This is quite an uneven book. It is short book, an one-hour read.

The form and the characters of the book is actually quite cliched. It is a typical Dostoyevskian dialogue between the faithful and the agnostic, and adding to that, the faithful is represented by a magical negro, a humble, uneducated, black man, who is versus a cultured yet agnostic professor. As is always the case, the humble, unassuming, who has gone through hardships and is eager to live and love, lives a relatively miserable life obectively, but subjectively he seems to be in a much better condition than the professor, who is upper class and cultured, and seems to have no particular reason for the "pessimistic" view of life, or of the world.

The point of view and the narrative that is given by the faithful now seems extremely cliched, while not at all stupid or ridiculous. It's better than Dostoevsky, but for those who have already dived into philosophy of religion and existential philosophy, it is familiar and repetitive. The point of view that is represented by the professor seems quite devoid of actual substance other than words, at least to me. But taking into account of the fact that people nowadays are willingly buying into dungs like Richard Dawkins, and they're still fascinated by those debates given in Dostoevsky's novels, the book might be worth of reading for them, since it actually touches upon some real stuff, and does it right - cliched, but not superficial.

In The Passenger and Stella Maris, Cormac McCarthy will not only touch upon, but venture into and dive into the real stuff.