Passage: A Novel

The best aspects of this novel are not characterization, plot or surprising ideas but rather the amount and quality of research that was evidently done by Connie Willis before writing it. The book is full of interesting facts and concepts from such diverse fields as history, literature, psychology, neurology. For example I learned about "content-free feeling" -- a feeling with no associated real event, caused by temporal lobe stimulation, and about "confabulation" -- the overlaying of imagination upon memory of true events. The workings of the mind, especially memory and metaphor, are a central part of the narrative. One of the characters says at a certain point that metaphors are the essence and pattern of our mind. This, I think, is the main point of the book.

However I didn't like the development of the plot or the flow of the novel: Situations and dialogues become repetitive, redundant. There are too many pointless digressions, too many unfulfilled promises. There is a huge amount of superfluous filler material, leading to a bloated page count. The novel feels at certain points like a trite and melodramatic soap opera. I also found most characters flat and boring.

The "famous" plot twist was somewhat surprising, however the rest of the book didn't quite fulfill its narrative potential. The very ending was unsatisfying, and seemed disconnected from everything that came before. But the worst aspect of the book was, for me, the revelation of the NDE's true nature and purpose: after building up so much curiosity and suspense, the "discovery" came as a major anti-climax, both physically unconvincing and metaphysically disappointing. I was expecting something deeper and more meaningful.

When I first heard of Goldsworthy my temptation was to label his art as New Agey because of his interaction with natural mediums and his works' outdoor settings. This would have been a gross mislabeling. I've also heard the term "environmental artist" bandied about, but that is just far too vague and I'm hoping we don't adopt that as part of our art-appreciation vocabulary. I think Goldsworthy and Christos are grouped together under that title, but they couldn't be more dissimilar. Christos' works always so statement oriented and meant to be observed from a distance, while Goldsworthy's evocative sculptures and leaf paintings invite you to examine them more closely and admire how well they fit into the landscape. And though his art is made from natural materials and dependent on the elements, the works themselves are very modern. Passage was the first book of Goldsworthy's work that I've been given, though I've seen some of his smaller pieces and photos in several galleries.

His moss covered stones surrounded by sun-blindingly bright leaves in perfect auras make me examine my walks through the park in new ways. He uses sticks and stones and leaves the way James Turrell uses light and corners and openings, letting you rediscover the things you may have taken for granted. Beautiful and painstaking work. Yet accessible. After reading this, you'll be tempted to go outside and create your own sculptures. Passage offers some commentary by Goldsworthy and as well as diary entries and curators' comments. But the pictures make the book. Many of his works are photographed at different times of day or year and because they are dependent on their environment, the pieces change dramatically. Very beautiful.

This review isn't intended as a synopsis as there are already so many here, and to say too much may give away the ending. Yet I'd like to say, the author's choice of metaphors were not only appropriate but stunning in their depth and in the emotions they evoked. Many of the negative reviewers imply they just didn't understand - or care to give the time to understand - the author's intention. Seldom have I read a book where there is so little author intrusion - this book is a praiseworthy attempt at pure exploration of an idea. For people desiring action only, this book will no doubt disappoint, although there is suspense and action to please any thoughtful reader. For readers who want their ideas and preconceptions challenged, this book is your ticket. In my opinion, this book belongs in literature, not the sci-fi/fantasy category. The characters are real and worth caring about. My advice: avoid the negative reviews. Find out for yourself: this book is about the journey, not the ending.

Several years ago, I read Connie Willis' The Doomsday Book and thought it was stupendous, so I recently picked up another of her novels, Passage. This one has an intriguing premise: a researcher into near-death experiences believes that there is some sort of pattern involved in what people see, so she decides to start simulating the experiences through chemical hallucinogens. (in other words, the plot is a bit like Flatliners, but she is not actually dying each time). The first hundred or so pages are as exciting as anything I have read in recent memory, but then it begins to drag--there is a lot of repetition (a character who always tells war stories, difficulty in figuring out how to maneuver through a maze-like hospital, etc.), insufficient characterization for the main protagonist (she does not seem to have much of a personality apart from an obsession with NDEs), and an annoying back-and-forth about whether what she is seeing is real. At almost 800 pages, I think a good editor could have solved a lot of these problems and delivered a slimmer, most powerful book. There are some great ideas here, but they are not expressed in a great way.

