This novel is written in its entirety as a dialogue between Alicia, Bobby Western's sister in The Passenger and her analyst at Stella Maris, a Wisconsin mental care facility. Since the dialogue is in some sense Mr. McCarthy discussing his deep thoughts with himself, and since Alicia is a mathematician, was a child prodigy, meets at least one definition of psychotic, may be suicidal, and has a completely photographic memory, the experience is intellectually intense. Other fine reviewers have pointed out the relationship between these characters and topics of discussion and other works by McCarthy, but this is mostly beyond me. Even so, I found this dialogue to be one of the best I have read. ( )

That there is little joy in the world is not just a view of things. Every benevolence is suspect. You finally figure out that the world does not have you in mind. It never did. [...] The world has created no living thing that it does not intend to destory. ( )

An entire book without dialog tags or apostrophes of the conversation between a patient in an asylum and her resident therapist. And I finished it reading mostly in the should-be-sleeping hours and found it soporific in a good way. McCarthy uses this volume to clarify some of the first book, [b:The Passenger|60526801|The Passenger (The Passenger, #1)|Cormac McCarthy|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1647021401l/60526801._SX50_.jpg|58040703] but also makes it a encyclopedia of mathematical, philosophical, scientific allusions to (last name only) myriad individuals Gödel, Hilbert, LaGrange, Teller, Turing, etc. whom are possibly familiar but not understood. There are interesting asides on psychology and music ("Music is not a language. It has no reference to anything other than itself. Why does some particular arrangement of these notes have such a profound effect on our emotions is a mystery even beyond the hope of comprehension.") and language: "We're the only mammalian species that cant swallow and articulate at the same time. Think of a cat growling while it eats, and then try it yourself. The unconscious system of guidance (necessary to survival)--everything from a blink to a cough to a decision to run for your life-- is millions of years old, speech less than a hundred thousand. Language arose from no known need." Or, finally, the gist of it all being that the father of these two troubled offspring (Bobby and Alicia) worked in Los Alamos on the Manhattan Project." Anyone who doesnt understand that the Manhattan Project is one of the most significant events in human history hasnt been paying attention. It's up there with fire and language. Its at least number three and it may be number one. We just don't know yet. But we will." ( )

Doesn't really seem like a novel to me, more like extra material relating to The Passenger. Maybe something like Tolkien's Silmarillion writings? Worth reading if you're into the main text. ( )

73. Stella Maris by Cormac McCarthy
OPD: 2022
format: 190-page hardcover
acquired: April read: Dec 19-21 time reading: 5:26, 1.7 mpp
rating: 4
genre/style: contemporary fiction theme: McCarthy & TBR
locations: Black River Falls, WI, 1972
about the author: 1933-2023. American author born in Providence, Rhode Island, who grew up mainly in Tennessee.

Expecting to be lost in complex ideas, instead I found this thoroughly enjoyable. It's all a conversation between a genius who has given up math, and now entered herself into a psychiatric ward, and a doctor who questions her and records the conversations, with her approval. I just found it fun to spend time here. The last 20 pages were a little tough, but otherwise it goes by on a quick dialogue pace the whole way. You can follow as well as her doctor can, who isn't a genius. So, it's very accessible. It's like McCarthy's comfort zone as writer.

On a side note, I was intrigued by the doctor, whose name is Michael, leaving me with the impression of St. Michael guarding the gates of heaven, or here the gates of the psychiatric ward. He has to play a perfect role to make this book work. Not entirely professional, but seemingly so. He has to be worthy listener. It works, and Alicia's confessions flow out in ways that allow the reader to think and enjoy (while knowing from [The Passenger] the tragedy around this.)

