Customer Reviews

Passage

5 star:		(89)
4 star:		(42)
3 star:		(40)
2 star:		(33)
1 star:		(20)

 

 

Connie Willis has established a fine reputation within the science fiction field for her satires, her mixtures of finely-detailed, fully researched history and the speculative, and her treatment of emotionally charged thematic material. This book is not only no exception, it should enhance her reputation even more.

The basic scientific point of departure here is the 'near death experience' (NDE), the 'light at the end of the tunnel' that many people have related in one form or another after close brushes with death. Joanna Lander is investigating the phenomenon from the psychological point of view and Richard Wright from the bio-chemical aspect. Dr. Wright has discovered a chemical that allows the apparent simulation of an NDE, and teams with Joanna as an expert interviewer for his test subjects. Due to a lack of suitable test subjects, Joanna eventually decides to try it herself, starting down a long road that leads by Pompeii, the Hindenberg disaster, the Great Molasses Flood, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and for a large portion of the book, the Titanic.

Willis' main characters are exceptionally vivid. Most of the book is told from Joanna's point of view, and it is very hard not to get drawn in to her slow spiral to near-obsession with NDE's and the Titanic. Maize, a young girl with a major heart problem, will endear herself to you within two pages, possibly because of her unflinching, almost gleeful interest in the most horrible disasters of all time. Within the secondary characters we find all the usual Willis trademark intentional caricatures, from the snake-oil self-aggrandizing Mr. Mandrake, to the super-gullible matron of Mrs. Davenport, to the over-protective mother of Maize, to the over-talkative not-totally-truthful WWII veteran Mr. Wojakowski. These characters are mainly good for sticking pins in, along with some sharp spikes directed at hospital bureaucracies (and hospital buildings!), depicted here as so far removed from reality as to be almost surrealistic.

But the satire is truly secondary to the main thrust of this book, which is a real investigation into not only what death is and what may lie beyond it, but what living is all about, even in the face of accident, pain, and tragedy. Along the way are some very interesting thoughts about how long-term associational memory works. The title of this review is an example: I had seen those three letters before, and recognized them the first time I encountered them in the book, but I couldn't remember when or where I had learned about them or what they meant. Later in the book when I saw them in context, I said "That's where I saw them!" (they have to do with some of the messages that were sent by the Titanic). Willis does a good job of explaining why this type of memory problem occurs, and also why certain 'coincidences' seem to occur (numbers players will not be happy with this).

True to form, Willis' historical research is impressive, not just about details of the Titanic disaster, but several others as well, and her chapter titles of the last words of famous people are extremely interesting. My favorite was Beethoven's: "I shall hear in heaven".

This book may be just a smidgen less excellent that her Doomsday Book, but both are high powered, emotional looks at the business of both living and dying, at religion and belief, at heroism and banality, and will find a secure lodging in both your brain and your heart.

Despite the length of this and some of her other works, Connie Willis proves herself, in Passage, to be a writer for whom less is truly more. The plot of this book is relatively simple: Joanna Lander, a psychiatrist who researches Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) at the tortuous Mercy General Hospital, teams up with a young and brilliant neurologist named Richard Wright who has taken NDE research to the next level by administering drugs that simulate the near-death state. Together, they hope to uncover an explanation for why the mind sees strange visions for the several minutes before brain-death occurs, in order to better be able to revive patients. When most of the research volunteers turn out to be crackpots and lunatics, Joanna begins undergoing the tests herself in order to further the project. The rest of the book deals with what she sees during the sessions and the seemingly fruitless search for an explanation.

Willis fills this simple plot arc with a series of deliberately caricatured minor characters such as the credulous Mr. Mandrake, publisher of works with names like "Messages from the Other Side," who goes about the hospital trying to make sure patients' NDEs match up with his pre-conceived notions of the afterlife. Even the more sympathetic minor characters, like young Maisie Nellis, a girl with a severe heart condition, tell stories that are largely repetetive. It is almost possible to predict exactly what each character will say to another by halfway through the book. All this, I'm convinced, is intentional: through the use of repetition, garrulous and unvaried minor characters, and by harping on themes like the confusing tortuousness of the hospital and Dr. Wright's continual reading of brain scans, Willis builds the tension and cluastrophobia to the breaking point. She keeps the reader hooked by slowly, stubbornly ceding details about Joanna's own NDEs and repeatedly moving important information just out of the characters' -- and the reader's -- grasp.

She then proceeds to shatter this tense situation with a plot-twist all the more unbelieveable due to the claustrophobic repetition used up to that point; from there, you will not be able to put the work down until the very last page.

