There are, in my view, few–if any–greater American novelists of the late 20th century than Cormac McCarthy. His final two novels, released simultaneously in 2022, form a fitting capstone on his career. The Passenger and Stella Maris are related, but very different novels.
Look, it’s McCarthy. Read it. It’s not even McCarthy in his brutalist mode, so if the horrors of Blood Meridian were too much for you, it’s fine. Read these two novels.
I’ll just mention a few things.
One of McCarthy’s great gifts is a writerly voice born to authority. In earlier novels, you would learn as much about horses and tack from his characters as you could from instructional materials; here, it is diving, especially related to wreck salvage, and, somewhat marvelously incongruously, theoretical physics. I know nothing about diving, and so merely surrender to McCarthy’s voice, but I know a thimbleful or three about theoretical physics, especially in its narrative (as opposed to mathematical) forms, and his authority there is well-earned. He knows his stuff and, far more importantly, continues to be able to weave that information into the narrative in ways that are natural, unforced, and not didactic.
In so far as these categories even exist, McCarthy is a writer of the masculine, of male characters, of male observation and desire, of complex relationships between men. So while Stella Maris does have a female protagonist, it is a little problematic: she is psychotic, traumatized, and incestously obsessed with her brother, the protagonist of The Passenger. She’s a great character, richly compelling. But also … I mean … come on, Cormac …
Finally, moreso than his earlier work, both of these novels exist in the realm of ideas as much as, if not more than, the world of action. The Passenger has an action-driven plot for much of its length, but even there, there are diversions into music theory, into the aforementioned theoretical physics, into the nature of reality and its relationship with delusion. I think its overall “readability” is incredibly high, but it’s not the pulse-pounding action of, say, Blood Meridian or No Country for Old Men.
Highly, highly recommended, as much in honor of McCarthy’s body of work as for their singular pleasures.
Note: this was written before the recent flurry of revelations about McCarthy’s consensual-yet-age-and-power-divergent relationships. Someday perhaps I’ll write about my specific streetcorner on the relationship between artists and their art and the implications of un/ethical behavior on our understanding of them and their work. But, today is not that day, so I leave it to you to make your own choices regarding Cormac, and others.
Thank you for this review, Daniel. I hope that you do soon post your thoughts about “the implications of un/ethical behavior on our understanding” of writers and their work. This is a vital matter, I think. As of the moment (putting aside the unquestionable usefulness of extratextual evidence to a critic’s understanding of a work), I worry that awareness of an artist’s vices and prejudices too often for too many people is a reason to not engage that art at all, and that for some others the only reason to address that art is to condemn it on ethical or political grounds, ignoring the question of aesthetics altogether. You are likely way ahead of me in nuanced thinking about this question.