Jon W. asked:

So...what do y'all think was the deal with the missing passenger in the plane? The book seems ultimately unconcerned with the truth and why the government is after Western (which imo is a thematic feature, not a plot failing), but I'm curious what other readers might speculate.

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2 years ago
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Anders

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Tom O'Rourke Most of you are missing this. The Passenger is Alice, who resides in Bobby's head, 24/7, and "travels" with him wherever he goes and whatever he does.

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Franco Famularo

This answer contains spoilers… (view spoiler)[I've never written any reviews or responses on here, but feel compelled to after reading a bunch of critic reviews on these two books. I really loved these books, and they both stuck with me in a big way. So when I read the reviews (after I finished the books) I was kind of surprised at the wildly mixed and often negative views. I generally try to approach a book or piece of art with the understanding that the author / artist had an intention and purpose behind what they did. And yet most of the reviews I read seemed to make snap judgments and not think about what McCarthy was trying to accomplish. Why two books? Why release them sequentially? Why brother and sister? Why the missing passenger in the plane (but let's be honest - is that really why he named the first book The Passenger)? The most illuminating piece of information I found was an article that Cormac McCarthy wrote for the Santa Fe Institute that discussed the difference between the human unconscious and human language (I highly recommend reading that article because it will fill in some holes re: the below). Sections of that article appear in the Stella Maris book verbatim. Clearly Cormac McCarthy cares about the idea in that SFI article. My rough theory is that the first book and Bobby Western represent "language without the unconscious". And the second book and Alice / Alicia represent the "unconscious". (Again, read the SFI article and it might make more sense.) I think the missing passenger in the first book and the first book in its entirety is a red herring. You expect a "story" with a plot and a tidy conclusion, and you focus on the language, and when you finish the book and you're frustrated...and your unconscious gets to work trying to work out a puzzle - "what does all of this mean?! why the physics?! what happened to the missing passenger on the plane?! what the hell did I just read?!" I think the second book is meant to represent science (the doctor) examining the unconscious (Alicia) to better understand it. And I believe "The Passenger" is the human unconscious, not some supposedly missing person in a plane. Reading the books through this lens illuminates the structure of the first book (Alicia's "hallucinations" interspliced between Bobby's written story), the reason McCarthy gives for why Bobby gave up math for physics, some of the mathematical discussions and concepts discussed, Alicia's story around the Archatron, and a host of other things. When I read some of the critic reviews on these new books, I saw a couple of critics note that Blood Meridian was originally released to mixed reviews and only later became widely regarded as a truly great novel. I think that The Passenger and Stella Maris will follow that arc and also be considered truly great at some point. But our unconscious will have to wrestle with them for a while longer to solve that puzzle. (hide spoiler)]

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Rod Haper I just finished reading the book and my feeling is that there are still too many unexplained unknowns at this point for any meaningfull speculation. Hopefully "Stella Maris" will shed some light ... but I'm not betting on it.

Follow up: see my review of "Stella Maris".

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Judith I wondered about the missing passenger & some kind of government cover-up too, but soon realized this book isn't about the plane crash or its aftermath. As you say, Western's role in it & seeking the truth about it doesn't seem to matter; he dwells mostly in the past, & pulls us into his world of regret, heartbreak, & paranoia,...and maybe that's all there is.

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Omar Sabry There is a high chance that the "passenger" (and the fallen plane) might be a metaphor, but I also guess that the title "passenger" might be a red herring. The title does not refer to the missing passenger, but directly to Western or maybe even Alice/Alicia. McCarthy misdirects the readers, but then somewhere in the middle of chapter V he says:

"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."

You don't end a paragraph with the title of your book if this shit's not important. Here, Bobby melts our hearts because he struggles with a non-sense fight to defend innocent "passengers". The destination of these birds is set far away and now they are on a beach just for a break. This is an epiphany, Western already tried in his past to protect a "passenger", a very special person who was meant for more and probably laid in this life just for a little break.

If this book was about a "missing passenger", it would have focused on Bobby. This story cannot focus on anything that is not Alice/Alicia, so I really think that the passenger might be her.

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Wes

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Marco V. Almost finished. I am hoping lost ends are going to tie up in the coming complementary (?) volume... or something else is going to spring from the following book and give grandeur to what until now -I am a little reluctant to say this, given it's Cormac McCarthy we are talking here, one of my favourite and most respected writers- feels just like either a rather dull novel, or a deep introduction into a more complex history. The Passenger seems a little shallow litearature work wise, specially when compared to his earlier works, where either the Historical weight of the plot confer critical mass (such as in Blood Meridian), or the sheer emotional environment McCarthy is able to generate, coupled with what I call his "mythical" thoughs sprawled sporadically throughout the work (The Road), give his books a philosophycal weight and density bar to no other writer I have come across. That I have to see yet in this one.... hoping the second "part" will surprise and confirm my admiration for this anyway great author.

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Juliana Romano https://medium.com/@oisinmuldowney/co...

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Jill R I think it was all a delusion don't believe any of it really happened - it was all in his head

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Matt K

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Whisper It

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Normandy

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Joseph Ritchie

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Cort Williams The Thalidomide Kid is the missing Passenger perhaps, returning to this world to check on Bobby and give him a bit of closure. Bobby saw him which tends to support his independent existence. And it was noted that when Alicia moved it took him a while to find her-like he had to travel too.

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Wanda Keith I think I will wait for the second volume to give a fair rating.

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Luis As Rod stated in his comment, we can wait to read and see if Stella Maris will explain the meaning of the missing passenger. Perhaps the missing passenger is a metaphor for Western's personal losses that have settle into the depths of his memory. Or, perhaps the plane itself going down is a metaphor for the dropping of the atom bombs and the death that was left in their wake. Unsure if I will read Stella Maris, but I will look out for reviews and comments.

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