sonofatreus's review against another edition
4.0
So, even more than The Passenger, its companion book, Stella Maris is "Kukulé problem, the book." It even gets mentioned at one point. The book is a dialogue, not in the Platonic sense, per se, but rather a conversation between a woman and her doctor without any other narrative action. Everything the reader learns about Alicia, her doctor, or the people they know comes from what these two characters tell each other. And sometimes they're very clearly hedging or hiding information, if not outright lying. In that way, it makes for a simple enough read (two characters talking) but it's also not necessarily easy (tracking "the truth" on top of some of the topics they discuss). They get into some existential ideas and also social ones but, perhaps its most Platonic aspect, some things are left unresolved.
It’s connected to The Passenger by character and theme, but could just as easily have been read alone. Reading them back to back is probably the best strategy. After reading both, it made me reassess what I thought about The Passenger, and how the two work with each other. Each stands on its own merits, even if I didn’t follow them completely as individual works, but together they form a single (still somewhat incoherent) unit. I wouldn't go so far as to say that The Passenger becomes unlocked by Stella Maris, but it did help me better appreciate some characters and events that happened in it.
Thanks again to Anders Magnus for gifting me the set. I may have enjoyed these two more than him, so I've gotten the better of this exchange.
It’s connected to The Passenger by character and theme, but could just as easily have been read alone. Reading them back to back is probably the best strategy. After reading both, it made me reassess what I thought about The Passenger, and how the two work with each other. Each stands on its own merits, even if I didn’t follow them completely as individual works, but together they form a single (still somewhat incoherent) unit. I wouldn't go so far as to say that The Passenger becomes unlocked by Stella Maris, but it did help me better appreciate some characters and events that happened in it.
Thanks again to Anders Magnus for gifting me the set. I may have enjoyed these two more than him, so I've gotten the better of this exchange.
hizerain's review against another edition
dark
emotional
funny
inspiring
reflective
medium-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
5.0
sfdogmom's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
beckyramone's review against another edition
dark
emotional
fast-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
4.5
danuunad's review against another edition
4.0
Stella Maris is a demanding read. Intriguing, dense, menacing and at times just plain confusing. First, there's the matter of form. The book consists entirely of dialogue between Alice, a patient in a mental health facility and her therapist. Dialogue is one of McCarthy's great strengths, but the conversations in this book aren't much like those in his other books I've read. This is partially explained by the fact that McCarthy's never written about a character like this before, but that's not all. There's relatively little humor, and the complete lack of diversions lends a sense of gravity and breathless urgency to what's being said. Not that the topics being discussed need any additional gravity—it's all very, very dark.
Alice has a history of mental health issues, but is also a mathematical genius, starting her PhD in mathematics at age 14. She is aware that her own mental state is highly abnormal. At the same time, she's always experienced an extreme disconnect with the rest of humankind on account of her incredible intelligence. This leads her, that is to say McCarthy, to a serious consideration of the nature of reality itself. Can one legitimately assert that a certain, commonly perceived version of reality is somehow more correct than others?
Alice has nightmarish visions, featuring strange, chimeric creatures or a gate beyond which an unfathomable, unseeable (as opposed to invisible) evil lurks. Are these just dreams, or are the unspeakable horrors of the 20th century in some sense instantiations of a deeper, darker thing that permeates the universe and reveals itself to her through these visions? How does it all relate to her father, a physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project and witnessed the Trinity test first-hand? And what about her brother, who she cares for deeply but refuses to talk about? All in all, Alice's world view is extremely bleak. She contemplated suicide by drowning but describes vividly how a thorough analysis of the agony this particular method of dying must bring about changed her mind. Those who've read The Passenger (it doesn't make much sense to read this book if you haven't) already know where this all headed.
One of the most surprising and, for me personally, most interesting things about this book is the central role that mathematics plays in his worldview. I think that many people will, on some superficial level, agree that mathematics reveals something about the universe and our place in it. But I've never seen anyone take it quite as seriously as McCarthy does in Stella Maris. It seems that he has spent a lot of time and effort learning about serious, research-level mathematics of the 20th century and the historical lore of the mathematical community. It will not come as a surprise to any mathematician readers that Grothendieck features prominently.
Grothendieck was one of the towering figures of 20th century mathematics: he single-handedly founded entire new fields of mathematical research, revolutionized multiple others, was famed for his strongly philosophical approach and, most importantly (for McCarthy), resolutely turned his back on his fellow mathematicians in the 1970s and lived the last decades of his life as a hermit. During this time, he produced 1000s of pages of mathematical and non-mathematical writing, some of it brilliant mathematics but much of it angry raving against his former colleagues and friends. It's clear that McCarthy has thought long and hard about the meaning of Grothendieck's life.