I've read many books and this is one of the few that I have willingly sacrificed hours of sleep for. Willis puts a lot on the line: she sets up a situation in which she basically needs to settle questions of faith and doubt, materialism and spiriutalism, life, death, and the afterlife in order to effect a satisfying resolution. The book is actually philosophically exciting, which is unusual in a "thriller." And, somehow, she manages to write a satisfying conclusion both on the level of characters and ideas -- not to mention bringing out some of the rich and beautiful prose for the first time; the writing everywhere else is terse and minimal, like the book as a whole.

I suppose I needn't add that I highly recommend this novel. It is a satisfying read on every level and not to be missed.

I promise to try to review this without going to plot details that might ruin it.

I am an admitted fan of Connie Willis, and looked forward to reading Passage. I had only read the first chapter prior to buying it, and while I was a bit hesitant at the concept of NDEs, I thought, "Hey, its Connie Willis!" and plunked down my credit card to buy it. Took it home, and started reading.

Here's my two cents:

The bad: Yes, there does seem to be a lot of "ducking down hallways". Yes, it is busy and does get tedious at parts. Yes, it does involve the Titantic. Yes, someone ought to buy Connie Willis a thesaurus for the word 'confabulation'. And yes, there are some stereotypes in here.

But the good outweighs it. I genuinely cared for Joanna, Richard, Vielle and Maisie. The emotional attachment I develop for the characters is one of those factors in what I think a good book is.

Willis also manages to poke fun at so much in the genre, that a few times I had to just pause and laugh myself silly. (The quips about Celine Dion and 'Flatliners' really got to me.) To me, humor is a vital book element in dealing with a serious subject.

Characterization is classic Willis. With a few simple words, she can almost sum up a whole person. Even the character stereotypes that Willis has included are not your standard cliches. (Mandrake comes to my mind first.) She manages to make them seem fresh and interesting. Also, there are no real "bad" guys in Passage. I find that refreshing as opposed to the classic megalomanical or serial murderer plot threads that seem to permeate science fiction these days.

The story itself is well thought, and layered with meaning. As other people have pointed out in their reviews, this is definitely a thinking novel. There is so much going on from page one, that I think it will definitely require multiple readings just to pick up on her ideas. I started reading Passage with one set of ideas about near-death and after-death experiences...and have come away realizing that my thoughts and beliefs aren't as evolved out as I thought.

So when you can laugh and cry and root for the characters, even through the tedious parts....And can come away from the ending going "wow, I never thought of that, I wish I had before!" That to me, is a sign of a good book. And Passage has it in spades.

I'd give this book a rating of 5 stars, but it wasn't perfect (for the bad reasons I mentioned earlier). If only Amazon let me give half stars in addtion.

As another reviewer mentioned: when you get down to the last 100 pages... Plan on reading them uninterrupted.

There. My two cents. Take 'em baby, or leave 'em.

It's hard to tell whether Connie Willis is writing the same book everytime, or whether each one is very different. Maybe both, but they're always "novels of ideas." Twenty pages into this one, I found myself wading through a molasses of biochemical jargon and thought, "I'll never be able to finish this." But then I got into the metaphorical parallels between the hospital and the TITANIC (all those passages . . .), between death and Alzheimer's (which is "dying by pieces"), and between the courage of a very young, slowly dying patient and the courage of those who stay behind on a sinking ship ("grace under pressure," as someone once said). And not only did I finish -- after the absolutely gripping shocker on page 417, I had to stay up until 2:00 in the morning to find out what happened. (Don't attempt to read that chapter and what comes after unless you have a few hours available in a quiet room by yourself!)

Willis is always a master of characterization as well as language. Dr. Joanna Lander, the clinical psychologist researching near death experiences, is Connie's best sort of sympathetic but very human protagonist. Dr. Richard Wright, the endocrinologist who recruits her to help with his own experiments in inducing NDEs, is absolutely believable. The smarmy and selfrighteous Maurice Mandrake is, unfortunately, also believable -- but why does everyone always refer to him as "Mr. Mandrake"? Vielle the ER nurse and Maisie the disasterologist and Kit the numbed caregiver and Mr. Brierley who teaches everyone and Mr. Wojakowski the yarn-spinner of the YORKTOWN, all make up a beautifully realized supporting cast. The humor threaded through this lengthy exploration on the metaphor and symbolism surrounding death will keep you on an even keel. And the ending -- which carefully does *not* answer all the reader's questions -- is perfect. In fact, the last couple of chapters show Connie as the literary near-genius she can sometimes be. You almost wonder if she died and sent this manuscript back from the Other Side. I put this one right up there with "Lincoln's Dreams" and "Doomsday Book."

