the dialogue magnetic (sharp, quick, wry, insightful). We start with a deep sea salvage job where our main character, Robert Western, discovers all passengers died in the crash but one is missing along with the aircraft's blackbox. Things grow murkier from there but the bigger tragedy is that Western lost the love of his life (his younger sister) some time ago and is treading water in a whirlpool of grief. It's an odd book in many ways as present-day chapters unfold alternated with flashback sections largely representing the schizophrenic dialogues and visions Western's sister had with a kind of subconscious ringleader known as the Thalidomide Kid. A colorful cast of secondary characters in Western's world facilitate diverse conversations ranging from advanced physics to gender identity.
Like many a McCarthy novel, we have a character who seems in conflict with the contemporary world---in Western's case, he is both at odds with the law and with his place in the world (romantically crippled, somewhat unfettered by monetary needs, and bright enough to excel at too many things; seemingly seeking a simpler existence with some lost connection to the physical and animal world). In Western's case, think almost an Adam cast out from Eden and placed in a contemporary Kafkaesque United States.
McCarthy's prose is often quite delightful in his paired down fashion that fosters the occasional lyrical flight: "In the coming night he thought that men would band together in the hills. Feeding their small fires with the deeds and the covenants and the poetry of their fathers. Documents they’d no gift to read in a cold to loot men of their souls." At times, I could almost hear Werner Herzog giving voice to the bleakest of lines such as "The bore of one’s life closes down like a collet. A final pin of light and then nothing." So what begins with a mystery submerged in the tangible world comes to feel symbolic of the ultimate unknowability of existence and the relativity of all relationships whose being and location are only in position to that of others. And all of it potentially reduced to a meaningless speck of dust when we're faced with a life robbed of one's true love.
----------------------------------
A SMATTERING OF MCCARTHY'S UNWIELDY DICTION
electomelic | lemniscate | prelates | suborner | mailcandler | gelignitionary | seanet | gracile mesomorph | hoydens | septic titpigs (best insult ever?) | scrannel | office | Chautauquas | pilchard | autoarchon | vergangenheitvolk | infelicitous | lissome | sanguinivorous | St. Matrix theory | chromodynamics | Geoffrey Chew | sarsenet | penetralium | heresiarch | tabac | Puddentain | coletit | bracken | avoirdupoiswise | hadal | mucilage | collet | alcahest | bolide
----------------------------------
Also: Quotable AF.
ethaninglis72's review against another edition
5.0
Another piece of CM perfection. I’ll write more when I’ve processed it a bit.
docpacey's review against another edition
3.0
Q: there is no doubt that at 89, McCarthy can still compose lovely sentences, moving passages, provocative dialogue. For these I can give the Passenger a 5.
E: Nonsensical dream/hallucinatory sequences presented in Italics are just a signal for me to skim. It took me about 2/3's of the book to realize that there was no plot, no thriller, no resolution in sight, and while I still enjoyed reading it mostly (the Kennedy conspiracy theory was cringeworthy), I stopped caring about Western's existential angst because it was so obvious that he had checked out and had nothing further to add. 2
I: if nothing else it has warned me off of buying Stella Maris. 2
QxE+ I = 12
Merged review:
Q: there is no doubt that at 89, McCarthy can still compose lovely sentences, moving passages, provocative dialogue. For these I can give the Passenger a 5.
E: Nonsensical dream/hallucinatory sequences presented in Italics are just a signal for me to skim. It took me about 2/3's of the book to realize that there was no plot, no thriller, no resolution in sight, and while I still enjoyed reading it mostly (the Kennedy conspiracy theory was cringeworthy), I stopped caring about Western's existential angst because it was so obvious that he had checked out and had nothing further to add. 2
I: if nothing else it has warned me off of buying Stella Maris. 2
QxE+ I = 12
E: Nonsensical dream/hallucinatory sequences presented in Italics are just a signal for me to skim. It took me about 2/3's of the book to realize that there was no plot, no thriller, no resolution in sight, and while I still enjoyed reading it mostly (the Kennedy conspiracy theory was cringeworthy), I stopped caring about Western's existential angst because it was so obvious that he had checked out and had nothing further to add. 2
I: if nothing else it has warned me off of buying Stella Maris. 2
QxE+ I = 12
Merged review:
Q: there is no doubt that at 89, McCarthy can still compose lovely sentences, moving passages, provocative dialogue. For these I can give the Passenger a 5.
E: Nonsensical dream/hallucinatory sequences presented in Italics are just a signal for me to skim. It took me about 2/3's of the book to realize that there was no plot, no thriller, no resolution in sight, and while I still enjoyed reading it mostly (the Kennedy conspiracy theory was cringeworthy), I stopped caring about Western's existential angst because it was so obvious that he had checked out and had nothing further to add. 2
I: if nothing else it has warned me off of buying Stella Maris. 2
QxE+ I = 12
mattingtonbear's review against another edition
4.0
lot to take in on my initial read but overall this is a beautiful and strange thing.
