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A review by monkeelino
The Passenger by Cormac McCarthy
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.