I’m glad Cormac McCarthy was able to make another book. Just goes to show that you’re never too old to make art.

I don’t think I’ve ever been so easily convinced to buy a book so quickly after watching a review before. Very well articulated, bravo!

This is, by far, the best review of the book on KZfaq. This might be McCarthy's most subtly complex novel and will reqiure a reread after reading Stella Maris. You've summed it up so well with, "It's like an explosion that signafies the end of the world, but beautiful." Very much like the explosion of the atomic bomb, I would say.

In a way this felt like Cormac's Brothers Karamazov in that you have a (presumably) final novel that encompasses themes and signposts from everything in his career.

I understand why this novel is divisive. But it shouldn't be. It is a masterpiece. One of those books that divides your life in two--the time before you read it, and the time after.

I was fascinated by this book. Like so many, I thought the synopsis was what this story would be about, but I was pleasantly surprised by how it really wasn't. One might think the passenger refers to the person missing from the plane, but I posit that Bobby is the passenger, just riding along through his life. My review doesn't cover as much as you do here, but I do talk about how some of the relationships in this book create the story. This book is going to be poured over for years.

I didn't know Cormac Mccarthy had a new book, appreciate the heads up. I was so engrossed in The Road I read it in one night. Blood Meridian, No Country For Old Men......there's no one in the history of American Letters that comes close imo. He is awe inspiring.

Brilliant novel by Cormac, brilliant review by Cliff. Whereas some reviewers just simply didn't get it or, and I truly hate this, expected and/or wanted a different type of novel by the author, Cliff sliced through the pages and was able to convey McCarthy's thoughts and meaning with his review, the truly most insightful review of this great book I've read.

Stella maris is a title of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Also, McCarthy's Stella Maris is being released on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. Which I find very interesting.

I love your videos, I mean LOVE with capital letters. You always bring us a present context and so many references about movies and others writers. Thank you for SO much!! I learn a lot here.

THANK YOU for this review. I loved this book so much, and it's been frustrating to see the mixed reviews out there. Your reviews never let me down!

Row, row, row your boat Gently down the stream Merrily merrily, merrily, merrily Life is but a dream Row, row, row your boat Gently down the stream Merrily merrily, merrily, merrily Life is but a dream Row, row, row your boat Gently down the stream Merrily merrily, merrily, merrily Life is but a dream Row, row, row your boat Gently down the stream Merrily merrily, merrily, merrily Life is but a dream

I appreciate you being straight up about everything getting taken away from us and how we will just be forgotten.

Superb review, Cliff. One of your best along with the Faulkner reviews. Love the passion.

I knew this was going to be a great review. Thanks Cliff. Very insightful.

I hate to say that this will probably be the last thing that McCarthy gives the world. But what a note to go out on. Bless that man. I hope I am wrong. Pure genius. The Passenger was unlike anything I’ve ever read, it’s one I’m definitely going to have to re read. I’m reading Stella Maris atm and like you said Cliff, I’m sad that it’s going to come to an end so quickly. I’ve been trying to take my time and not rush through them, because I agree I haven’t wanted them to end. McCarthy is the greatest living author, and when he passes, the world will have lost something truly special. The state of literature is in a depressing place. And once him and Pynchon, Delillo die, it will be dead for a time. Until some people who have truly been inspired by the masters rises from the ashes and gives us something true. Which I feel is inevitable, there is so much to write about these days, but no one is doing it. But it will come. I have faith. It has to. Until then, I will continue to go on read masters like McCarthy. God bless you sir.

The Kid. He never answers a question and Alicia rarely follows up. I know she says they are extremely real to her, but the interaction has that dreamlike quality where nothing works quite the way you expect.

When the male protagonist is describing his experience in Vietnam, it seems evident that McCarthy has read Dispatches by Michael Herr- one of The Great Books which just happens to be about the war and is brilliant in its writing. The language has the same feel.....

Halfway through your review but gotta run out for a while - can't wait to watch the rest when I get back! Loving it so far. The last section of this book was a kamikaze fist to the floating ribs. Gorgeous. Also, might be worth your timing checking out the chapter-by-chapter analysis on the McCarthy subreddit! Definitely helped me piece together some of the more perplexing aspects of the book.