Psychologist Dr. Joanna Lander has spent the last two years at Mercy Hospital studying those patients who have "died" and come back, those who have had a near death experience, or NDE.

She isn't the only one, the hospital corridors are also haunted by a spiritualist, and Joanna suspects, fraud. He is convinced that the NDE's are totally spiritual, is it coincidence that he also writes books with such titles as The Light at the End of the Tunnel?

Joanna thinks that NDE's might be caused by chemical reactions as the brain dies, or maybe it's some type of survivial mechanism, and when Dr. Richard Wright asks her to become part of his scientific study, where he can induce NDEs with chemicals, Joanna jumps at the chance.

Volunteers and funding soon dry up, and Joanna becomes the guinea pig herself, feeling a sense of wonder that she will get to experience what she's been hearing second-hand.

But although Joanna expereinces what most people have reported, the light, the tunnel, she discovers something else as well. A part of her knows why everything seems so familiar, and why she has every reason to be afraid...

Every so often a book a book comes along and just sweeps you up and you forget everything else in your quest to finish it. Passage is such a book, it is a fairly long book, but it only took me two days to finish it, I needed to see the next part.

Ms. Willis has the knack of leaving something hanging at the end of each chapter, and you have no option but to read on to discover what is going to happen next. You cared about the characters and needed to know what adventures they were going to get into next.

A book you may not want to put down.

Reviewed by Annette Gisby, author of Silent Screams.

Though I have read some of Connie Willis' short stories in the past, this is the first of her novels I have read. The idea of a science fiction novel on near death experiences (NDEs)was one I found quite intriguing, and, as a Christian, I was very interested in seeing what Willis thought about life after death. The book is pretty long, but the story is quite compelling and you really want to know what will happen to all the main characters. I didn't find it to drag much at all. Some parts of the story were nicely creepy, especially when certain people are recalling or experiencing their NDEs.

The characters are very well drawn for the most part, though some of the characters, like Mr. Mandrake and Joanna's fundamentalist religious sister, seem more like caricatures than they do real people. Nevertheless, they both serve their particular purpose within Willis' narative, particularly Mr. Mandrake. Willis has also done her research, and the scientific and technical aspects of the story are very credible without being so crucial to the main plotline that you have to understand all the science in order to follow the story.

From a philosophical perspective, I really liked the way that Willis played off Richard the diehard scientific materialist against Mandrake the too eager believer in the paranormal, while Joanna fell somewhere in between. At one point or another in the story, she becomes disgusted with both of them for their unwillingness to accept what won't fit into their preconceived ideas about reality. Though I thought conservative Christians were unfairly stereotyped in a cardboard cutout manner through the character of Joanna's sister, I was pleasantly surprised to see the last chapter of the story headed up with a quote from C. S. Lewis. The ending of the story itself was nicely ambiguous, featuring some fairly powerful redemptive, possibly even Christian symbolism, but leaving the reader to draw his or her own conclusions, rather than trying to offer any definite speculations about the ultimate nature of life after death.

Definitely a worth while read if you like unconventional science fiction.

This book is the very epitome of FRUSTRATION. To paraphrase from the movie "Mozart:" "too many words." If it hadn't been for Willis' excellent writing technique, I'd have given this book no more than two stars. The theme is interesting, but the plot consists of two "steps forward, one step back," repeated and repeated and repeated for 500 pages. Then just when it looks like everything's going to come together, disaster strikes. Willis then spends the next 250 pages REPEATING the same process (over and over and over again) to get to the same place. This time, though, it's slightly quicker: "THREE steps forward, one step back."
In general, Willis obviously spends a ton of time researching her books before she writes them. But, her writing motif seems to always be that ... (I happen to agree, so I really get sucked into her plots :) ). No more than three people in the whole universe are helpful and everyone else actively frustrates the competent people from doing the right thing. That's fine and dandy, but there's a limit to how much of that anyone can take. I heartily enjoyed both "To Say Nothing of the Dog" and "Bellwether," but "Doomsday Book" and now "Passage" just go too far (again, "too many words").
If you haven't read any Willis in a while, then this book is definitely fascinating. But, if you've been reading her books sequentially, I'd suggest taking a break for a bit. Technically excellent, thematically interesting, but plotwise: FRUSTRATING.

