Having read a few dozen books in common is more binding than blood. ( )

"Suffering is a part of the human condition and must be borne. But misery is a choice," and Bobby Western is a man in misery broken by the loss of his sister, several close friends, sought by government agents he knows not why, unemployed and unhoused much of the book allowing for extravagant descriptions of weather ("It had rained earlier and the moon lay in the wet street like platinum manhole cover.") nature, birds ("In the spring of the year birds began to arrive on the beach from across the gulf. Weary passerines. Vireos. Kingbirds and grosbeaks. Too exhausted to move. You could pick them up out of the sand and hold them trembling in your palm. Their small hearts beating and their eyes shuttering. He walked the beach with his flashlight the whole of the night to fend away predators and toward the dawn he slept with them in the sand. That none disturb these passengers.") The idea of the missing passenger from the downed plane is never clear, but I let it go as government chicanery regarding the missing passenger. I meandered through the author's digressions on physics, math, war, atom bombs, guns, cars and Kennedys, what is a photon? I did not love the hallucinations and dream segments, but I would not, could not, stop reading because of the dialogue, rich descriptions and settings especially New Orleans and Ibiza. Is Bobby's future a "nameless burial in the hard caliche of a potter's field in a foreign land?" Reminded me of past reading treks with [a:Robert Stone|14174585|Robert Stone|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] or [a:Jim Harrison|17055|Jim Harrison|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1384235534p2/17055.jpg].

Merged review:

"Suffering is a part of the human condition and must be borne. But misery is a choice," and Bobby Western is a man in misery broken by the loss of his sister, several close friends, sought by government agents he knows not why, unemployed and unhoused much of the book allowing for extravagant descriptions of weather ("It had rained earlier and the moon lay in the wet street like platinum manhole cover.") nature, birds ("In the spring of the year birds began to arrive on the beach from across the gulf. Weary passerines. Vireos. Kingbirds and grosbeaks. Too exhausted to move. You could pick them up out of the sand and hold them trembling in your palm. Their small hearts beating and their eyes shuttering. He walked the beach with his flashlight the whole of the night to fend away predators and toward the dawn he slept with them in the sand. That none disturb these passengers.") The idea of the missing passenger from the downed plane is never clear, but I let it go as government chicanery regarding the missing passenger. I meandered through the author's digressions on physics, math, war, atom bombs, guns, cars and Kennedys, what is a photon? I did not love the hallucinations and dream segments, but I would not, could not, stop reading because of the dialogue, rich descriptions and settings especially New Orleans and Ibiza. Is Bobby's future a "nameless burial in the hard caliche of a potter's field in a foreign land?" Reminded me of past reading treks with [a:Robert Stone|14174585|Robert Stone|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] or [a:Jim Harrison|17055|Jim Harrison|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1384235534p2/17055.jpg].

Merged review:

"Suffering is a part of the human condition and must be borne. But misery is a choice," and Bobby Western is a man in misery broken by the loss of his sister, several close friends, sought by government agents he knows not why, unemployed and unhoused much of the book allowing for extravagant descriptions of weather ("It had rained earlier and the moon lay in the wet street like platinum manhole cover.") nature, birds ("In the spring of the year birds began to arrive on the beach from across the gulf. Weary passerines. Vireos. Kingbirds and grosbeaks. Too exhausted to move. You could pick them up out of the sand and hold them trembling in your palm. Their small hearts beating and their eyes shuttering. He walked the beach with his flashlight the whole of the night to fend away predators and toward the dawn he slept with them in the sand. That none disturb these passengers.") The idea of the missing passenger from the downed plane is never clear, but I let it go as government chicanery regarding the missing passenger. I meandered through the author's digressions on physics, math, war, atom bombs, guns, cars and Kennedys, what is a photon? I did not love the hallucinations and dream segments, but I would not, could not, stop reading because of the dialogue, rich descriptions and settings especially New Orleans and Ibiza. Is Bobby's future a "nameless burial in the hard caliche of a potter's field in a foreign land?" Reminded me of past reading treks with [a:Robert Stone|14174585|Robert Stone|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] or [a:Jim Harrison|17055|Jim Harrison|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1384235534p2/17055.jpg]. ( )

Absolutely stunning writing, and I have no idea what I just read. This novel rewards careful analytical reading.. which I didn’t do this time through. Probably reader error more than author error, but I’m baffled. ( )

I had hoped that McCarthy's penultimate work would help me reconcile with the writer. It might just be me, but apart from The Road, none of his previous books appealed to me. And here too it didn't work: the sometimes absurd dialogues, the tough talk among men (who the hell still writes about the Vietnam War?), the treatise-like passages about theoretical physics, the banal descriptive scenes of successive actions, ..., no I just don't like his style. And then the attempt at suspense about the missing passenger from the plane that crashed into the sea: it did not exceed the level of a cheap action movie. In short, too much fuss about too little substance. That pretty much sums up my McCarthy experience. ( )

Is there a better American city than New Orleans for a literary setting in which a character hangs about, feeling bereft, searching for meaning and the true nature of it all, having philosophical discussions with a cast of characters? Or is it just that Anne Rice and Walker Percy and personal history have primed me to feel that way.