Finished this book about a week and a half ago and it hasn’t left my mind since. I’d probably rank it above Suttree but below Blood Meridian in my top 3 McCarthy. Really any combination of those is hard to argue with though. Would love to see you do a ranking of his works once the Stella Maris review drops!

Happy to see your review of this, fastest click of the day

Did anyone else notice subtle nods to all his previous books? Certain words that were used like meridian, crossing, the road, refrences to a djinn (which the judge was suspected to be) and others. The brother sister relationship thing also reminded me of Culla and rinthy from outer dark.

This is a GREAT review. I love the format, thanks for sharing! My favorite parts from the book: 1) Every interaction between Alicia & The Kid. Even with The Kid's juvenile sense of humor (which made me laugh, idc) and the fact that half of what he says is gibberish, this is amazing writing. 2) The entire JFK discussion w/ Kline 3) Sheddan's deathbed letter to Bobby. The last paragraph had me in tears, and then the last line made me laugh out loud. A wonderful roller coaster. I agree with the video, Sheddan has the best dialogue in the entire book.

"You can find meanness in the least of creatures, but when God made Flexispot the devil was at his elbow. A table that can do anything. A drawer you can attach to the bottom. And another drawer you can attach to the drawer. And evil that can run itself a thousand years, no need to tend it.”

Cliff!!! Good to see you man.

I’m about 100 pages into ‘Blood Meridian’ in the space of a few days. It’s absorbing. Can’t wait to buy these two novel; I really appreciate your review. From Ireland! 🇮🇪

I just finished this book! This is why I love Cormac MacArthy because book has it all! Since blood meridian I have been reading all of his works! What an amazing read and for sure better than food!

Patiently awaiting the box set in the mail.

So like five years ago I had just fallen off a bike and put a spoke through my toe, and from bed I left a pretty terse comment under the Blood Meridian video to the effect of ‘I would love to see Cliff review Suttree,’ and a week or so later he uploaded that review. It makes me happy to see the appreciation upheld and to find his audience again, given how divisive this has been elsewhere. I don’t know, the guy’s a rare sort of fathomless mind.

Nice review Clifford. Cannot wait to dive into this book. There is a great conversation up on KZfaq between Mr. McCarthy and David Krakauer. And yes, check out more of Sam Shepards work, I especially enjoy his plays Buried Child and True West. Cheers.

Was hoping you'd get to this one quickly. Glad you did.

Great desk! Thank you for sharing 😍

Thank you for that desk review 😂😂 … oh, and death is the ultimate reconciliation. Our very energy is exchanged since it thermodynamically can neither be created or destroyed.

dang...deep af. had to take a few deep breaths ten minutes in. thnx for always keeping it real!

I just finished these books last week and now the man is gone and I am crushed. Phenomenal book.

This is a good channel. Glad I found it!

Spoiler alert** I want to ask you if it is your opinion that Alicia gave birth to Bobby’s baby? I recall the passage where Bobby dreams about the doctor. The nurse. The bloody scrubs. The doctors asks Bobby if she should see it before it’s taken away. Bobby says once something is seen, it can’t be unseen. I thought The Kid was a hallucination of Alicia’s deformed baby. What are your thoughts? Great great review. Thank you!

You've got me interested in buying a current book...thanks!

Thanks to you I'm on a McCarthy marathon. You said the best love stories are simply impossible... totally agree

I haven't quite decided yet but this might end up being my favorite book of McCarthy. Currently it's a tie between Suttree and The Road. However, this book is just incredible. Can't wait to start Stella Maris. Thank you for this amazing review.

Can't wait. I'll be getting my regular Barnes and Noble gift card for my birthday later this week. Now I know one thing I'm spending it on.

Edit: Got the books last week. Finished Passenger. Theres a lot here. A lot of stuff is overlooked by reviews. Hes a diver. The book is about how quantum physics is a dark horror that we DIVE into. Right? All of us Passengers on a ride we never asked to be ferried with through a life we have no exact control of. The passage about crying babies lining up with the overall theme of a "They or Them" that is after us. An unknown agent in the dark mysteries of the universe that is coming for us and they WILL get us eventually. I could go on for a while about this book. So much there. Not as great as Blood Meridian, but its in his top three, easily. Since your tastes line up with mine more often than any other book reviewer out there, this is such a relief to see. So many people have been labeling this book as a disappointment, or simply mediocre. I won't watch this yet for spoiler reasons, but will be back when I finish The Passenger

7:21 if you're looking to skip that ad

Great review on a life-changing book ... Random aside: Would be interested to hear your thoughts on Lydia Davis' fragments. She is certainly one of those writers who split your life into before you read her and after.