What kind of book do you get when you combine a talented, multi-Hugo/Nebula-award-winning author like Connie Willis; the shadowy, supernatural world of Near-Death Experiences (NDEs); a race against time; and one of the world's greatest disasters?

Hold on, we'll get to the answer later....

In Willis's "Passage," NDE researcher Dr. Joanna Lander is asked to join Dr. Richard Wright's research project into the nature of NDEs. Wright has found a way to recreate NDEs via a designer chemical and is now looking to explore whether they have a purpose beyond that of ushering the dying into the afterlife. Dr. Lander's best friend in the ER, Vielle, also wants to see the young Joanna pair up with the hunky new doc on the block and soon Dr. Lander is helping Wright extract critical medical and psychological info from a less-than-ideal set of volunteers. Obstructing all the work is Maurice Mandrake, a bestselling author (and quack), who has made a small fortune selling his books to the gullible. Mandrake does not wish to see Lander and Wright come up with any results that would render his obsession with hokey New Age images of angels and "life flashing before one's eyes" less profitable.

But with the financing review for the project hurtling toward them, and the sudden withdrawal of some of the progressively fearful test subjects, Lander and Wright make a fateful decision: the best chronicler of the events would be someone well-versed in the science of NDEs. Lander assents, only to find herself caught in the horror of one of the most famous disasters of all time. Each further test reveals more of the greater picture, until Lander is driven nearly mad by what she finds out about The Other Side.

Sounds like a winner, right? Unfortunately, the answer to the opening question is, "A book with a great premise, but which is ultimately sunk by tedium, repetition, a flat ending, stereotypical characterizations, and a criminal lack of editing."

Seriously, someone should find Willis's editor and charge them with second degree murder--of a novel. The first two-thirds of the book is an ad nauseum repetition of events:
1. Dr. Lander gets info on a patient's NDE and puzzles over the meaning, while Dr. Wright drops names of brain chemicals.
2. Lander hangs out and watches a movie with buddy Vielle.
3. Lander pops in to check on a comatose patient.
4. Lander tries to convince Vielle to quit working in the ER.
5. Lander talks to a precocious (and oh-so-irritating) little girl with heart trouble.
6. Lander tries to avoid meeting undesirable people in the hallway or answering her page/phone.
7. One character or another yammers forever about something inconsequential.
8. Lander undergoes her own chemically-induced NDE and freaks out.
9. Repeat for several hundred pages.
Most novels in recent years are too long by twenty percent. This one pushes forty. I cannot tell you how much of a slog it is just to get to the interesting part of the book. Sad to say, even the interesting parts are disappointing. A major twist occurs in the last third, but at this point most people have lost the will to live and had an NDE of their own.

And this is a great loss, frankly, since Willis has some good ideas here. But the glacial pace at which events occur and plot points transpire could only be rescued by a triumphant ending, which this book completely lacks. The final key to NDEs is so underwhelming, and the fate of Joanna so frayed, that many readers will feel robbed for having pushed past the first hundred pages. Life is too short to read bad books and "Passage" has to rank right up there with some of the most draining books ever committed to print.

This is my first experience with Willis and I was disappointed by the shoddiness of this work, particularly in light of the number of awards she's won. Her reputation alone warrants an extra star here, but it's generous. Truth is, "Passage" is just barely passable.

Drew, in his review, complained that reading PASSAGE was close to having a NDE. I think he was more right than he realized, in saying this. You might find the "tedious" parts of the book more intriguing if you test my hypothesis that that's EXACTLY what it is supposed to be for us.

The endless passageways in Mercy General are a metaphor for the neural pathways in the brain, as well as for the passageways one goes through in a NDE. (Or perhaps I should say, the passageways in a NDE are a metaphor for the the neural pathways in the brain.) Note that Mercy General was once three hospitals, merged into one (I think that's in ch 2.) - and the brain has three parts, cerebellum, cerebrum and amygdula, imperfectly merged together. Also, the shut down cafeteria, the closed off passageways, the white-out conditions that block out the world outside the hospital - all of these are a metaphor for the brain after heart-death but before brain-death. This also explains why there's is all that stuff about beepers being turned off, and voice-mail messages getting erased, as well as why ER has an dysfunctional communications center.

Remember, as the English teacher keeps on saying, it's all a metaphor.