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."

Passages is the fourth Connie Willis book I've read---the more I read of her work, the more impressed I become. Unlike To Say Nothing of the Dog or Bellwether, Passages is very serious (much more similar to The Doomsday Book).
Johanna is a cognitive psychologist who teams up with a neurologist to invesitage near death experiences. I'm not a fan of New Age things or discussions of near death experiences and so the premise of the book did put me off reading it for a while. But because I have liked Willis so much I gave the book a chance and I'm very glad I did so. It is excellent---it avoids all of that syrupy silliness which usually characterizes books about near death experiences or even sudden death (and thankfully it also avoids the gushy hysteria which often characterizes novels set in hospitals and ERs).
Johanna's experience as she delves into death is fascinating---it's very rare to read a book and not be able to guess at what will come next but Willis manages to pull it off. So while it is true that the book can be, at times, rather wordy, I was never really tempted to put it down. In fact I began it on the metro ride to work and had a difficult day focusing on my job I was so tempted to sneak off and read!

This is not for the weak of heart but I strongly recommend it!

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.

---Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)

PASSAGE shows the frustrations and dangers of death-related medical research brilliantly. If you've ever studied or been intrigued by near-death experiences, then read this book. You'll gain valuable insight into the flaws that exist in pop culture books on the subject.
Willis really makes you wonder how accurate current literature on NDEs is ... it's awful to think that people would manipulate those who've had NDEs for their own religious agenda.
I don't mean to imply that the NDE is purely physiological ... in fact, I hope it is not ... but the subject needs to be approached scientifically ... and the plight of Joanna and Richard describes how frustrating it can be when science crosses into the spiritual realm.
Please read the book, but bear in mind that it is like reading two different novels. The first one essentially concludes after the so-called page 417 "twist".
The "second" novel -- more of a mystery -- begins there. I think if readers will keep this in mind, they will not sing the over-long blues that so many other reviewers have mentioned. (This forum's critiques consistently state that the book is 100 pages too long.)
The two protagonists are not as three-dimensional as I would've liked, but they are well-balanced by the lovable Maisie, and the not-so-secondary characters of Alzheimer-stricken Briarly and his niece Kit. Maisie, though, steals the show.
(I do wish that Joanna's fundamentalist sister had been brought in early and used often. She would've been a great antagonist.)
Unlike many others, I found the humor and the satire refreshing. This is, after all, a heavy subject and it needs a counterweight. I assure you that you won't look at near-death experiences, scientific research, or the TITANTIC the same way again.
And folks, keep in mind that this is a NOVEL. Like all good science fiction, it makes you think, but it's also for entertainment. All the hand-wringing over believability about the hospital corridors and Richard's endless supply of food should be taken in the spirit of things, not as an indictment of its literary quality.
I HIGHLY recommend this book ... (but Connie -- if you're listening -- not so many dialogue tag-line descriptions next time, okay? As a writer myself, I found that troubling).
Keith

A strangely engrossing, although not altogether successful novel of one woman's search for meaning in the study of N.D.E.s (Near Death Experiences). Our heroine teams up with another young doctor who has learned to simulate N.D.E.s in the laboratory. The results of their experiments are certainly surprising enough, although they build up so slowly that you'll see it coming long before it hits. In fact this book's biggest weakness is surely that things move far, far too slowly - almost in slow motion, one might say. Coupled with the glacial plot is the wearisome repetition, particularly the running gags about the lunchroom, and evading Dr. Mandrake, and the difficulty finding one's way around the hospital. Sure they're funny the first couple times, and these scenes do help to dramatize a valid point, but when all's said and done the novel runs hundreds of pages longer than it should have, and the repetition only exacerbates the reader's frustration.
Still, the plot line is so bizarre that one is irresistibly drawn into it. Sure, we see what's happening, but how is Willis going to explain it? In the final analysis, the explanation is perhaps a bit wanting, but more annoying is the way Willis drags the book on for another 150 pages or so even after the big dénouement, trying to sneak in one more plot twist, which many readers will have seen through much, much earlier.
While not wishing to spoil any surprises, this book might well be recommended to buffs of major historical catastrophes. For the rest of us, Willis would be well advised to write a short story version of this tale, so that fans of off-the-wall sci-fi/fantasy could appreciate the remarkably original idea she has come up with without spending two weeks poring over this too-often tedious tome.

