In the fall of 1972, Alicia entered the Stella Maris Psychiatric Hospital in Wisconsin. Her brother Bobby was badly injured in a car accident and his doctors asked her permission to turn off his ventilator. To avoid this terrible responsibility, she herself resorted to treatment.
Stella Maris is the second in a related pair of novels by Cormac McCarthy. Passenger, published in October – Alicia, a brilliant mathematician, sister of the protagonist of this novel, Bobby Western. The story consists of transcripts of her sessions with Stella Maris’ psychiatrist, Dr. Wilson. Michael Coen.
The main symptom of her mental problems is vivid hallucinations. “I have secret conversations with supposedly non-existent characters,” she says. She’s also kind of a nihilist. When asked if she believes in life after death, she replies, “I don’t believe in that.”
Dr. Cohen studies Alicia’s background. Her father was absent for most of her childhood, and she has incestuous feelings for her brother. But the topics that Alicia really wants to talk about are much broader.
Accordingly, they discuss the relationship between madness and reality, then between reality and mathematics and physics. Dr. Cohen becomes Alicia’s doppelgänger when she delivers a dialogue that takes on an almost Socratic weight.
McCarthy is constantly pushing the boundaries of literature to open up new perspectives on human existence. The 89-year-old man’s swan song fuses literature with philosophy, while Alicia deciphers the basics of existence.
as Dr. Cohen’s investigation of her delusions fails, pushing her own misgivings to inevitable limits. She realizes that Western philosophy is bogged down in the problem of describing what reality is. She also knows that science can only model reality, not describe it directly.
Since the millennium, McCarthy has spent much of his time at the Santa Fe Institute, a center for talented scientists. Some of the acquired skills can be viewed here. Apart from Alicia’s enormous intellectual baggage, it also makes her remarkable in other ways.
McCarthy hasn’t offered us a female lead since his 1968 novel. It’s dark outside – maybe it will show. Besides her borderline genius, she is very young (20 years old), strikingly conventionally attractive, and extraordinarily suffering: her mental illness is rare.
If McCarthy is a writer of boundless ambition, then Alicia is a very ambitious construct. However, it’s an open question whether her extraordinary attributes indicate McCarthy’s lack of interest in creating a female protagonist with more belonging.
However, there is no doubt that Alicia’s extreme facial features highlight her tragic stature, approaching classical stature. Unfortunately we know about it Passenger that in time Alicia would commit suicide.
Stella Maris A curious novel, but it must be loved. It’s difficult, but essential. The author, approaching his tenth birthday, masterfully demonstrates how with age comes not more wisdom, but a greater awareness of one’s limitations.
At the same time, he creates a modern composition of Hamlet and Ophelia in the indecisive, eloquent, bitingly funny and fatal Alicia, with all her cerebral ventriloquism. She is not one to be easily forgotten.
Source: I News
I am Mario Pickle and I work in the news website industry as an author. I have been with 24 News Reporters for over 3 years, where I specialize in entertainment-related topics such as books, films, and other media. My background is in film studies and journalism, giving me the knowledge to write engaging pieces that appeal to a wide variety of readers.