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darbycalm's review against another edition
3.0
Interesting read on math, philosophy, and even feminism. Are women actual witches or histrionic, or do others not want to acknowledge they know more?
This book left me with questions, some good, some that made me uncomfortable.
paraphrase of a quote I liked:
The therapist has to believe that the patient is the doctor, that they have the ability to heal themselves.
This book left me with questions, some good, some that made me uncomfortable.
paraphrase of a quote I liked:
The therapist has to believe that the patient is the doctor, that they have the ability to heal themselves.
joncoutts's review against another edition
4.0
It's unlikely this book could have existed without The Passenger but it is much better. More satisfying. Consisting entirely of philosophical dialogue between an amiable psychologist and a self-admitted mathematician-patient, it snaps along briskly into an ever-deepening but somehow comforting sadness. Comforting, perhaps, because the words are shared aloud.
Stella Maris reminded me of The Sunset Limited except that not once did the dialogue feel stilted - which is very hard to do, especially with a conversation this grandiose.
There will deservedly be much discussion about what McCarthy is saying here, but what sticks with me is when Alicia (the patient) says that she is at the mental facility because "of the latitude extended to the deranged". It's because "everybody here pretty much agrees that everybody else who's here should be here. Where else do you get that?" There's that comfort thing again.
Stella Maris reminded me of The Sunset Limited except that not once did the dialogue feel stilted - which is very hard to do, especially with a conversation this grandiose.
There will deservedly be much discussion about what McCarthy is saying here, but what sticks with me is when Alicia (the patient) says that she is at the mental facility because "of the latitude extended to the deranged". It's because "everybody here pretty much agrees that everybody else who's here should be here. Where else do you get that?" There's that comfort thing again.
monkeelino's review against another edition
4.0
"We can see the footprints of algebras whose entire domain is immune to commutation. Matrices whose hatchings cast a shadow upon the floor of their origins and leave than an imprint to which they no longer conform."
It's my understanding that McCarthy has been rubbing shoulders with some fairly heady company in his later years (philosophers, scientists, etc.) and it more than shows in this second book from his most recent two-book release where he tackles everything from incredibly advanced mathematics to the meaning (or potential meaninglessness) of existence and what constitutes sanity. Unlike the first book, which has a partial plot used as scaffolding and peppered with numerous characters, here things are paired down incredibly: two characters and nothing but dialogue between them. Western's sister and lifelong love, Alicia takes center stage as the reader is privy to a series of sessions she has with a doctor at the Stella Maris psych ward
Spoiler
(presumably, shortly before she commits suicide)Funny, insightful, heartbreaking... This book continues the incredibly witty, fast-paced dialogue, but feels more exploratory---a kind of vehicle for probing existence and what we know about it from both the individual viewpoint and the social one. Alicia's status as both a patient with mental illness and a young female (albeit, likely a certifiable genius) felt like an intricate dance between prodigy and unreliable narrator, a tango between defying and bumping up against gender norms (McCarthy, in my opinion, is not well known for his female characters who often feel either absent or secondarily functional, so it was interesting to see him give center stage to Alicia).
McCarthy's fictional worlds continue to be brutal, unforgiving realities, but here we have a tinge of... hope? Romanticism? Maybe just the acknowledgment that the touch of another human can be a firewall against the yawning oblivion.
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The Verbal/Referential Shrapnel I'm Still Trying To Identify
topology/topos theory | Grothendieck | gedanken | noumenal | Quine | Frege | The Grundlagen | Langlands Project | hebephrenic | dybbuk | affine | Deligne | Oscar Zariski | atavistic | Archatron | demonium | Ogdoad | eidolon | Lysenko | cohomology | Cantor’s discontinuum | homological algebra | Velikovsky
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Tell me I'm not the only reader who wanted to see Alicia in a speed-dating scenario for the sheer comedy potential.
ethaninglis72's review against another edition
5.0
I’ve officially finished the bibliography of the author that got me back to reading and I’m so sad! His last two works are very much his literary goodbyes and the Rosetta stones to his existence. Maybe not quite my favorites from him but I think we’ll look back on this closing duology as definitive works of literature of the early 21st century.
mattingtonbear's review against another edition
4.0
I love McCarthy’s dialogue and this is just a whole ass book of it. completely necessary to understand The Passenger. or at least understand it to the best of one’s abilities.
philtor's review against another edition
4.0
Alicia is a 20 year old former mathematical prodigy with photographic memory. She's given up on doing mathematics because she's made some discoveries that cause here to doubt math's foundations - something akin to Godel's, apparently (He comes up a lot here) - and now she's even doubting the foundations of reality. She's checked herself into Stella Maris, a mental hospital in Wisconsin. This book is a series of conversations between Alicia and her psychiatrist. The psychiatrist realizes pretty quickly that he's probably out of his depth here - mentally outgunned, but he probably doesn't realize how much; Alicia estimates that she's read over 10,000 books and some of those were psychology books. They talk mathematics as the Dr. tries to figure out what it is that has brought Alicia here. Lots of mathematicians and philosophy are discussed.
I liked this book more than the first book in the series, Passengers, but you'll have to read the first book to have a good idea (and possibly another perspective) of what's happening here.
I liked this book more than the first book in the series, Passengers, but you'll have to read the first book to have a good idea (and possibly another perspective) of what's happening here.
granolah0e's review against another edition
4.0
I love Cormac McCarthy and I appreciated the way this book made me think a little more deeply about The Passenger. What I do take issue with is the fact that this is the first (and only!) main female character that he’s ever written used solely for the furthering of a man’s story. It just makes me sad, I wanted a lot more for Alicia after coming to be so intrigued about her and her story in The Passenger. I wish this book was longer and featured more of her life outside of Stella Maris. And I miss the Thalidomide Kid.
common1's review against another edition
5.0
Well, what a rather darkly fun romp through physics, philosophy, and mathematics in word-drunk prose in a mad dash toward death. A little bit "My Dinner with Andre," a touch of Tom Stoppard, and smidgens of both Faulkner (sentence structure) and Hemingway (dialogue). This head-spinning novel is an eloquent, layered examination of love, loss, guilt, human existence, reality, and the mystery of creation. In a word: breathtaking.
treemenke's review against another edition
3.0
I only read it because it was the companion novel to The Passenger. Very depressing and too mathematical for me. Didn’t understand most of their conversations.