2023
https://www.librarything.com/topic/354226#8323383 ( )

The coda to The Passenger reads more like a sequel to The Sunset Limited screenplay. ( )

Brilliant ! ( )

I didn't know what to think after The Passenger, but Stella Maris is beautiful. If you've read McCarthy's screenplay, "The Sunset Limited," it is reminiscent of that. The entire book is dialogue between two characters, and it clarifies so much of The Passenger. It offers deep inquiry into where our existence ends, the nature of reality, and if there is something beyond the material world, and McCarthy does so without pretending to know the answers to any of those questions. It's beautiful. ( )

BLACK RIVER FALLS, WISCONSIN - 1972 Twenty-year-old Alicia Western checks herself into the hospital with $40,000 in a plastic bag. Alicia is a paranoid schizophrenia patient who is a doctorate candidate in mathematics at the University of Chicago. She does not want to talk about her brother Bobby because of her illness. Instead, she ponders the nature of madness and how people insist on having a single experience of the world. She also remembers a time when, at the age of seven, her own grandmother was worried about her. She also examines the nexus of physics and philosophy and introduces her cohorts, her chimeras, and the hallucinations that only she can see. She continues to be sad for Bobby, who isn't quite dead and isn't quite hers.

Stella Maris is a conceptual novel that is told entirely through the transcripts of Alicia's psychiatric sessions. It examines subjects such as the nature of consciousness, gnosticism, literary allusions, and the eschaton while remaining utterly grounded in reality. It is likely to make you question whether your life is being written by fate. It is a probing, meticulous, and intellectually demanding conclusion to The Passenger, a philosophical investigation that challenges our beliefs about God, reality, and existence.

If you are a reader like me you will want to immediately reread these two novels after finishing Stella Maris. The combination of these two novels provide a fitting postlude to the literary life of Cormac McCarthy. ( )

The second volume provided no real resolution, so for me the whole thing came off as a monument to nihilism. ( )

The star ratings seem not to fit this kind of a book. It's part puzzle, part philosophy, and minimal storytelling. It turns [b:The Passenger|60526801|The Passenger (The Passenger, #1)|Cormac McCarthy|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1647021401l/60526801._SX50_.jpg|58040703], its prequel, a bit upside down, and I'm not sure I get it.

But I do love a set of books that makes you think! And both this book and [b:The Passenger|60526801|The Passenger (The Passenger, #1)|Cormac McCarthy|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1647021401l/60526801._SX50_.jpg|58040703] definitely do that. To do either book justice, I feel I'd need to re-read them both, carefully noting the timelines and the relationship details between Bobby and his sister (Alice/Alicia). Let's just say, it's complicated.

In Stella Maris, all we are reading is the therapy sessions between Alice and her doctor. He inquires, and she responds. It's 100% dialogue (why aren't more stories told through dialogue? I do like this!).

Alice is a mathematical genius, and there's quite a bit of discussion on her views of math, and again, it's mostly over my head. But she also talks a lot about life and the darkness of it and the unconscious mind and how that actually works (or doesn't) and the connection between language and the evolution of man. Even more interesting (to me), are the implications about reality and how much we can be sure about it. The book is definitely very meaty, very intellectual, and to be honest, all I want to do is read the literary analysis of both these novels in the years to come.

If you are seeking entertainment, I would steer clear of both books. They aren't entertaining in the traditional sense. But if you enjoy philosophy and the intersection of science/math/physics, if you think about the purpose of life, if you question societal norms, if you want your thinking to be challenged . . .try them out! ( )

McCarthy should have scrapped 95% of this and spent the last 16 years working more on The Passenger. ( )