WAIT WHAT????!!!!!! It finally released???? I can’t believe I waited years for it. I’ll check it out soon. Cormac is my favorite writer.

Rest In Peace, Mr. McCarthy.

I think that one of the very prominent themes of this novel is trauma from past wars. This novel exhibits similarities to No Country for Old Men, where Moss is a Vietnam veteran, and sheriff Bell is a WWII one. The Passenger, The Road, and No Country for Old Men show post 9/11 characteristics of fears of the unknown and the atmosphere of terror, and reflection. Ever since Western goes on the run, he often recalls his time at Los Alamos (if i understood that correctly), the Manhattan Project site, he mentions Oppenheimer, uranium...all that stuff... when his father and mother meet, they meet because of scientific work in atomic research. Western once says that he realized he owed his existence to Adolf Hitler, and this is traumatic for him, as well as the fact that his father helped flatten Hiroshima and Nagasaki... I think that both siblings find this to be the family tragedy and this is why they stray away from science... Bobby goes racing and whatnot, and Alicia just ends up straight up schizophrenic... This questioning of science is a challenge to the advancement of technology and how it threatens the world. I dont find this too preposterous that since McCarthy often refers to war and its inevitability, that this book is another memento of about war, and how it haunts us deep inside, as a second hand traumatic memory. Thanks for the video :)

This book was phenomenal. It will stick with me for a long time. Great review.

The boxed set of both books comes out a few days before my birthday. Can't remember last time I was so looking forward to my birthday!

Excellent review, amigo. Gutes arbeit!

Been waiting for this one. Great review! Now I wait for No Country for Old Men...

I need to re-read this again. The book was so haunting because the antagonist just felt invisible and always behind Western's back. It felt almost like Kafka's 'The Trail'.

Welcome back to Pinellas Cliff. If you've ever though Scuba diving would be cool head to Bill Jackons and schedule a try scuba class. Night diving on a silent coral reef is like entering another world, an altered state on consciousness. Always carry emergency signalling devices in case you come up and the dive boat isn't there.

At about 19:20 or so you suggest that there's a kind of puzzle going on (having to do with Alicia and the hallucinatory troupe) -- I was very relieved to hear that this was challenging in that way for someone else. It's as you say: McCarthy is extremely intelligent, but also capable of writing a captivating story as a means of containing that intelligence; as a reader, it seems like this book and several of his others offer you a choice between being entertained or really understanding what's being put forth. Definitely something deserving of a second read. Thanks for the thoughtful review!

I've been waiting for this! See ya at the Stella Maris review too!

I found the themes from other Cormac Books showing up in the Passenger was very fascinating. For example the manner of Alicia’s death is very similar to the wife’s death in The Road. There’s also the exploration of an incestous relationship like in Outer Dark. Maybe it’s something in Cormac’s life that he hasn’t reconciled or maybe they’re such raw and untouchable topics that they fascinate him to the end.

Awesome books. Just finished it last week. On a side note I have the same desk and I can recommend it highly. Best desk I've every owned.

The Kid, and someone else in the novel, emphasize the idea that one can only see something if one notices it. Otherwise, one misses it entirely. Great video, Cliff.

