The Passenger

by Cormac McCarthy

Overall, this was not my favorite McCarthy. Instead of continuing on to part two (Stella Maris), I may try to read one of his older books next. But I still thought this was good, and here are passages I noted:

Durance Vile

Why John, she says, is that you? I havent seen you in ages. Where have you been? And I said: My dear, I have been in durance vile. And she said: Really? You know my sister married a boy from Winston-Salem. And I thought to myself: I really need to get out of this town. (25)

(TIL “durance vile” refers to a long prison sentence)

God

“I don’t know who God is or what he is. But I don’t 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.” (70)

Western “thought that God’s goodness appeared in strange places. Don’t close your eyes.” (71)

“But the real mystery is the one that plagued Darwin. How we can come to know difficult things that have no survival value.” (147)

“Do you believe in an afterlife?” “I dont believe in this one.” (322)

“Everyone is born with the faculty to see the miraculous. You have to choose not to. You think his patience is infinite? I think we’re probably almost there. I think the odds are on that we’ll still be here to see him wet his thumb and lean over and unscrew the sun.” (324)

“I think a lot of people would elect to be dead if they didn’t have to die.” (326)

“There is mass hatred and mass grief. Mass vengeance and even mass suicide. But there is no mass forgiveness. There is only you.” (381) The next paragraph alludes to baptism – interesting. There is mass forgiveness – Christ died for the sins of the whole world (1 John 2:2) – but he does not believe it, and he doesn’t see the means of grace (e.g. baptism) which apply it to him personally. Yet he senses that the ideas are connected.

Little things, funny quotes, etc.

“You can’t get a decent cheeseburger in a clean restaurant. Once they start sweeping the floor and washing the dishes with soap it’s pretty much over.” (80)

“As the sign said down at the undertaker’s, remains to be seen.” (193)

The Thalidomide Kid makes grammatical points. When Alice refers to his “fellow cohorts,” he says, “Mind your grammar, Sweetness. Co means fellow.” (111)

“Are you all right?” “No. Are you?” “No. But we’re on reduced expectations. That helps.” (330)

Western’s father made bombs, “handcrafted,” “like vintage Bentleys.” (30)

Last of a lineage (of readers)

I know that you think we're very different, me and thee. My father was a country storekeeper and yours a fabricator of expensive devices that make a loud noise and vaporize people. But our common history transcends much. I know you. I know certain days of your childhood. All but weeping with loneliness. Coming upon a certain book in the library and clutching it to you. Carrying it home. Some perfect place to read it. Under a tree perhaps. Beside a stream. Flawed youths of course. To prefer a world of paper. Rejects. But we know another truth, dont we Squire? And of course it's true that any number of these books were penned in lieu of burning down the world — which was their author's true desire. But the real question is are we few the last of a lineage? Will children yet to come harbor a longing for a thing they cannot even name? The legacy of the word is a fragile thing for all its power, but I know where you stand, Squire. I know that there are words spoken by men ages dead that will never leave your heart. (137)

“The legacy of the word is a fragile thing for all its power.” I do sometimes feel like part of a dying lineage of those who read books and care about words. It seems to be a difficult thing to pass on.

*** “I will tell you Squire that having read even a few dozen books in common is a force more binding than blood.” (143)

“He pulled out a chair and hung his leather jacket over the back of it and sat. The chairs had come out of the mountains and were made of ash, the spindles and rails turned on a treadle lathe in a world no longer even imaginable.” (167) Another ending lineage. It seems like the world I grew up in also fits this description – the world of even 20 or 30 years ago. The speed of unimagination is rapidly increasing.

“A few more years and his grandmother would be gone and the property would be sold and he would never come here again. The time would come when all memory of this place and these people would be stricken from the register of the world.” (177)

The decaying society

But of course what really threatens the scofflaw is not the just society but the decaying one. It is here that he finds himself becoming slowly indistinguishable from the citizenry. He finds himself co-opted. Difficult these days to be a rake or a bounder. A roué. A deviant? A pervert? Surely you're joking. The new dispensations have all but erased these categories from the language. You can no longer be a loose woman. For instance. A trollop. The whole concept is meaningless. You cant even be a drug addict. At best you're just a user. A user? What the f is that? We've gone from dope fiends to drug users in just a few short years. It doesnt take Nostradamus to see where this is headed. The most heinous of criminals clamoring for standing. Serial killers and cannibals claiming a right to their life-style. Like anyone else I try to sort out where I fit into this menagerie. Without malefactors the world of the righteous is robbed of all meaning. (142)

The discrete world

Page 143, he says time might be incremental, the world “endlessly divisible.” This is what my friend Mike thought circa 2000. Smart people seem to carry fragments of thought like puzzle pieces, trying to find where they fit. When you meet someone (or read someone) who carries a similar piece, it’s a nice feeling. “I’m not crazy. This is part of the puzzle.” Your peices may fit with each other. At the very least, you can look together.

Writer as conduit

Look at this passage:

When it was over he stood and clapped. The flat dead echo halting off the quarry walls. She curtseyed twice and then she was gone, striding off into the dark, the shadows of the trees bowing to her in the light from her lantern where it swung by the bail. He sat on the cold stones with his face in his hands. I'm sorry, Baby. I'm sorry. It's all just darkness. I'm sorry. (179)

The writer at his best is a conduit. What does Western mean, sitting on the rocks, remembering his sister, and saying, “It’s all just darkness. I’m sorry”? Even he wouldn’t quite know why he said that. But it’s a true line, tied to a true expression, and the conduit carries the truth to the page, even if he can’t explain every word of it.

When was the last time you didnt see anybody

“You want to know when was the last time I saw anybody. I could ask you when was the last time you didnt see anybody. When was the last time you just sat by yourself. Watched it get dark. Watched it get light. Thought about your life. Where you’d been and where you were goin. Was there a reason for any of it.”

Wouldn't change things

“Been married once. No children. Amicably divorced. I dont have any tragedies in my life to give it a form and destination outside of my control. I like what I’m doing. But I could be doing something else. I’ve been blessed. I’m not even sure I’d change the bad things.” (265)

This is right. How do you know the bad things are even bad? Actually, for the Christian, you know they aren’t.

“Wherever you debark was the train’s destination all along.” (347)

“Suffering is a part of the human condition and must be borne. But misery is a choice.” (348)

Smart people doing dumb things

“When smart people do dumb things it’s usually due to one of two things. The two things are greed and fear. They want something they’re not supposed to have or they’ve done something they werent supposed to do. In either case they’ve usually fastened on to a set of beliefs that are supportive of their state of mind but at odds with reality. It has become more important to them to believe than to know.” (269)

We are all under arrest

You might think that fingerprints and numbers give you a distinct identity. But soon there will be no identity so distinct as simply to have none. The truth is that everyone is under arrest. Or soon will be. They dont have to restrict your movements. They just have to know where you are. (284)

Babies

The babies.

Yes.

Why were they crying?

We don't know, do we? We just know that it's unanimous.

(350)

“I’m not sure what the adaptive advantage could be to share an innate and collective misery.” (351)

Lots of great words that I had to look up

• ectromelic - born missing limbs (6)
• gelignitionary - gelignite is a kind of dynamite (31)
• vergangenheitvolk - a person’s secret past (113)

He likes to smoosh together certain words. Parkinglot. Canopener. Meatcleaver.