Passage

Rating:
Summary: Astonishing
Review: Read this book! In the guise of fiction, this book takes you on a journey to the very border of life and death, and explores the possibilities in a sensitive and practical way.

If you are frustrated by the fairy stories, mumbo-jumbo, and outright denial which characterize most of our approaches to the experience of dying, you will love the experimental, compassionate and imaginative explorations contained here.

I would have thought it was impossible for a novel, especially a science fiction novel, to explore the subjective expereince of death without giving in to fantastic fairy stories, but Connie Willis remains grounded in reality and science throughout, reminding us yet again, that the universe is a fantastic and marvelous place, even when viewed with scientific objectivity.

Rating:
Summary: Not Willis' best effort
Review: I'm a big fan of Ms. Willis, but Passage lacks some of the things that make her work so intriguing. She uses too many stereotypes to characterize the antagonists, probably because there isn't a true antagonist to the goals of the main character. The main character is mistrustful out of ignorance and lack of interest in other people. She seems too caught up in research which is of marginal value, which makes her shallow and uninteresting. There are a lot of unnecessary characters doing things that don't add to the story, as well as overly repetitive actions of certain characters. It takes way too long to establish the direction of the plot and I found myself getting bogged down in details. The plot itself is intriguing and could probably carry a shorter book or a novelette more easily.

The surprise ending was worth slogging through the beginning of the book.

Rating:
Summary: Captivating and disturbing and true-to-afterlife . . .
Review: 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."

Rating:
Summary: Science vs. Psuedo Religion
Review: This is a very brave book. It tells the story of a scientific investigation into Near Death Experiences (NDE), and is so plausible that it had me wondering what brain research Ms. Willis had actually used in the story. While Joanna Lander and Richard Wright are attempting to unravel the biological and chemical factors that create an NDE, they must put up with the smarmy Maurice Mandrake, an author who has popularized a psuedo-religious interpretation of the NDE, or NAE (Near Afterlife Experience, as he calls it). Joanna must also contend with the natural human tendency of her subjects to "confabulate," or tell a made-up experience instead of reporting what was actually seen in the NDE. Both of these obstacles to progress are overly stressed in the novel, and are its major weakness; there are simply too many repetitious episodes of Mr. Mandrake's interference, and patient confabulation. Among the books many strengths are a host of memorable characters. In particular, Joanna's old high school English teacher, Mr. Briarley, who has been stricken with Alzheimer's disease, and Maisie Nellis, a child with a failing heart and a love of historical disasters, are vividly imagined and portrayed. This book is found in the Science Fiction section of the bookstore, because it uses scientific extrapolation at the heart of the story. But I fear that this will prevent the book from reaching a wider readership, which is a shame. The phenomona of the NDE is real, and the fact of death is an unavoidable fate for all of us. Ms. Willis deals with these themes in a profound manner that is intellectually challenging and spiritually enriching. This book shares much in common with The Doomsday Book, Ms. Willis' earlier novel that was heaped with awards. That novel also focussed on the theme of death, in that instance placing the time-traveling protagonist in the middle of the bubonic plague outbreak in England during the Middle Ages. While The Doomsday Book explored the significance of death in human culture, Passage explores the impact of impending death on the individual human. I am hopeful that these two novels may be part of a thematic trilogy, and that Ms. Willis will once again grace us with her insight and humor in a third novel on this theme.

Rating:
Summary: Surprised me again, she did, making me think hard.....
Review: Connie Willis trapped me with "Doomsday Book," and I have read everything else I could get my eyes on that came from her wonderful, complex mind.

I'm still tying to decide if I like "Passages" or hate it! I, lazy reader that I am, was looking forward to being entertained. As I got to page 200 or so and was becoming increasingly irritated, I stopped myself and thought "Why am I suffering a disconnect from this book?" I started over, forcing pre-concieved thoughts of entertainment out of my mind. For me, the hospital became the journey of thought through the brain and each character a bit of "knowledge" to be proved or disproved -- well, it worked for me. The frustration of the repetitions of place and words bring on the tension. Is the TITANIC a fad? No, its purpose for me was to force me to think past the obvious -- a tactic Ms. Willis uses with several characters and devices.

I still don't know if I understand where the author was going with this tale, but she made me take a journey and make a conclusion of my own. If that was her intent, PASSAGES is a amazing success!!