Please mind, mild spoilers ahead. I read “The Passenger” about 3 and a half months ago and, just yesterday, came across a realization - or revelation, if you will. The fact that the story could be perceived as nothing more than the gradual descent of our protagonist’s psyche into a clinical state of schizophrenia, much like what happened to his sister, years prior. As it’s commonly known, underneath the schizophrenic condition’s roots, lies atavistic factors, making the put forth hypothesis considerably credible. The proposition only gains strength when reminiscing some episodes presented in the book, for example, one of the main plot levers: the governmental persecution of Bobby. Persecutory deliriums are one of the main symptoms found in clinical schizophrenic cases, which led me up to another moment of the book with similar thematic: the oil rig chapter, where Bobby beieves he’s trapped with someone inside the rig, in the midst of a tempest, thus casting ever crescent paranoia that culminates in being nothing at all? The fact that, while reading it, I hadn’t even considered the veracity of these events as questionable is astounding to me - Alicia was right, “doctors (and people, in general) don’t seem to take in consideration the cautiousness in which the insane’s world is constructed”. Also, reading the book with this in mind made its “disjointed” structure and some linguistic components and choices, somewhat logical. Hermetic and chimerical passages of the book, recurring in Bobby’s visions and dreams, could be allusions to the cryptic manifestations of language present in linguistical alterations of the aforementioned condition. This, allied with the scatological atmosphere that permeates the entire book, is just top notch wordsmanship. I think that, if I re-read it, more evidence of this interpretation would be conjured up while reading it. The fact that I only achieved this notion in such a long period after the first read, fascinates me. To imagine that it was just seating there, patiently waiting in the depths of my conscience for the right moment to come forth and present itself to me. It aligns with Cormac’s own subconscious interests in that way. Finally, I just want to clarify that I do not intend to reject other interpretations of the book. There’s also a lot more to it and I just thought I would share this with the sole purpose of hopefully resonating with someone else’s experience of the story. Congratulations on this review!! I really appreciate your channel and always look forward to hearing your take on books!! Thank you

So glad you liked it, I thought it was incredible

Ahh yes Bobby Western, the great iron-sphincter. A personal favorite moment was when Sheddan shared his dream of a horse in chain mail delivering no news (news being previously brought to us from the plethora of philosophers we meet along the way) and a couple pages later we see Bobby decide he doesn't know how to help the donkey being attacked by the wasp nest.

Your review is very good and I happen to agree w/ you. I'm 99% certain this prose is my favorite of all I've ever read. I really disliked the entire lack of resolution of all of the hanging loose ends, but perhaps that is the point. My favorite character to read is John Sheddan--love to "hear" him speak, even his ghost. Looking forward to Stella Maris. Always my best, Joe

First time watching a review from you, and you crushed me when you said you hadn’t read No Country. The movie (while very close) misses a key moment later in the novel that truly matters.

Hey guy - just found your channel. Am from Tampa and feel Cormac is probably the greatest living writer. Am working on a couple novels myself. Not sure if you'll see this but hi and I look forward to checking out your past reviews.

Just finished my copy tonight. You nailed it, guy. Great review. Better than The Road but not as good as Blood Meridian (I mean, you can't really get any better). Worthy of multiple reads and rambles with other literary friends. I don't buy the Thalidomide Kid and the Blood Meridian Kid connection. But hey, I'm no New York Times critic. I've never felt so satisfied with an ending that shrugs its shoulders at the whole thing before exiting the stage.