Merged review:
lot to take in on my initial read but overall this is a beautiful and strange thing.
Merged review:
lot to take in on my initial read but overall this is a beautiful and strange thing.
Merged review:
lot to take in on my initial read but overall this is a beautiful and strange thing.
Merged review:
lot to take in on my initial read but overall this is a beautiful and strange thing.
Merged review:
lot to take in on my initial read but overall this is a beautiful and strange thing.
Merged review:
lot to take in on my initial read but overall this is a beautiful and strange thing.
philtor's review against another edition
3.0
Probably more like 2.5 stars. This is a hard book to follow. The dialog is hard to follow (wait, who is talking here?), the timeline is hard to follow at times as well (did this happen before or is this current?), and characters get introduced (or more accurately, they just kind of show up unannounced) and then go onto have several nicknames which you have to track. And what's with the discussion of the JFK assassination (and various conspiracy theories) that goes on for several pages about 2/3 way through the book? - it just felt like the author wanted to get his JFK assassination theories off of his chest... it didn't really seem to fit into the story.
I felt a lot of "what's the point of this?" while reading this book, but I also wonder if that was intentional on the author's part. Like maybe he's trying to get us to ask that question. I dunno. Maybe.
Merged review:
Probably more like 2.5 stars. This is a hard book to follow. The dialog is hard to follow (wait, who is talking here?), the timeline is hard to follow at times as well (did this happen before or is this current?), and characters get introduced (or more accurately, they just kind of show up unannounced) and then go onto have several nicknames which you have to track. And what's with the discussion of the JFK assassination (and various conspiracy theories) that goes on for several pages about 2/3 way through the book? - it just felt like the author wanted to get his JFK assassination theories off of his chest... it didn't really seem to fit into the story.
I felt a lot of "what's the point of this?" while reading this book, but I also wonder if that was intentional on the author's part. Like maybe he's trying to get us to ask that question. I dunno. Maybe.
Merged review:
Probably more like 2.5 stars. This is a hard book to follow. The dialog is hard to follow (wait, who is talking here?), the timeline is hard to follow at times as well (did this happen before or is this current?), and characters get introduced (or more accurately, they just kind of show up unannounced) and then go onto have several nicknames which you have to track. And what's with the discussion of the JFK assassination (and various conspiracy theories) that goes on for several pages about 2/3 way through the book? - it just felt like the author wanted to get his JFK assassination theories off of his chest... it didn't really seem to fit into the story.
I felt a lot of "what's the point of this?" while reading this book, but I also wonder if that was intentional on the author's part. Like maybe he's trying to get us to ask that question. I dunno. Maybe.
I felt a lot of "what's the point of this?" while reading this book, but I also wonder if that was intentional on the author's part. Like maybe he's trying to get us to ask that question. I dunno. Maybe.
Merged review:
Probably more like 2.5 stars. This is a hard book to follow. The dialog is hard to follow (wait, who is talking here?), the timeline is hard to follow at times as well (did this happen before or is this current?), and characters get introduced (or more accurately, they just kind of show up unannounced) and then go onto have several nicknames which you have to track. And what's with the discussion of the JFK assassination (and various conspiracy theories) that goes on for several pages about 2/3 way through the book? - it just felt like the author wanted to get his JFK assassination theories off of his chest... it didn't really seem to fit into the story.
I felt a lot of "what's the point of this?" while reading this book, but I also wonder if that was intentional on the author's part. Like maybe he's trying to get us to ask that question. I dunno. Maybe.
Merged review:
Probably more like 2.5 stars. This is a hard book to follow. The dialog is hard to follow (wait, who is talking here?), the timeline is hard to follow at times as well (did this happen before or is this current?), and characters get introduced (or more accurately, they just kind of show up unannounced) and then go onto have several nicknames which you have to track. And what's with the discussion of the JFK assassination (and various conspiracy theories) that goes on for several pages about 2/3 way through the book? - it just felt like the author wanted to get his JFK assassination theories off of his chest... it didn't really seem to fit into the story.
I felt a lot of "what's the point of this?" while reading this book, but I also wonder if that was intentional on the author's part. Like maybe he's trying to get us to ask that question. I dunno. Maybe.
cronopista's review against another edition
1.0
Cormac McCarthy is that nerdy kid who thinks that he´ll look very tough if he swears a lot. And boy, does he want you to believe that he's seen it all: madness and war and loss and physics and philosophy and cars and sex and guns. Except, of course, he hasn't. He seems to believe that madness consists in "seeing things", all of them random and unconnected to the life of the sufferer (the hallucinations that two of the characters experience never give us one iota of information about them, and don't seem to serve any narrative purpose); of war, he takes the self-mythologizing of combatants at face value; of physics and philosophy he's only learnt the art of dropping names and quoting quotes without providing the slightest insight, simply signaling that he MAY have read the books; and as for his experience of "life", it seems to be mostly entrenched in the increasingly obsolete gender roles of the past. Manly men who are basically full of shit and invisible women. To sum up, McCarthy has plenty of data, but no knowledge to impart. Beware of the world-weary: it's ALWAYS a pose.