Rating:
Summary: An incredible book .... highly recommended
Review: This is an incredible book that will stay in your thoughts long after you've read it. It has Connie Willis' trademark style of humor and a great deal of suspense, along with some romance and even horror. And it has a great cast of characters.

I thought 'Passage' was fascinating right from the start, but I like this kind of humor and Connie Willis does a great job of making you care about her characters. Then the mystery grabs hold of you about a third of the way through the book, and the suspense begins to build until you can't put the book down. Parts of it are creepy enough to give you goose bumps, and the ending is very satisfying (but is still open to interpretation). There are plenty of twists and turns to the plot, but Willis manages all of them with her usual skill.

I didn't look to see how this book is categorized. I usually read science fiction, and it's true this is fiction and it concerns scientific research. But I'd say it has something to offer almost anyone, whether you are a fan of science fiction, mysteries, romances, horror, or even historical fiction. There's just so much to this book that I've been recommending it to everyone I know.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent, but with boggy spots
Review: This book has many of Willis' strengths. She has created a plot thematically similar to her wonderful time travel work, in that researchers are sent to mysterious, frightening places, in this case through drug-induced near death experience. Clearly, she did a great deal of research on brain chemistry, the workings of hospitals, and so on, and the detail gives the work believability. She combines tension and humor well, and her characters are engaging. (Maisie verges on too cute, but doesn't slip over the edge due to her wonderful ghoulishness.) I found the basic premise of this work -- that death is terrifying, that NDE's mask or stand for something terrible -- very frightening. I wouldn't recommend reading this book at home alone at night, as I did!

There are, however, a few flaws. The plot gets slow in the middle, with a little too much repetition of the characters being lost in the hospital and other minor themes. More importantly, though, I had some issues with the use of the Titanic as the primary otherworldly setting. I appreciate the author's research on the ship, but the fact is, post-Leo and Kate, the Titanic is a meme whose time has passed. Because of the movie and its attendant media hype, I didn't find the Titanic images to be fresh, and that took away from the emotional impact. And why do so many people see the Titanic? And why do people who don't see the Titanic still see a passageway and a light? The plot leaves these and several other questions unclarified.

I'm not sure how I feel about the end. It's good that it's mysterious; it's a relief that it's not entirely tragic; but I'm not sure it makes sense.

Despite my quibbles, I enjoyed this book very much, could not put it down, and certainly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: A thinking novel - it has everything except the kitchen sink
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Coloradoan Kafka?
Review: Three comments for those considering buying this book: Reading Passage is an often exhilarating/maddening experience - 9/10ths of the way through I felt a lot like I did while reading The Castle or Amerika, an unbearable but addictive feeling. I thought during the last 1/10th of the book Willis's grasp of the material slipped a little, but not off-puttingly so. I think her best work is Fire Watch and Lincoln's Dreams, for those who haven't read her before - but this is a characteristic, daring, original book that I recommend to anyone willing to be seized and shaken.

Rating:
Summary: Filled with suspense *and* humor
Review: Connie Willis is one of my favorite authors and a great story-teller. Fans of hers are sure to enjoy her latest novel. "Passage" manages to remind me of all of her other novels while being completely unique and compelling.

Joanna's job is researching near death experiences (NDEs). But she spends much of her time trying to avoid Mandrake, a man who insists NDEs are real experiences and proof heaven exists. He coaches patients into believing they saw white light, angels, dead relatives, etc. and turns the stories into best-selling books. When Richard, a new doctor, asks Joanna to help with a study on NDEs, she gets on board.

Richard has found a way to simulate NDEs with a drug. They administer the drug to volunteers then record their experiences. But the project doesn't have enough people, so Joanna becomes a test subject -- and finds her visions are nothing like what she expected.

Willis crafts her story very well. The main theme (death and life after death) is haunting. It is handled with great care, not too silly, or too depressing or too cliche. And some truly funny moments lighten the serious load. (Maisie, a little girl with life-threatening heart problems, who is Joanna's friend and an interview subject, is hilarious.) The characters are interesting and realistic.

If you enjoy symbolism and metaphors, "Passage" is the book for you. Almost everything that happens is a symbol of some kind. But just when all the symbols start to be explained, Willis drops in a *huge* and daring plot twist. The end didn't leave me hanging, but it did leave me lots of room to interpret what I just read.

With the humor of "To Say Nothing of the Dog," the seriousness of "Doomsday Book," the mysterious visions of "Lincoln's Dreams" and the style of "Bellwether," this is a great book.