This came really really close to ending up in my "gave up on" shelf. I tried so hard to like it, I really did. Many times I'd tell myself that was it, I wasn't going to continue, and the ONLY reason I did finish it, is because it was Connie Willis. If this had been the first book I read by her, it would have gone to the local charity shop and I'd never touch another by her. But it wasn't, so I slogged through it...and slogged, and slogged and slogged. It started out promising - investigating NDE's. But as I got further and further into the book, and the same repetitive stuff kept happening, I was more and more disillusioned. Or rather, bored. Joanna Lander is a psychologist, based in a large hospital, studying NDE's, talking to people who have "coded" about what they experienced. Her nemesis would be Maurice Mandrake, who has written a best selling book about NDE's, full of the typical Life Reviews, seeing angels, seeing deceased relatives, seeing Jesus and the stairway to heaven (couldn't resist, sorry) etc etc. Joanna doesn't really believe all that, so she ends up teaming up with a scientist who beleives NDE's are purely chemical, only the brain going through teh dying process. Or something like that - I'm no scientest nor a brain surgeon so a lot of the technical terms were completely lost on me. Mandrake is also based at the hospital, and Joanna routinely finds that he often gets to her interviewees first, and they end up spouting the same ol' story about seeing Uncle Alvin who died during the War and told them it wasn't their time etc. So, it was so far, so good. I'm thinking cool premise to a book, will be interesting to see Willis' take on NDE's (cos after all,she's writing a book about them so she must believe one thing or another).It died (heh, another one) for me pretty early on tho. Here's Joanna, a professional working psychologist, who is forever in a hurry, running around like a chook with its head cut off, being late for this and late for that - in fact, she is SOOOOO busy all the time, she keeps forgetting to get lunch and sometimes dinner, and the hospital cafeteria is forever closed or closing (which we are informed of CONSTANTLY) - and I keep thinking "Why the F*** doesn't she pack a lunch from home???????" In a huge hospital where there is only one cafeteria that is notoriously unreliable, and the nearest eating place is about 10 blocks away which has pretty horrible food, and she is just so damn busy doing....well, other than interviewing recently coded patients, I'm not too sure exactly what else she does to earn her wage (which, btw, I kept wondering WHO pays her? The hospital? a grant of some sort??) - why the hell wouldn't you bring in a lunch from home??? Fling a microwave in your office, stock up on those microwaveable meals from the supermarket, or keep the makings for a nice sandwich in a small fridge.....why the hell would you starve every day??And i could never quite work out exactly WHAT kept her so freakin' busy all the time - and why she would get a gazillion voicemails every day. Cos her only work seemed to be walking aroudn the hospital talking to whichever patient had been declared clinically dead recently. She didn't give lectures on her work, or have any personal patients she regularly saw, or go to conferences, or have meetings with a board of people-who-give-grants if that is how she earnt her money, or have to present her findings to anyone....And then there's Maurice Mandrake, who Joanna obviously disliked very much, being the publicity-hungry best-selling author who believed in Life after Death that he is. She was forever dodging him - hiding in stairwells, taking different routes through the hospital, avoiding seeing someone she wanted to see if she heard/saw him heading in teh same direction. And then he'd catch her and start a conversation, and NOT ONCE, did Joanna manage to say "right, that's it, I'm busy, can't talk now, see ya later buddy,don't want to talk to you" and just walk away. Like you or I would do, if we were on our way somewhere and got caught by someone we didn't like at all and didn't want to talk to. Sheesh. She drove me INSANE. Batshit crazy actually. Right, thinking about it now, I'm changing my two stars (cos i'm nice), to one star. Cos this book drove me nuts. It was waaaay too long by about two-thirds. Seriously. There was crap in there that just didn't need to be there - her old high school teacher forever quoting poets etc whilst in the midst of Alzheimers, who apparently said something casually during a high school english lesson YEARS ago, that Joanna suddenly realized held the KEY to what an NDE was, and why she was on the Titanic when she has her own induced NDE's; the tragic backstory of the teacher's neice Kit who cares for him and becomes Joanna's researcher on the Titanic; the bloody cafeteria that was never open; and oh crap, about 85% of the whole damn story. Although mind you, I take back the screaming of "JUST GOOGLE IT, YOU STUPID WOMAN" that I kept yelling every time she rang Kit to look up something in teh books about the Titanic, when I realized when the book was written. *blush* I've read a few books by Connie Willis and enjoyed them all. Not this one. It took me 5 days to finish, and I can normally knock out a book this size in less than 2. And when I DID finish, it was a with a HUGE sense of relief and then glee as I watched the damn brick sail through the room and hit my bedroom wall.
This book was really heavy. At first I didn't think so. At first I really felt as if I was putting together pieces of a puzzle, along with the main character, trying to solve a mystery. And then about three quarters of the way through the book, something happened that I really did not expect. I realized in hindsight that the entire book had been foreshadowing the event that I hadn't seen coming at all. This is how foreshadowing should work, in my opinion. It shouldn't spoil the book, but rather, I should be able to look back and see all the signs pointing toward the outcome. This was done expertly.Metaphors were a major theme in this book as well, and this meant that the book was filled with them. I'm sure I haven't even realized all of them and will put more together as I have more time to think this over.There are still some humorous elements and running gags like one might expect from Connie Willis, but while some of those have made me laugh and feel lighter after having read them, this one had me in tears. Even as it ended on a fairly uplifting note, I find myself incredibly sad.I would say this means the author did her job well.
What do You think about Passage (2002)?
There were a lot of twists and turns in this book, and I'm glad I finished it, because the concept and takeaway gave me something to chew on. I wasn't sure I was going to though. The first quarter of the book was a bit of a slog for me. Where is the editor? I thought Willis could have said the same thing in a hundred fewer pages, but I guess that's her style. I found myself skimming over parts, thinking "Seriously, they're complaining about the cafeteria again? This had better really add to the plot." (The twists of the hallways do, eventually, I guess. The cafeteria does not.) Also, the immature hissy-fits that each character throws at least once were a major turn-off. We are not in middle school here, people. And if I have to hear the word "confabulation" one more time, I may banish it from my vocabulary forever.The richness of detail and the immediacy of the energy in Joanna's NDE's, especially as she gets closer to figuring things out as a major reason I stuck with it. That was good writing. The way Willis tied things together neatly - but not simplistically - worked for me as an ending. It wiggled its way into my dreams for the past week.As the first book finished in 2015, not a bad way to start off. Thanks, Mike for suggesting and lending it to me!
—Jill
I will repeat my original review of this book here:I cannot, in all good conscience, recommend this novel. You will most likely wind up staying up all night to find out how it ends, and I also don't think it's healthy to hold your breath so long as I did while caught up in the final chapters.This is a brilliant, deeply engaging, philosophical piece of neuroscience-fiction that manages to ponder the Big Questions while maintaining an easy conversational style, numerous moments of both tears and laughter, and characters you will love so much you wish they would come to life.
—Aiyana
"Passage" is a remarkable work from a remarkable author. I've read it at least twice and it still blows me away. Willis treats the great question of what happens when we die with humor and sadness. Her treatment of the subject of dementia rang especially true. I had visited my grandmother in the nursing home (many, many miles away) when she was very far gone with senile dementia. She was completely unaware of her surrounding. Some of the things she was saying were eerily echoed in "Passage." I highly recommend this book.
—Sandi