This novel is best in my view when Bobby Western is doing just that, and weakens (with one notable exception, visiting family in rural Tennessee) when he leaves town and exists on his own and in his own head - in Idaho, or Florida, or somewhere in Europe. Meaning the novel is best when characters are in dialogue with one another, discussing the nature of reality or the possibility of an afterlife or living with grief. McCarthy's prose in contrast often left me unsatisfied when he's just treating Bobby out in isolation.

Forget a traditional narrative plot, whatever the blurbs might say about the mystery of a missing airplane passenger; when a private investigator tells Western, about 60% into the novel, that "your problem is that you dont have any information," that also goes for the reader, and the situation doesn't markedly change. This is a novel of philosophy and ideas and musings, surely, so your enjoyment of the novel more depends on how you enjoy passages like:

I dont know who God is or what he is. But I dont believe all this stuff got here by itself. Including me. Maybe everything evolves just like they say it does. But if you sound it to its source you have to come ultimately to an intention.

Sound it to its source?

You like that? Pascal.

Personally I do enjoy it, despite the odd exclusion of apostrophes throughout the book. What's up with that, Cormac?

Merged review:

Is there a better American city than New Orleans for a literary setting in which a character hangs about, feeling bereft, searching for meaning and the true nature of it all, having philosophical discussions with a cast of characters? Or is it just that Anne Rice and Walker Percy and personal history have primed me to feel that way.

This novel is best in my view when Bobby Western is doing just that, and weakens (with one notable exception, visiting family in rural Tennessee) when he leaves town and exists on his own and in his own head - in Idaho, or Florida, or somewhere in Europe. Meaning the novel is best when characters are in dialogue with one another, discussing the nature of reality or the possibility of an afterlife or living with grief. McCarthy's prose in contrast often left me unsatisfied when he's just treating Bobby out in isolation.

Forget a traditional narrative plot, whatever the blurbs might say about the mystery of a missing airplane passenger; when a private investigator tells Western, about 60% into the novel, that "your problem is that you dont have any information," that also goes for the reader, and the situation doesn't markedly change. This is a novel of philosophy and ideas and musings, surely, so your enjoyment of the novel more depends on how you enjoy passages like:

I dont know who God is or what he is. But I dont believe all this stuff got here by itself. Including me. Maybe everything evolves just like they say it does. But if you sound it to its source you have to come ultimately to an intention.

Sound it to its source?

You like that? Pascal.

Personally I do enjoy it, despite the odd exclusion of apostrophes throughout the book. What's up with that, Cormac?

Merged review:

Is there a better American city than New Orleans for a literary setting in which a character hangs about, feeling bereft, searching for meaning and the true nature of it all, having philosophical discussions with a cast of characters? Or is it just that Anne Rice and Walker Percy and personal history have primed me to feel that way.

This novel is best in my view when Bobby Western is doing just that, and weakens (with one notable exception, visiting family in rural Tennessee) when he leaves town and exists on his own and in his own head - in Idaho, or Florida, or somewhere in Europe. Meaning the novel is best when characters are in dialogue with one another, discussing the nature of reality or the possibility of an afterlife or living with grief. McCarthy's prose in contrast often left me unsatisfied when he's just treating Bobby out in isolation.

Forget a traditional narrative plot, whatever the blurbs might say about the mystery of a missing airplane passenger; when a private investigator tells Western, about 60% into the novel, that "your problem is that you dont have any information," that also goes for the reader, and the situation doesn't markedly change. This is a novel of philosophy and ideas and musings, surely, so your enjoyment of the novel more depends on how you enjoy passages like:

I dont know who God is or what he is. But I dont believe all this stuff got here by itself. Including me. Maybe everything evolves just like they say it does. But if you sound it to its source you have to come ultimately to an intention.

Sound it to its source?

You like that? Pascal.

Personally I do enjoy it, despite the odd exclusion of apostrophes throughout the book. What's up with that, Cormac? ( )