I've been meaning to pick this up as my first McCarthy

I came to these new books only about a month after I discovered Blood Meridian-and was blown away by it. I don’t know if McCarthy’s other books follow the Blood Meridian pattern, but because of Blood Meridian I came to The Passenger and Stella Maris on high alert for cleverly hidden clues to DEVASTATING REALIZATIONS to come. I was ready to interpret characters partly as allegories. I was also looking for a momentous climax of some kind in the book’s last few pages, like in Blood Meridian. Right now I judge the new books POSITIVELY: they tried something original and ambitious and arguably succeeded. But I can see a rational reader taking a NEGATIV PERSPECTIVE, which might be summarized something like this: “McCarthy is just vomiting up his pet philosophical musings through the mouth of a genius character in his story; the genius character is not realistic; the love story is not compelling.” I’ll mention one other specific concrete flaw in the books below, but now let me turn to my positive interpretation of the story. The story can be said to be “about” multiple things, but let me start with the suggestion that The Passenger is about schizophrenia, or more broadly: ways we try to attribute meaning to the events of our lives. We are reminded in the text that there is a genetic component to schizophrenia. The sister is diagnosed with some kind of (atypical) schizophrenia. Meanwhile the brother discusses various paranoid theories with people he knows. To quote Nirvana, “just because you’re paranoid, don’t mean they’re not after you.” When The Kid comes to visit the brother, I saw that as a dramatic confirmation that the brother has a milder case of whatever the sister has. No magical (or quantum physical) explanations are required, since he has heard her describe The Kid in detail. Two possible, hypothetical routes to some kind of salvation for the brother or sister appear in the story. One is their LOVE. In other works of literature, love is often presented as the purpose or meaning of life; and we are told that love conquers all. The brother and sister represent a deep and pure tragic love like that between Romeo and Juliet. The other potential path to salvation in the books is MATH, PHYSICS, PHILOSOPHY-some kind of intellectual or transcendental insight or mode of being that might “make it all worthwhile.” As I read I was looking for some way the two (love and math-physics) could be married to create some kind of consummation of their love, or redemption and peace, or something. So now the story is not just about schizophrenia, and I would say it’s not really about math, or the atomic bomb, or the Kennedy assassination either. It’s about whether there is a way to interpret life that is not…nihilistic or absurd or tragic. At least for these characters. We start with the puzzle of the missing passenger in the submerged plane. We realize that is not where we are going to get answers. These characters are also past looking for ultimate answers from organized religion. So we (they) are left with love, or modern physics and math. Over the course of the story we are presented with various dreams and hallucinations that might be clues to some transcendental reality in which the lovers are able to fulfill Alicia Western’s impossible dream of having a child with her brother. We have Miss Vivian, the older woman obsessed with the screaming of babies-could she be some kind of future-past Alicia? We have the possibility that the pair did have sex but lied about it or repressed the memory. Maybe there was even an abortion, and the Kid is an image of that and mechanism for “not thinking about that.” We have some characteristically McCarthian passages describing dark creatures emerging from strange primordial demonic soups. Most dramatically to me, we have the moment where the Kid brings a trunk and inside the trunk is a doll and the trunk is labeled Property of Western Union but the Kid reads it as “PROGENY OF WESTERN UNION.” Given that the siblings are named Western, “Progeny of Western Union” was like a slap in the face. On the next page Alicia is crying and saying she’s sorry to the doll. I thought that had to be a baby. The only thing that didn’t fit is that she said “I was only six years old.” What could that mean, I thought. Maybe the answer is in the unread letter in The Passenger. Nope. (Spoiler answer: she was six years old; the doll was just a doll. “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”) I was also carefully noting the allusions to physics and math. The main way I could see modern physics contributing to actualizing their love would be through the phenomenon of ENTANGLEMENT, whereby distant parts of a quantum system can be in instantaneous interaction no matter how far apart. Interestingly, this central concept in quantum physics was not really discussed explicitly but only hinted at for example when Alicia says she’d like to discuss BELL’S THEOREM in Stella Maris. In Stella Maris we also get references to the possibility of loops in time, and the possibility that “simulation” will be the real “afterlife.” Will the final pages reveal that they had sex and a baby? Or that their love created a quantum baby “made purely of light” that needed to be protected in some platonic realm? Or that Bobby’s life was just a simulation his brain created in a coma? Or that they are their own parents and that somehow that’s why Bobby or Alicia or maybe their mom is the missing passenger in the plane? (That last one isn’t even coherent, I don’t think.) No. We get a bit more about sex-talk and dreams between them, but no consummation nor any baby. I don’t think we get any far-out modern physics interpretation such as Philip K Dick might have written. No, the “boring” interpretation of the story works just fine: they had a forbidden love, they were miserable, and they died lonely and apart. They were preoccupied with things that could never solve the real problem: we’re all dead in the end. None of the potential “reveals” I could imagine as a reader would really solve the existential problem the characters face. But if the book did end with a reveal like that, that would give us as readers a sort of satisfaction that the characters can’t access-and neither can we in real life. So if there is an articulable point to the story, it might be a sort of warning to us newfangled atheistic types who get intoxicated by the apparent profundities of math and physics-that although they might appear to give us alternatives to traditional religion for making sense of the world, and making it appear benign or intelligent (as in the line in Stella Maris where she says the issue is whether the universe might be intelligent)-we might trick ourselves into thinking science offers an alternative optimistic worldview-but no. This book is a smack in the face to wake us out of our smug scientist-minded worldview. So ultimately, we pass THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS LIKE ALICE AND LEWIS CARROLL, BUT END UP BACK IN THIS BLEAK WORLD WITH SCHOPENHAUER. In Schopenhauer’s view the universe does have a mind, but it’s not conscious except in us and other animals. The mind of the universe is a blind will to exist that leads to different parts of the universe eating each other not realizing they are eating themselves. So everything lives according to urges we don’t understand, suffers more or less, and disappears with no lasting trace. Aside from the many funny parts in The Passenger (perhaps unexpected in such a dark story), the faint happy notes in the story result from human connections, such as the holding of hands at the end of Stella Maris. One other point I have not seen mentioned by others is THE RED SASH that Alicia’s body is wearing at the start of The Passenger. In Stella Maris she says she wants to be completely erased from existence and not found, but in the Passenger we are told explicitly that she wore a red sash “so that she’d be found.” So maybe she had developed her relationship with Dr. Cohen enough that she wanted to reestablish a connection with the rest of humanity-if only after her death. In summary: the worst spoiler for this story is: there are no spoilers. What appear to be spoilers are decoys. There are no spoilers because there are no satisfying answers that can be revealed, to the problems faced by the characters-or us. Final note regarding an apparent flaw: the author uses “dubious” multiple times when he appears to mean “doubtful.” This is not so minor because the characters are supposed to be hyper-intelligent and hyper-educated, and they make a habit of correcting others’ pronunciation and grammar. So it broke the spell for me (to some extent) when it turned out they don’t know the difference between DUBIOUS and DOUBTFUL.

