by Nicole Yurcaba
In my mid-thirties, I should know better, but 2022 was a year of war, social upheaval, loss, and heartbreak for me. Perhaps nothing says “being on the rebound” from a breakup than vowing to read an author whose work I’ve managed to avoid since taking The Road during the first days of the Covid-19 pandemic. Nonetheless, there was this guy I was trying to impress, and Alfred A. Knopf offered a review copy, so Cormac McCarthy’s The Passenger made its way into my reading stack. The things we do when Cupid hasn’t been kind to our hearts and someone’s offering free books. And, besides, I really liked this guy.
So, my friends, I took a gamble, and on one October day began the 383-page adventure McCarthy fans everywhere have so long awaited. Prior to this, I had only experienced McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men (the film and the book), All the Pretty Horses, and The Road. I remembered their grammatical and structural complexity. I remembered being lost. If those are feelings you’ve shared while reading McCarthy’s work, then brace yourself. The Passenger is all of that times ten. Of course, the novel’s grammatical and structural complexity mirrors the complexity of its main character, Bobby Western, a lone wolf salvage diver called to the scene of a crashed plane. At the scene, Western discovers the plane’s data box and the pilot’s flight-bag are missing. Eventually, he learns the eighth passenger was also missing. This mystery is only part of the novel, since Western is plagued by his past, which includes his mentally ill sister with whom Western is still in love. Weird, I know. However, without the siblings’ love story, the novel loses a great deal of intrigue since Western’s emotions throughout the novel are permanently shaped by the loss of his sister. In fact, at times, the psychological tugs and twists of the siblings’ romance and Western’s eternal grief over the loss of his sister overshadows the novel’s central problem–the plane crash. This overshadowing contributes to the novel’s plot complexity, forming a psychological abyss from which readers can barely pull themselves at times.
Deepening the psychological abyss are nearly impossible chapters like Chapter 5, in which Western and his bar-loving cohorts take readers on an in-depth, wandering expedition into intricate quantum physics theories. It’s at this point that most readers will probably make a choice–to finish The Passenger or to not finish The Passenger. Because I was in need of a challenge, nerdy, and trying to impress this guy, I chose the latter. I consider myself an educated woman in a variety of subjects, and, yet, Chapter 5 made me feel infinitely…stupid, so much so that I A) momentarily thought about skipping the chapter’s remaining pages; B) thought about quitting reading; C) prayed for the novel’s end to come swiftly and quickly, which, after Chapter 5, it does. I did not, however, reveal any of that to the guy I was trying to impress. Oh, the things we do for potential partnership as we’re mending a broken heart…
In spite of the abyss that is The Passenger, the novel possesses a few redeeming qualities. For one, it is a unique exploration of grief via Western’s character, despite the sheer creep factor of Western being irrevocably in love with his sister. As Western plummets into a mental state mimicking his sister’s schizophrenia, he encounters Thalidomide Kid, a grotesque character present in Western’s sister’s hallucinations. Western’s grief is visceral, accessible: “What do you know of grief? he called. You know nothing. There is no other loss. Do you understand? The world is ashes. Ashes. For her to be in pain? The least insult? The least humiliation? Do you understand? For her to die alone? Her? There is no other loss? Do you understand? No other loss. None.” Philosophically, Western’s grief represents pain’s universality and its cyclical, almost inescapable viciousness. Western’s brokenness offers readers a unique way to interpret their own: “I suppose in the end what we have to offer is only what we’ve lost.” This powerful insight reads like a Westernized (no pun intended), human version of the Kintsugi technique.
Occasionally, readers encounter condensed, insightful snippets like “The dead cant love you back,” and readers are allowed to momentarily rise to the surface and breathe before McCarthy’s dense writing shoves their heads once again into the abyss. Others offer insights about an individual’s agency as well as the agency of individual action: “Mercy is the province of the person alone. There is mass hatred and there is mass grief. Mass vengeance and even mass suicide. But there is no mass forgiveness. There is only you.” This message of individualism parallels another philosophy McCarthy subtly interjects throughout the novel–Transcendentalism.
The Transcendentalists advocated for solitude, and any of the novel’s characters, including Western, live overtly lonely, isolated lives. Ralph Waldo Emerson operated on the idea that solitude began in the mundanity of everyday social interactions and eventually evolved into something deeper and more meaningful with the depth and meaningfulness depending on the individual. Western is the poster-child for this type of solitude, while his friend, Borman, is a warning to readers about the dangers of self-isolation. Borman’s experience in self-isolation borders on self-harm, which is evident when he confesses to experiencing similar visions to those of Western’s sister: “Tell me about it. I have weird dreams, man. I dream about animals sometimes and they’ll be dressed up in robes like judges and they’ll be trying to decide what to do with my ass. In the dream I dont know what it is that I’ve done. Just that I’ve done it. You may be right. Maybe I need to get out of here.” Borman is a base, vulgar character whose simplicity balances Western’s enigmatism. His lewdness and crudeness are off-putting, yet insanely memorable. Perhaps those familiar with McCarthy’s biography will not be surprised that a man who identifies as a teetotaler and who once, along with Edward Abbey, considered releasing wolves into southern Arizona in order to recover their decimated populations would insert a sprig or three of Transcendentalism into this long-awaited novel. Maintaining a healthy human existence that balances its relationship with nature is evident in McCarthy’s portrayal of Western’s relationship with birds. Readers encounter a gentler side of Western as he transforms into a man who holds birds in the palm of his hand, who walks the beaches holding a flashlight for the entire night to “fend away predators” and who sleeps in the sand with the birds. Readers might infer that Western is experiencing some sort of breakdown, but despite this he determines that he must protect the birds, which unlike his sister, he can save.
In conclusion, was The Passenger worth the time I invested in reading it? I’m going to answer that with a firm “Meh.” It’s not a book I plan on returning to (ever), but since many consider McCarthy as the greatest living American writer, I’m glad I took the time to read yet another of his books. It reminded me as to why I can only read a McCarthy novel once every ten years or so. And as for impressing that crush? Well, friends, I’d rather read good books instead.
Nicole Yurcaba (Ukrainian: Нікола Юрцаба–Nikola Yurtsaba) is a Ukrainian (Hutsul/Lemko) American poet and essayist. Her poems and essays have appeared in The Atlanta Review, The Lindenwood Review, Whiskey Island, Raven Chronicles, West Trade Review, Appalachian Heritage, North of Oxford, and many other online and print journals. Nicole teaches poetry workshops for Southern New Hampshire University and is a guest book reviewer for Sage Cigarettes, Tupelo Quarterly, Colorado Review, and The Southern Review of Books.