Joanna Lander has an unusual medical specialty; she researches NDEs (Near Death Experiences) in patients who's hearts have stopped beating, but then are brought back from the brink. She has problems, though. An author, Mr. Mandrake, believes that NDEs are the beginning of God's heavenly message...and to prove his point he's written multiple best-selling novels on the subject and tries to beat Joanna to the interviews with patients who experience them. The trouble is, though, is that Mr. Mandrake leads his interviewees down his personalized ambrosial path by asking questions like, "So when did you see the heavenly light?" and "Was your family there waiting for you?"
This really ticks off Joanna...
She asks questions like, "Tell me what you saw?" and "How did you feel?" Non-leading questions, in other words. And if she get's to the patients before Mr. Mandrake does, the results are markedly different; no angels of light and no family waiting for you.
Enter Dr. Richard Wright. He's also interested in NDEs. And he has medical research in mind. He's developed a drug that induces a type of artificial NDE and begins using it on volunteers (with Joanna's eventual help), trying to discover why some people have NDEs and others don't. If he can find out, maybe he can utilize his research to bring dying patients out of their NDE state and back to the living.
Maisie is a ten year old child who's been brought back from death multiple times thanks to a congenital heart defect. And she's Joanna's and Dr. Wright's friend. She thinks that Mr. Mandrake is a flake (which, of course, he is) and is fascinated with disaster stories (like the Titanic and Hidenburg). She's never seen an angel or Godly light during her true NDEs, and Joanna and Dr. Wright soon come to rely on her more than they will ever know.
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Undeniably, Connie Willis is one of my favorite authors. I love almost everything I've ever read by her. Her prose is smooth, her characters memorable, and her subject matter relevant. And PASSAGE is no exception. Joanna, Maisie, Dr. Wright, Kit, Mr. Briarly, Vielle, and Mr. Mandrake all still stick out in my mind. Great characters one and all.
My only beef with this novel (as many other reviewers here have pointed out) is that it's a bit wordy. At 780 pages (paperback), I began to lag a bit while reading. But only a bit! I tiny bit! Mrs. Willis' able writing abilities kept me involved in the story and I persevered.
The ending: For those who enjoy everything tidied up and in one neat little plot developed package, this book is not for you. It'll leave you wondering what awaits us when we all take that final plunge into the PASSAGE of no return.
B+ rating.

Connie Willis is one of those few writers who have the real knack of communicating intangible concepts via the written word. In a string of seemingly normal workday events, and almost in real time, she drops tantalising hints here and there, which may or may not impinge on the plot, giving one a sense of impending climax, like a gathering storm, with all the clues massing together to erupt in a welter of ... something, but you have no idea what it could possibly be, although there are plenty of possible scenarios hinted at.
This is one of those books that drags you along, reading faster and faster, til you have to stop for lack of mental breath. Then straight back into it to try and decipher exactly what the climax will be...
Using a similar scenario to 'Doomsday Book', Joanna is based in a hospital, researching Near Death Experience, the 'White Tunnel' syndrome. The obnoxious unscientific Dr. Mandrake, the von Daniken of NDE, generally reaches recovery patients first and runs roughshod over their memory of the event in order to promote his own dubious "There, that proves it!" theory, to the detriment of Joanna's research. Her researches are constantly stymied by him, plus half her subjects are loonies, and her lack of confrontation and control makes matters worse - you really want to shake her, telling her to get in command of the situation.The consequent lack of suitable subjects means she has to adopt an unconventional approach to record the experience better...
I feel as though I should be doing a deeper review to do justice to the book, but that would mean giving away too much of the plot. Suffice to say that this is one of the better sci-fi / metaphysical novels that merits a much wider audience (it helps if you are a film or literature buff) - kept me on tenterhooks for days.*****

Sound like the setup to a bad joke? For psychologist Joanna Lander, that's exactly what it seems like when she undergoes a simulated near-death experience (NDE) and finds herself moving down a long tunnel towards a bright light... and stepping out onto the deck of the infamous ship.