Other famous mathematicians and theoretical physicists feature too, with Gödel and his incompleteness theorems unsurprisingly making several appearances (and I can't say I'm not at least a little proud to have spotted one anachronism: Witten is mentioned as a prominent scientist, though the book is set in 1972, four years before Witten got his PhD and a good decade before he became well-known). The book is littered with references to scientific topics like homological algebra, the Langlands program and Dirac's theoretical discovery of the positron.
But for all his research, I'm still not sure if McCarthy has arrived at any new insights regarding the role mathematics plays in mediating between humans and the universe. And I feel the same way regarding many other topics discussed in the book. Reading Stella Maris feels like listening to McCarthy debating himself on his own worldview, warts and all, without reaching any conclusion or even intending to. It's interesting, but also feels like something of a data dump. McCarthy has had ample time to think about his own mortality, and it feels like writing Stella Maris is part of his process of coming to grips with it.
Alice has a history of mental health issues, but is also a mathematical genius, starting her PhD in mathematics at age 14. She is aware that her own mental state is highly abnormal. At the same time, she's always experienced an extreme disconnect with the rest of humankind on account of her incredible intelligence. This leads her, that is to say McCarthy, to a serious consideration of the nature of reality itself. Can one legitimately assert that a certain, commonly perceived version of reality is somehow more correct than others?
Alice has nightmarish visions, featuring strange, chimeric creatures or a gate beyond which an unfathomable, unseeable (as opposed to invisible) evil lurks. Are these just dreams, or are the unspeakable horrors of the 20th century in some sense instantiations of a deeper, darker thing that permeates the universe and reveals itself to her through these visions? How does it all relate to her father, a physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project and witnessed the Trinity test first-hand? And what about her brother, who she cares for deeply but refuses to talk about? All in all, Alice's world view is extremely bleak. She contemplated suicide by drowning but describes vividly how a thorough analysis of the agony this particular method of dying must bring about changed her mind. Those who've read The Passenger (it doesn't make much sense to read this book if you haven't) already know where this all headed.
One of the most surprising and, for me personally, most interesting things about this book is the central role that mathematics plays in his worldview. I think that many people will, on some superficial level, agree that mathematics reveals something about the universe and our place in it. But I've never seen anyone take it quite as seriously as McCarthy does in Stella Maris. It seems that he has spent a lot of time and effort learning about serious, research-level mathematics of the 20th century and the historical lore of the mathematical community. It will not come as a surprise to any mathematician readers that Grothendieck features prominently.
Grothendieck was one of the towering figures of 20th century mathematics: he single-handedly founded entire new fields of mathematical research, revolutionized multiple others, was famed for his strongly philosophical approach and, most importantly (for McCarthy), resolutely turned his back on his fellow mathematicians in the 1970s and lived the last decades of his life as a hermit. During this time, he produced 1000s of pages of mathematical and non-mathematical writing, some of it brilliant mathematics but much of it angry raving against his former colleagues and friends. It's clear that McCarthy has thought long and hard about the meaning of Grothendieck's life.
Other famous mathematicians and theoretical physicists feature too, with Gödel and his incompleteness theorems unsurprisingly making several appearances (and I can't say I'm not at least a little proud to have spotted one anachronism: Witten is mentioned as a prominent scientist, though the book is set in 1972, four years before Witten got his PhD and a good decade before he became well-known). The book is littered with references to scientific topics like homological algebra, the Langlands program and Dirac's theoretical discovery of the positron.
But for all his research, I'm still not sure if McCarthy has arrived at any new insights regarding the role mathematics plays in mediating between humans and the universe. And I feel the same way regarding many other topics discussed in the book. Reading Stella Maris feels like listening to McCarthy debating himself on his own worldview, warts and all, without reaching any conclusion or even intending to. It's interesting, but also feels like something of a data dump. McCarthy has had ample time to think about his own mortality, and it feels like writing Stella Maris is part of his process of coming to grips with it.
akilahh's review against another edition
3.0
3.5. somehow enjoyed this way more than The Passenger, it made me dislike the first book even more if anything.
anaktoria's review against another edition
3.25
I think I liked it? It was similar to The Passenger in that it had some really boring bits and some really great bits. I think I would have liked both books more if I had read this one first. I don't know why it isn't first.