Customer Reviews

Passages: Predictable Crises of Adult Life

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(7)
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At first I thought this book might not be relevant to me, some 20 years after it was written in a different country. Whilst some of the stereotypical behaviours and social "norms" are different, it is easy to see the translation of the insights to today and in a different country. And while the USA of the 70s is gone this book provided me with a better understanding of some of the (largely unconscious) behaviour of friends, parents and siblings, behaviours which I had not identified or simply taken for granted are now a little easier to fathom. As I read about each life stage I could identify it with those I know and this enabled me to forgive, empathise with and accept a lot which had previously left me hurt and baffled.

Although fairly young (35) I can already see some of the patterns at play which Gail describes. I don't care if it's not original work or if the lifetstyles are different and the social pressures altered, this book is still very applicable to those who can objectively view themselves and those around them.

This book looks at middle and upper middle class university graduates (called "college" graduates in the US) with primarily professional vocations in accounting, law, medicine etc (stangely little mention of engineers!). Also, I suspect the people are largely private school educated. Whilst people in other circustances might be under different pressures, I have seen similar crises and cycles in a wide range of people. A perceptive reader would learn from this book, nomatter their circumstances.

After trying to figure out why the disenchantment with work as I hit 40, this book has explained it! Although some of the data used is out of date, the findings are still very valid.

I recommend it to those trying to figure out how to navigate through life.

I first read this book at the ancient age of 27, and it then had little relevency to my budding young life, my passages had been so few...now, at the age of 48, it all looks like a roadmap of my life, much of what Sheehy wrote now makes sense, now comes into focus, now jumps off the page at me...my suggestion is that the book needs to be updated, rewritten from the perspective of one who has actually made the "Passages"...still, the book is remarkable...either Sheehy is the most intuitive person who ever lived, or did research unknown at the time to man/woman...all in all, I find it a book best read once you've been there and done that...otherwise, it means little...unfortunately, I think, it is a work only appreciated in your own personal rearview mirror...reading it as a young man or woman might unduly influence how one's life plays out...but I have every intention of reading it again, and perhaps again...

you're in your mid-50s, White, wealthy, live in posh suburbs on the coast, spent the last 30 years climbing (steadily) up the corporate ladder to VP status or are counting your millions as a sucessfull entrepreneur. If not (blue collar, high school grad, struggle to pay the bills every month, can barely afford health insurance), this tome will remind you of NOTHING in your life...because your 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s have been one blur of dead-end jobs, loss of purchasing power, long hours, low pay, etc.

As authors far more talented and original than Sheehy observed 200 years ago, leisure is a function of wealth and privelege, and only the leisure class has the time or money to spend "contemplating" their lives on a by-the-minute basis..."passages" between the wunderkind preppie years to the grasping yuppie to the ostentatious wealthy world of illegal domestics, fine wine, expensive SUVs, private schools, and a flow of other lifestyle perks.

BTW, this is hardly the rant of a repressed Marxist. MBA, college professor, US military officer, etc. I found Sheehy's work irritating over 20 years ago, and the previous 20 years of listening to whining yuppies echo her Deep Philosophy on Life has done little to change my opinion.

My Father gave me the book Passages to read when I was a teenager. I could not put the book down and have referenced it multiple times since then. I am now planning on including it as one of my daughter's highschool graduation presents. It touches your mind, your heart and your soul.

The first time I read Gail Sheehy's book, _Passages_, was back in the 70's when the book first came out. In fact, I think everyone in one of my graduate school psychology classes had read or was reading it before enrolling for our developmental psychology class! It turned out that everyone of us had enrolled in that particular class because of what we had read in _Passages_ and were trying to apply it to our own adult life crises. The book was quite revealing about adult life and what each of us might expect at the turning points of our lives. Now, I am re-reading _Passages_ and I still find the book to be insightful; however from a perspective of twenty-some years down the road, I think that perhaps the book more appropriately describes the "passages" in adult life for a particular generation. I am looking forward to reading Sheehy's sequel, _New Passages_.

If you are a teacher, or a student of literature, you might consider the connection of Passages to Ibsen's, "A Doll's House," written 120 years ago. Sheehy's book is timeless and imporant literarily and sociologically.

We are all familiar with Freud's psychosexual stages of development which end in with the pinnacle of adulthood, but during the Twentieth Century psychologists came to see that personal development does not end in adulthood. The psychologist Erik Erikson developed his own psychosocial stages of development which extend into old age. This book owes a fair bit to Erikson, as a quick glance at the bibliography will reveal, but Sheehy has done her own statistical research and it is fair to say that the work has it's own voice.

If you have ever found yourself struggling with your problems and feeling quite alone and abnormal this is the book for you. Most of us suffer times of uncertainty, predictable crises, that are 'normal' in human development. It can be greatly reassuring to find that others are quietly suffering too, and even more so to find that they share the same problems. While based on academic research the book is very readable and easily understandable.

My main criticism is that Sheehy constantly gives examples of the life stories of the rich and successful. One gets the impression that everyone is a manager of a big business or talented in some way. I am not a high flyer and wanted to hear about Joe Average and how he solved the life crises. For example in my forties I. Like many others, became disillusioned with my career and wanted to find 'something more' but I could not start my own business as a second career as Sheehy's high fliers did.

My second criticism is that the fifties decade gets only one chapter, and the book ends there. Sheehy says that she felt she was too young to understand the struggles of older people and so did not tackle them. This failing has been remadied in the later works, particularly the book <New Passages>.

We are all familiar with Freud's psychosexual stages of development which end in with the pinnacle of adulthood, but during the Twentieth Century psychologists came to see that personal development does not end in adulthood. The psychologist Erik Erikson developed his own psychosocial stages of development which extend into old age. This book owes a fair bit to Erikson, as a quick glance at the bibliography will reveal, but Sheehy has done her own statistical research and it is fair to say that the work has it's own voice.

If you have ever found yourself struggling with your problems and feeling quite alone and abnormal this is the book for you. Most of us suffer times of uncertainty, predictable crises, that are 'normal' in human development. It can be greatly reassuring to find that others are quietly suffering too, and even more so to find that they share the same problems. While based on academic research the book is very readable and easily understandable.

My main criticism is that Sheehy constantly gives examples of the life stories of the rich and successful. One gets the impression that everyone is a manager of a big business or talented in some way. I am not a high flyer and wanted to hear about Joe Average and how he solved the life crises. For example in my forties I. Like many others, became disillusioned with my career and wanted to find 'something more' but I could not start my own business as a second career as Sheehy's high fliers did.

My second criticism is that the fifties decade gets only one chapter, and the book ends there. Sheehy says that she felt she was too young to understand the struggles of older people and so did not tackle them. This failing has been remadied in the later works, particularly the book <New Passages>.

I read a lot. In my lifetime, this is the only book that I actually just put down between 1/2-3/4 of the way through. I'm sure its principles apply to some, but I didn't want to give it anymore of my time. My time is valuable, and I didn't find this to be something that was worth that expenditure.