Review: The Passenger

The Passenger by Cormac McCarthy
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’m not a fan of Cormac McCarthy books having only read The Road. I was impressed by the stark landscape his words portrayed. It seems it’s the space between the words that conveys the loneliness between human beings. In The Passenger, Bobby Western is on the run for reasons no one really knows, including himself. But along the way, there are conversations that just seems to imply we are passengers in the ship of life, everything seems out of control. That’s my very simplistic interpretation of the overall picture. Along the way, physics, drugs, conspiracy theory and philosophy are discussed at length. More than once, I zoned out in the details but there are some awakening phrases like “no body wants to live if they don’t have to die” and the passage Bobby said on the beach to The Kid about grief. At the end, the scene that started the novel seems to bear no importance anymore. I hope Stella Maris would be a little more satisfying finish.

Regardless, at the age of 89, turning out two novels is truly remarkable and no one can fathom the wealth of wisdom and knowledge that McCarthy will die with, whenever that might be.

View all my reviews