Also going to reread this one soon - there was so much reflective depth, I need to spend more time in this book

It’s a short read, but would you consider doing a review of Cormac McCarthy’s essay “The Kekulé Problem”? It’s about how language and the unconscious mind interact. Apparently the ideas present in TKP had been bouncing around McCarthy’s mind for years and years, but he only finished it in 2017. When I revisited The Road it was fascinating to read through the dream sequences again and discover these connections to this short scientific article that he’d written more than ten years later. I’m really curious about whether these same sorts of ideas show up in The Passenger, maybe changed a bit because McCarthy crystallized them during the writing of The Kekulé Problem. Were dreams discussed at any point, either their contents or their interpretations by the characters? That was a big thing in The Road and the main point of connection to TKP that I found within it.

Fuck yes, I've been waiting for this review. Cormac McCarthy is my literary hero and he's the main reason I got into reading, I can't wait to read these back to back!!

Ready to come back when I'm done reading! On chapter 7 or 8 now!

Discovered McCarthy with the screen play 'the Counselor' and then the movie. Became hooked on his nihilism and our human journeys of illusion, including my own! Enjoyed your review and will certainly read 'The Passenger' shortly because it sounds like the sound of one hand clapping ......

God damn that last sentence of this book made me really emotional

John Sheddan is the funniest character since Harrogate, though in a totally different way. McCarthy doesn't get enough credit for his humor.

Loved this book. Loved this review.

Great review. Can’t wait to read it! However, I got 10 midroll ads and almost turned the Adblock on for your channel. Other than that, bad ass as always

Been waiting for this review and couldn’t agree more with your thoughts. Currently on my second read of the book and honestly it’s strange how much I’m enjoying such a tragic depressing story. McCarthy has truly honed his craft.

I am halfway through, will be back when I finish. So far so good.

Thank you, Cliff. Sold!

McCarthy says everything one needs to understand his works is on the page...or not on the page. If we disappeared, would there be evidence we ever existed? Perhaps there would be a strange empty seat out of place in an otherwise packed auditorium... The physicist is a kind of prisoner to physical reality, whatever may come... The mathematician, on the other hand, is "limited" to abstractions existing only within the confines of the mind. They are, both of these, confined and also limitless. What is inspiration without a composer, and what is a creator without a dream?

Love Cormac McCarthy, I found The Road and more of his books through your thoughtful reviews, now is one of my all time favourite authors, so sad to hear this novels to be his CODA

The Passenger both fascinates and frustrates me. Left Feeling like I missed something or several somethings?? But then who among us can claim to understand fully the author’s mind. This book is nuts and incredible. Multi rereads are in the future for me. Thanks for this review, you encapsulated exactly how I feel in a way I seemed to be unable to articulate. Truth be said, my brain hurts a little after this one.

