Cormac McCarthy

1980, PASS CHRISTIAN, MISSISSIPPI: It is three in the morning when Bobby Western zips the jacket of his wetsuit and plunges from the boat deck into darkness. His divelight illuminates the sunken jet, nine bodies still buckled in their seats, hair floating, eyes devoid of speculation. Missing from the crash site are the pilot’s flightbag, the plane’s black box, and the tenth passenger. But how? A collateral witness to machinations that can only bring him harm, Western is shadowed in body and spirit – by men with badges; by the ghost of his father, inventor of the bomb that melted glass and flesh in Hiroshima; and by his sister, the love and ruin of his soul. Traversing the American South, from the garrulous bar rooms of New Orleans to an abandoned oil rig off the Florida coast, The Passenger is a breathtaking novel of morality and science, the legacy of sin, and the madness that is human consciousness.

The Passenger

Lindsay

Choice is the name you give to what you got.

Joey Baker

Might be more of a 4.5 for me. Couldn't really decide, so I'll set it as 5 for now. I'm sure that with a trained enough eye, all of the meaning that could be gleaned from this novel would objectively warrant a full perfect score. Unfortunately I'm a fucking smooth brain, and even with a lot of spoon feeding, there were some things I know that I missed. So subjectively, I didn't fully the experience the full value of this book, and according to this book subjective reality IS the only true reality. 

As mentioned, I had to turn to other sources (shamefully reddit) for hand holding me to the possible themes and meaning. But with that guidance, I was able to push really hard to grow some wrinkles in the ol' noodle, and found in some places I was able to do my own interpretation. If only for a chapter or two out of the ten, it was still the most I've ever put into understanding a work of literature. It's the most I've ever taken away from a book, beyond a story, or possibly any work of art for that matter. Maybe I'll be able to develop some kind of authentic critical ability from this point. But probably not. 

Mccarthy novels are so dense that it becomes difficult to read as I become suspicious of every single word, worried that I'm missing some kind of profound meaning. Reading at points became literally painful as I would develop a headache (yes I'm that fucking dumb). Sometimes re-reading the same paragraph 10 times, and then desperately trying to hold on to the thread of what I call a thought before it became lost in the tangle of 20 others in my ADD brain. 

But yeah, I liked it. I'm certainly attracted to views of determinism, as it helps absolve me of my own failures in life. And the exploration of our Consciousness is certainly interesting. The Kekule problem is pretty much a prerequisite to reading this novel. 

EDIT: Alright I'm dropping this down to a 4, because there's a slight thing bothering me. Which is that it seems like there's no actual arc to Bobby? Like WE are given more information about him and Alice as the story goes on, but from the start of the novel to the very end, I don't think there was any change to him. He was devoted to carrying around Alicias memory at the start, and seems to be his commitment at the end. He certainly experiences some changes like loss of friends and what not, but internally there seems to be no change to his character. Like I get that the actual point of this book is to explore themes and concepts, but there could have been more to the surface level to help service the book overall. 
Again, I'm a complete dum-dum, so I could just be missing something.

The Passenger

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