Cracking the mystery of just why the heck she finds herself there - and whether other NDE patients have had similar experiences - quickly becomes Joanna's obsession. She's caught between the skepticism of her colleague, Richard Wright, who oversees the simulated NDE project and is convinced her experiences are hallucinations with a purely chemical cause, and flaky New-Ager Maurice Mandrake, who wants to use her experience to prove the existence of the afterlife. Joanna knows her vision is neither of these. But then what is it?

I was somewhat dubious picking this book up, half-expecting a Robin Cook/Dean Koontz-style "medical thriller" with two attractive protagonists battling both the big bad medical hierarchy and their own attraction to each other. Yawn. But I had read a great review on Salon.com, so I decided to give it a try.

Mental note - Never doubt Salon reviews again! This book is GREAT. It kept me awake night after night. Joanna and Richard race through the labyrinthine Mercy General, interviewing NDE patients and avoiding Mandrake, while Joanna slowly gains more clues as to what her NDEs may mean for patients near death. Willis is fantastic here - she never withholds information just for the sake of suspense. Nothing frustrates me more than an author teasingly dribbling out clues for 300 pages, then dumping all the revelations out in one big bang at the end. It's a cheap thrill and a way of disguising the fact that there's usually very little suspense or story - definitely not the case here. Instead, every one of Joanna's realizations lead to more questions and more clues, and we find ourselves caught up in understanding the mystery with her. A shattering development occurs 3/4 of the way through, and injects the last part of the book with a serious sense of urgency (just in time) that really brings it home.

There are a few problems. Willis is overly fond of terms like "confabulation" and inserts it into dialog even where it's inappropriate for the character. Wright is obsessed with brain scans of NDE patients, and sometimes his musings are much too technical, with not enough explanation. The nitpicking of specific enzymes is unnecessary, but until you realize that his musings are irrelevant you'll spend a lot of time trying to decode them. And the ending feels just a leeeetle bit like a cop-out.

Overall, though, this is an engrossing novel full of endearing characters, literary references, science, faith, and philosophy. Willis is a great writer who makes you love her work and enjoy every moment you spend with it. This is the first of her books that I've read, and I am anxious to pick up the rest!