Thanks for a great review it felt like we were just having a conversation. Got a question for you if the kid is just a hallucination why does Bobby meet him on the beach as well. Also I disagree with you on not having reconciliation. You say you have looked into these big questions and you seemed to want to say more on the topic but didn't (only so much time I know) I hope you explore these questions from all perspectives even if you may not believe in them...

Interesting. You liking this is definitely a plus point for me, what puts me off is not the low key or high brow nature, but people saying it's predominantly dialogue. And therefore lacking in prose.

Great review! Those damn feds, I wish Bobby found Billy Ray.

You’ve summarized the is book so well. I love Cormac McCarthy and his writing in The Passenger is so well done. However, the story was frustrating. I dreamed of starting my own book burning club just for this book. But that’s what true Art is all about right? Thanks for the review.

I'll watch this later, I ordered the box set, it's coming early next month.

I FUCKING LOVE YOUR CHANNEL. EASILY MY FAVOURITE ON YT. When I'm less broke ill add to the patreon.

Terrific discussion of a much different style. Listened to every word. I finished reading The Passenger myself a week or so ago and loved it. Stella Maris will be here soon. Thank you for the breadth of this coverage. Yes, there are spoilers, but sometimes we need a summary to be sure we're really reading what we think we are. Especially when this book starts out with one of Alicia's episodes. I thought I was in for some tough sledding, but once I got the framework figured out, I found the whole book thoroughly enjoyable. Better than that. It's a masterwork.

I read this alongside Spengler and it blew me away. McCarthy is somewhat a Spenglerian man, or at least has a very pre Socratic outlook on the world. This is an ode and end to the west. Hence Bobbies surname being “western”. Really beautiful book.

Great review Cliff! Not to spoil it for you but I think between the two sibling books, Stella Maris is the real prodigy. Both books and their qualities complement the intelligence of their respective protagonists.

Just bought it and I can't wait to read it! Quentin Tarantino's Cinema Speculation is a great read by the way!

I did something interesting as an experiment after my first read. My second time through, save for the beginning I've purposefully skipped ALL of the internal dialogue writing of Alicia Western. I wanted to get a picture of how Bobby himself relates to the world, having nothing but a life of as you noted, "dinners and conversations." There was a passage in the latter half of the book when being asked about his father and sister, the question was, "How good of a mathematician was she?" His remark in regards to mathematics and physics having "no answer to it" was profound to me. He is then asked, "How smart was she?" And he cannot quantify it. He remarks, "She was everything different. It was hard for her to understand, what you didn't understand." While they didn't have a "romantic" relationship, it's clear that Bobby was in love with the idea of his sister being something so different, and so unquantifiable that it creates a juxtaposition if you will that he cannot explain to normal people. Reading the book the 2nd time though in this manner, it has caused me to think ALOT about Alicia Western. She has sat with me in an almost "weird" way. Like he notes in No Country For Old Men, "What is the nature of you?" It has been challenging, and a bit frustrating in a fun, imaginary manner. I will put this down for a bit prior to reading Stella Maris and I believe read Brothers Karamazov/Suttree. Thank You for the review, absolutely love your content!!!

Want to watch this so bad but haven’t read it yet (ordered the box set which doesn’t arrive until December)!!! Have a like anyway.

Just finished it, it was excellent

There seems to be a positive correlation between age and personality. For example, Cormac McCarthy. We'd think his genre of books and consistent dark themes would have an effect to shorten his lifespan. But, it doesn't look that way. I wonder if depression comes in different forms. If that's the case, what's the best sort of depression... you know, to increase the lengthy of life? With regards to better health and longer life, perhaps, writing is better than food. Perhaps, best selling novels, are better than food.

I was thinking "Dinner with Andre" right when you said it. #culturegang

So good a book, I read the last page and started it over to re-read. I'm holding off on "Stella Maris" as a special treat. Why? Because I'm kind of afraid McCarthy is approaching his advanced later years and may possibly never write another novel. I hope I'm wrong. No matter, because all his books are worth reading over again, like enjoying old letters from friends and re-listening to albums from years back. Interesting review style. Thanks,

Haven't read the book so won't watch the video but quick question: do ur reviews usually contain spoilers? I'm guessing mostly not from what I've seen.

Maybe after you finish Stella Maris, Cliff, you can discuss Cormac Mc C. 's fascination with taboos. Interested to hear your take.