Connie Willis fans will navigate some familiar territory in this book. The obsessed hero/heroine and the infuriating secondary characters with a gift for getting in the way of their quest. Sometimes the plot bogs down under the heavy weight of it all. Despite that, this is still the most moving, unforgettable book I've read in a long time.

Prior reviews have done a good job of describing the plot without spoilers. Suffice it to say that this is a story that will keep you turning the pages well past midnight. At times you will be tempted to read ahead but for God's Sake don't! Other times you will think you have figured out where this story is headed. Guess what? You probably figured wrong.

The night I purchased it, I was warned by the bookseller, "Do not start the last 100 pages unless you can read them uninterrupted. Truer words have never been spoken. Heed this.

Reading this book was a profound experience for me. It scared me, made me cry and made me hug it when I was done. It was one of the few books that ever gave me nightmares, and it really made me think. But be warned, it also made me cry and cry and cry. Some of that crying was good though even if I was sad.

This book is about two researchers doing work on Near Death Experiences, or NDE. One of them, Joanna Lander, is interested in the similarities all people have in NDE's, the other, Richard Wright, is interested in what chemical reactions in the brain causes them. They work together on a study that involves using a drug that simulates the same conditions on your brain as in an NDE but doesn't actually kill you. They think perhaps this research will come up with a drug that can act as a NDE and pull a dying person back from the brink. Because Joanna works frequently interviewing people who are terminal and have had many past NDE's this is especially important.

Because of a shortage in people for the study Joanna ends up being a subject. She has the same NDE each time, which, oddly enough, places her on the Titanic just as it's about to sink. She knows something, something from an old English class is acting on her brain to try to her something about the nature of the NDE but she can't figure it out. And then something happens.

This book is scary in that it points out so clearly we don't know what happens after death. We have religion yes, and speculation and other things. We have ideas of angels and reincarnation to comfort us, but ultimately we don't know. And when we die, we are alone. Always alone.

This book was almost a spiritual experience with me. It's written quite sparsely, but that's its beauty. It forces you to make all the connections yourself.

This book isn't really sci-fi, it's basically just fiction. I recommend it to everyone and happily rate it five stars.

I thought Connie Willis's book "Doomsday" was the most moving and powerful books I've read in recent years, but I now have to move "Passages" to first place.
Connie Willis is at her finest here. Some people complain her books go on and on, and they do. But for a reason. Her stories are like a detective story, a mystery, entertaining, with many moments of wry humor, with people who become real and fully-formed. Clues and teasers are hesvily sprinkled throughout and I drive myeself crazy trying to keep them all straight. You are drawn into the story's events as fully as her characters are. I don't mind their length, though, because the writing is good, and the teasers are strong. By the time you reach the end, you are as fully involved as if you had been watching a really really good movie, and her stories are so satisfying, this is a *good* thing.
Passage is about two researchers exploring the reason for NDE's--Near Death Experiences. They test a drug that recreates the sensation of an NDE, using simulated NDEs to explore its purpose. Is it a soothing palliative for the dying mind, is it a message from "The Other Side"? Or is it something else entirely. The subject is at once intriguing and frightening to think about. As the main character states at one point, it's impossible for the brain to really comprehend its own mortality. But this story searches relentlessly and honestly, and I think, successfully, for the answer to the question "What is death?", and ultimately, its corollary, "What is the meaning of life?"
Because, as intriguing and complicated as Willis's stories are, with the seemingly trivial subject being explored (in "The Bell Wether", the origin and *reason* for fads, "To Say Nothing of the Dog" and the Coventry Cathedral) and all the exquisite details and tidbits she throws in, they are merely entertaining coating for the bigger messages she send--that what is important in life is our relationships with other people, and that there is always--*always*--hope. And that love and hope are what make us endearingly, heartbreakingly human.
If you hate Connie Willis's other books, this one may not change your mind. If you are already familiar with her work, this one is a corker. If you don't know her work, then try this one, leaving yourself a chunk of time to read it and relish it. I do not think it will leave you unmoved.

Partway through this book, I found myself annoyed by all the phone messages, appointments, missed connections, long passageways, and other distractions of modern life the main characters have to go through. I should have known! When illumination came, I realized that those incomplete messages are not only an essential part of the plot, they mirror the brain processes that this book is about. This book is about the workings of the human brain, and it is structured AS a human brain. ...I found the ending perfect in its ambiguity. An ending which settled the life-after-death question one way or the other would have been less satisfactory. Death is a big issue. Facing it squarely is Willis' forte. To make great story-telling out of it is her genius. If you liked The Doomsday Book and Lincoln's Dreams, you'll like this.