Stella Maris, Cormac McCarthy, author; Julia Whelan, Edoardo Ballerini, narrators
Stella Maris is a psychiatric hospital in Wisconsin. It is 1972, and Alicia Western, a 20 year old young woman, a veritable genius in Mathematics, signs herself into the hospital, for the third time. She carries nothing with her but a bag filled with money. She meets Dr. Cohen, who engages her in conversation several times a week, as he treats her illness and draws her out. She has been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic by some, but confounds others.
Her brother Bobby is dying in a hospital in Italy, the result of an automobile accident. She ran away from there, without telling anyone. She did not want to be pressured and forced into making the decision to detach him from life support. There is a concern for her safety, since she speaks of suicide. Since age 12, she has had what I will refer to as “imaginary friends”, though she believes that they are very real, and she engages with them. One is “the kid” who has no hands. Rather he has flippers. She has other visitors as well, and they seem to serve her needs. They seem to come and go at times over which she has no control. She has a condition called synesthesia. It is a condition in which one sense triggers an automatic reaction in another, like when a word might be seen as a color or a particular taste might accompany it. She refuses medication because it alters “her” reality which she knows is different than the reality of the doctor who treats her. She also believes they are not able to help her aside from giving her medication that doesn’t help, but boosts the profits of the pharmaceutical industry instead. She does not want meds or a constant minder.
Her parents were both involved with the development of the bomb at Los Alamos. They are both deceased now. Now her brother is “leaving her” as well, a brother for whom she has what is considered an unhealthy love, and she dreams of an incestuous affair with him. He has refused her attempt to make him reciprocate her forbidden feelings and emotions.
Not even 20 years old, she was in the doctoral program at the University of Chicago, and shortly before she was to complete it, she abandoned it and ran away. She seemed to make a habit of running away from responsibility and completing an effort. She finds it hard to deal with the loss in life that we all must face as people enter and exit “this mortal coil”, according to some greater plan. She is often sad, though she denies it. She seems to have never found either a true place in the world or an acceptable one. She seemed to sense the endings in life, and that was when her sadness and loneliness seemed most obvious. She was unfulfilled, largely because of her own efforts, but she was trying to get well or she would not have gone to the hospital.
I found her, in her madness, to seem cogent, as her explanations often seemed to make so much sense, even when I did not agree with what she said, or didn’t fully understand all of it. Some of the explanations in math and science were simply over my head, but her approach and obvious understanding of the subject matter, made me feel that she might have a rational point that I missed. I positively enjoyed the conversations between the patient and the doctor, which sometimes bordered on banter. Sometimes, her responses evoked a deeper response from the doctor than he was able to elicit from the patient. She understood that she suffered from some form of mental illness; she had no faith in the doctors who were treating her because many weren’t even sure of how to really diagnose her. When she was rational, she was aware of the fact that she wasn’t like other people, but then, she believed they weren’t like he, so how could they understand her. I began to wonder who was sane and who was not! No one could get into her mind; no one could touch her feelings or truly understand her pain. She could not fit in and understood that all things ended. It was that very thought, perhaps that lack of control, that was so difficult for her to manage and was what drove her to the depths of sadness, that she sometimes reached.
The two audio narrators conducted a conversation as doctor and patient that was as good as a living performance, though it appeared only in my mind. Although this is he second of a two-book series, I found it fine as a stand alone. ( )

I Am Become Death
Review of the Knopf Publishing hardcover (December 6, 2022)

But anyone who doesnt understand that the Manhattan Project is one of the most significant events in human history hasnt been paying attention. It's up there with fire and language. It is at least number three and it may be number one. We just don't know yet. But we will. - Alicia Western in "Stella Maris".

And supposedly Oppenheimer quoted from the Bhagavad Gita but I think the Sanskrit word for Time came out Death or maybe the other way around. Or maybe they're the same. - Alicia Western in "Stella Maris".

Time I am, the great destroyer of the worlds, and I have come here to destroy all people. - excerpt from The Bhagavad Gita Chapter 11 Verse 32.

Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds. - quote from J. Robert Oppenheimer as inspired by The Bhagavad Gita, after the successful testing of the first atomic bomb.

Stella Maris [Latin: Star of the Sea, a female protector or guiding spirit at sea (a title sometimes given to the Virgin Mary)] is the name of the Psychiatric Institution into which Alicia Western checks herself at the start of this novel. There is an intake form on the first page and then the rest of the book consists of transcripts of the recorded conversations between Alicia and her therapist. It is thus entirely dialogue. The book takes place in 1972 and thus predates the 1981 events of the earlier book The Passenger (published October 2022). It was published later though, so in a sense if is both a prequel and a sequel.