Merged review:
Cormac McCarthy is that nerdy kid who thinks that he´ll look very tough if he swears a lot. And boy, does he want you to believe that he's seen it all: madness and war and loss and physics and philosophy and cars and sex and guns. Except, of course, he hasn't. He seems to believe that madness consists in "seeing things", all of them random and unconnected to the life of the sufferer (the hallucinations that two of the characters experience never give us one iota of information about them, and don't seem to serve any narrative purpose); of war, he takes the self-mythologizing of combatants at face value; of physics and philosophy he's only learnt the art of dropping names and quoting quotes without providing the slightest insight, simply signaling that he MAY have read the books; and as for his experience of "life", it seems to be mostly entrenched in the increasingly obsolete gender roles of the past. Manly men who are basically full of shit and invisible women. To sum up, McCarthy has plenty of data, but no knowledge to impart. Beware of the world-weary: it's ALWAYS a pose.
Merged review:
Cormac McCarthy is that nerdy kid who thinks that he´ll look very tough if he swears a lot. And boy, does he want you to believe that he's seen it all: madness and war and loss and physics and philosophy and cars and sex and guns. Except, of course, he hasn't. He seems to believe that madness consists in "seeing things", all of them random and unconnected to the life of the sufferer (the hallucinations that two of the characters experience never give us one iota of information about them, and don't seem to serve any narrative purpose); of war, he takes the self-mythologizing of combatants at face value; of physics and philosophy he's only learnt the art of dropping names and quoting quotes without providing the slightest insight, simply signaling that he MAY have read the books; and as for his experience of "life", it seems to be mostly entrenched in the increasingly obsolete gender roles of the past. Manly men who are basically full of shit and invisible women. To sum up, McCarthy has plenty of data, but no knowledge to impart. Beware of the world-weary: it's ALWAYS a pose.
Merged review:
Cormac McCarthy is that nerdy kid who thinks that he´ll look very tough if he swears a lot. And boy, does he want you to believe that he's seen it all: madness and war and loss and physics and philosophy and cars and sex and guns. Except, of course, he hasn't. He seems to believe that madness consists in "seeing things", all of them random and unconnected to the life of the sufferer (the hallucinations that two of the characters experience never give us one iota of information about them, and don't seem to serve any narrative purpose); of war, he takes the self-mythologizing of combatants at face value; of physics and philosophy he's only learnt the art of dropping names and quoting quotes without providing the slightest insight, simply signaling that he MAY have read the books; and as for his experience of "life", it seems to be mostly entrenched in the increasingly obsolete gender roles of the past. Manly men who are basically full of shit and invisible women. To sum up, McCarthy has plenty of data, but no knowledge to impart. Beware of the world-weary: it's ALWAYS a pose.
Merged review:
Cormac McCarthy is that nerdy kid who thinks that he´ll look very tough if he swears a lot. And boy, does he want you to believe that he's seen it all: madness and war and loss and physics and philosophy and cars and sex and guns. Except, of course, he hasn't. He seems to believe that madness consists in "seeing things", all of them random and unconnected to the life of the sufferer (the hallucinations that two of the characters experience never give us one iota of information about them, and don't seem to serve any narrative purpose); of war, he takes the self-mythologizing of combatants at face value; of physics and philosophy he's only learnt the art of dropping names and quoting quotes without providing the slightest insight, simply signaling that he MAY have read the books; and as for his experience of "life", it seems to be mostly entrenched in the increasingly obsolete gender roles of the past. Manly men who are basically full of shit and invisible women. To sum up, McCarthy has plenty of data, but no knowledge to impart. Beware of the world-weary: it's ALWAYS a pose.
corygrimes's review against another edition
challenging
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
tgabrukiewicz's review against another edition
2.0
Sorry, but this was really a confusing read.
Merged review:
Sorry, but this was really a confusing read.
Merged review:
Sorry, but this was really a confusing read.
Merged review:
Sorry, but this was really a confusing read.
Merged review:
Sorry, but this was really a confusing read.
obsidian_blue's review against another edition
1.0
Did Not Finish--10 percent.
Good grief this was bad. I tried to read this thing off and on for months and nope. I have no idea what is happening and I don't care. Every sentence is like 3 words and then it drops to another sentence and character. I just got to the part where someone (no idea who) is telling someone else (don't know who) that a person (?) is in love with his dead sister.
I am out.
Good grief this was bad. I tried to read this thing off and on for months and nope. I have no idea what is happening and I don't care. Every sentence is like 3 words and then it drops to another sentence and character. I just got to the part where someone (no idea who) is telling someone else (don't know who) that a person (?) is in love with his dead sister.
I am out.