Picador The Passenger

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This book is a book that engages huge questions about ontology and principles of science while nominally writing about a few larger than life characters that are powerfully drawn. While its scope is broad and the length may be daunting, the prose is accessible and seductive. There were many passages I reread because they were so lyrical. This has to be one of the most beautiful, inspirational books I have read in my life. Months later I find myself going back to the marked up sections to be reminded what powerful writing looks like.

Muy rápido y en excelentes condiciones.

I haven't written an Amazon review in years, but will come out of "retirement" for this one.Forget what you think you know about McCarthy as a writer. Those hoping for a retread of his earlier books will be sorely disappointed by this one. The style is unmistakably McCarthy--indeed, "ThePassenger" features some of the author's finest observations, clearest prose, and punchiest dialogue--but aside from that, the reader is in brand new territory.Narratively speaking, the plot is all over the place. From the smoky barrooms of N'awlins to a deserted oil rig off the Florida coast to shacks in the Louisiana bayou and the wilds of Idaho, to a psychiatric hospital in Wisconsin, the story's geography skips around almost as much as its subject matter. Underlying everything is a palpable sense of dread, paranoia, existential despair. What does the government want from Bobby Western? To what extent are the sins of a father visited on his children? What is the fundamental nature of reality? What is the ultimate nature of God? And what does any of this have to do with a passenger missing from a downed plane's manifest? This is a novel of questions, not answers. Anyone expecting the latter will be left empty-handed.Much will be made of McCarthy's mid-novel, ten-page riff on quantum physics, string theory, and nuclear thermodynamics. I'll admit these pages did little for me and the book would not have been any the poorer for having left them out. But McCarthy is 89 and he's spent decades hobnobbing with scientists at the Santa Fe Institute--I won't begrudge him his passions and interests, especially when the rest of the novel is so richly-imagined. Among other wonders, he invests the platonic yet deeply sensual relationship between Bobby and Alicia Western with the pathos of Greek tragedy, while providing enough scientific and historical arcana to keep the most devoted conspiracy theorist busy for a good, long time. Add to this the Thalidomide Kid--one of the most sinister, charismatic antagonists in all of McCarthy's fiction--and a vibrant cast of supporting characters, mix in a good deal of humor and heart (two qualities in short supply in much of his earlier work) and you have a recipe for something (beautifully) new.I don't think "The Passenger" can be fairly reviewed without giving it time to "set"--and perhaps a second reading. (I discount my own review for that very reason.) There will be plenty of folks--even McCarthy devotees--who will not enjoy this book at all for the fact that it's so dense, so resistant to neat interpretation. If I had to compare it to McCarthy's past novels, I suppose it's most similar to "Suttree," for its depictions of a highly-literate man who finds himself "outside" society.Those willing to watch a master try something new and revolutionary late in his career will find a great deal to applaud here. It's a messy, messy book for a messy, messy world.

'The Passenger' is a testament to McCarthy's literary prowess. A story that stays with you long after the last page, just as McCarthy's legacy will. The best writer of our time.