Without the context of the earlier book, Stella Maris will probably seem very repetitive and slight. Alicia is of the genius stereotype edging into madness. You have the sense that she is toying with the therapist and only humouring him as a diversion. Often she lies in her answers but then admits the lie a moment later. She describes her history as a genius child who was already a doctoral candidate in mathematics in her teens. The conversations cover her encounters with other genius mathematicians and the history of her father's involvement on the Manhattan Project, developing the atomic bomb with Oppenheimer.

We do also learn that she spent time with her brother Bobby in Europe when he was injured in a racing accident. I may have missed something, but I had the impression that she believed Bobby to either be in a coma or have died. That did make me wonder whether the entire The Passenger book was then a fiction in her mind if Bobby (its main character) was not alive.

As I expected in my review of The Passenger, Stella Maris provides no further answers but only deepens the complications and mystery of the Alicia and Bobby Western story. It is just as obsessed with mathematics, physics, hallucinations, death and the possible annihilation of life through nuclear weapons. But I still enjoyed it for Alicia's gameplay and especially her occasional diversions about the construction of violins, about music, and about Johann Sebastian Bach.

There are not any composers like Bach. There's just Bach. - Alicia Western in "Stella Maris"

Trivia and Link
In what seems like synchronicity, the teaser trailer for Christopher Nolan's "Oppenheimer" (2023) was released on December 19, 2022 i.e. shortly after the release of both of Cormac McCarthy's Passenger novels. See it on YouTube here. ( )

The hope was that the confusion in The Passenger, Cormac McCarthy's first book in this dubious and obscurantist duology, would be resolved or at least qualified by the publication of the second, Stella Maris. Unfortunately, this isn't the case and, what's worse, McCarthy doesn't even try.

Stella Maris could be described as a coda to The Passenger; it is a transcript of Alicia's psychiatry sessions after checking herself into the titular hospital 'Stella Maris'. This means it is composed entirely of dialogue, which is one of McCarthy's strengths, but readers hoping for something that might allow the book to stand alone as a literary piece, or even some plot development or character insight that will shine some light on The Passenger, will find themselves disappointed.

Instead, Stella Maris is an excuse for McCarthy to use his character as a mouthpiece for his own thoughts on philosophy and mathematics and the development of language and our understanding of the unconscious mind. I found all of this interesting, as far as it goes, but it's not a novel, or even an accessible literary concept – let alone the literary 'event' proposed by the publishers. Rather, for a combined total of £40 (at RRP) we've got an oddly-conceived pair of books that provide little coherent literary satisfaction – nor, it appears, any inclination to provide any.

I made my thoughts clear on The Passenger in my review of it last month, and if that was the venue for McCarthy's literary 'event' it was an incomplete venue, and what's more it was B.Y.O.B. and it rained and the band weren't in the right key. After the 'event', there's Stella Maris, the after-party. But it's less a coda than an appendix, something excised from The Passenger when it could have easily been included or spliced into it (explaining, at least, Alicia's hallucinations).

But just as it could have easily been included, it also – like that other sort of appendix – proves to have no real value to the greater functioning of the body, and can be removed without fuss. I'm sure McCarthy's die-hard champions will laud the intermittent successes of the Passenger/Stella Maris duology, but though I too found the book enjoyable enough as a discussion of high-minded concepts, there's no attempt to bring forth a complete literary vision. And as for Stella Maris alone, it seems more like an essay or a Socratic dialogue (though a non-critical one), and I'm hard-pressed to even consider it a literary enterprise. ( )

A series of philosophical sessions between Alicia (sister of Bobby from The Passenger) and her psychiatrist in the mental institution Stella Maris. Not sure this would stand alone without The Passenger for context. ( )