Passage is Connie Willis' new novel, and it's fairly clear from the subject matter that it's an entry in her more serious mode. It concerns Near Death Experiences (NDE's), and the attempts of a couple of researchers to explain them as the reaction of the brain and body to the physical conditions of dying -- with a glimmer of hope that such understanding might even lead to a means of bringing more people back from the brink of death. As such, the book deals with several people on the verge of dying -- including some who have, as it were, been there and back.
The main character is Joanna Lander, a psychologist investigating NDE's at a Denver hospital. She is called whenever a patient "codes" -- suffers heart failure, and if the patient is revived, she interviews him or her about her experience. Her cross to bear is a rival researcher, Maurice Mandrake, who has written a best-selling book asserting that NDE's involve a specific set of images including angels, messages from others who have died, etc., as well as asserting that they are essentially spiritual in nature. Willis spends many pages in something like her madcap comedy mode, detailing Joanna's attempts to find shortcuts threw the maze that is the hospital, both in order to avoid Mandrake and to reach coded patients faster than he can.
Then a new researcher, Dr. Richard Wright, enters the picture. He has a plan to simulate NDE's by introducing the same chemicals researchers have detected in the brains of dying patients into healthy patients. Mandrake, of course, thinks this folly, as it implies that NDE's are physical and not spiritual in nature. But Joanna, after some hesitation, agrees to help Richard. However, they run into problems recruiting appropriate subjects and finally, Joanna (rather unprofessionally, I thought) decides to become a subject herself.
This is about when the book, which begins very slowly, almost tediously, becomes interesting. Joanna's simulated NDE seems very real, and soon she realizes that what she experiences while she is "under" is a very real-seeming version of the Titanic, just as it is sinking. It's peppered with details which are apparently historically correct, but also with curious variances that come from Joanna's own life. So she keeps going under, while trying to track down Titanic-related details, and trying to correlate the imagery of other NDE's with Titanic imagery. Then events take a wrenching turn, and the novel moves to its extended close, which mixes tragic events with some hopeful and optimistic discoveries.
I had some problems with this book. As I suggested earlier, it starts slowly, and it's too long. Willis' trademark habit of making some set of frustrating everyday-life details a recurring motif or running joke (in this case, the difficulty of navigating the hospital corridors, plus the never-open cafeteria) is over-extended here -- it becomes annoying. She doesn't quite manage to make Richard seem real, though the other characters are well-done. Some of the plot devices are implausible -- for example, would experienced researchers really believe that a man claiming to be 65 in the year 2000 was a crewman on the Yorktown at the Battle of Midway? And the big revelation Joanna finds, which drives the action of the final third of the novel, really doesn't seem that spectacular -- more just common sense. Indeed, the book really is only barely SF -- which isn't a complaint, just an observation.
On the other hand, after the slow start, the story becomes quite involving, and if I felt just a bit manipulated by some of the plot turns, I was still genuinely moved, and shocked at the right time, excited at other times, in tears by the end. The passel of characters surrounding Joanna are engaging people, and we feel for them and root for them. If the book turns on a scientific discovery which seems kind of minor, or at least obvious, that still leaves our concern for the characters to interest us. At any rate, while this isn't a perfect performance, nor is it Willis' best work, it's a worthwhile and moving novel.

Connie Willis is one of those authors who write books that you just can't stop thinking about when they're over, and _Passage_ is no exception to the rule. I couldn't put it down while I was reading it, and now, although I finished it several days ago, it still haunts me.
_Passage_ is not an easy novel in terms of subject matter. It's about death and its characters are people who live with death on a day to day basis, both the death of the body and the death of the soul: hospital workers, critically ill patients, Alzheimers sufferers and their caretakers. The two main characters are involved in a research project to study Near Death Experiences. They hope to find that the NDE is some sort of survival mechanism and that by unlocking its mysteries they will be able to come up with a treatment to bring back people who have "coded" -- that is, experienced the cessation of circulatory and respiratory function -- in the four to six minutes before brain death occurs. What they find is by turns intriguing, fascinating, humourous and terrifying.
Some writers use character as a vehicle to point out their stands on social, political or moral issues. Willis tends to do just the opposite: for her the issues and plot serve to elucidate character and that is part of what makes her work so absorbing and readable. It is impossible not to believe that her characters are real people and care about them, from the likable ones right down to the truly obnoxious. The diversity and reality of the characters acts in huge part to make her stories very, very real. Although I knew I was reading fiction I was completely able to believe it.
Though not as outright funny as some of her other work, _Passage_ does present the absurdity of life as well as its more serious aspects. There were few, if any, belly laughs, but there were numerous "groaners," where you though, "Yep, I can totally get that -- ain't life that way." This served to lighten what was at times an almost overwhelming read.
Among other things, _Passage_ is a book about symbol and metaphor; unlocking the underlying metaphor of the NDE is central to the plot. Even the setting -- a hospital with such a complex map that getting from one floor to the next becomes an adventure into the unknown -- is a metaphor for the whole, and Willis carries it off with great skill.
People who like obvious plots and simple stories may not like this book. But for a novel with lots of twists and turns and a story that unfolds bit by bit to its disturbing cinclusion, _Passage_ can't be beaten.

Other reviewers have suggested that this is darker than Willis' other works. Compared to "To Say Nothing About the Dog", this is true, but Doomsday Book (or "How I survived the Plague in 15th Century England") was hardly a light read.
Truly this book has the power to disturb, and to provoke the reader to question what death holds for us, what we believe happens to us. Also, Willis is amazingly adept at writing unpredictable story lines and weaving many complex plots into a coherent whole.
This story does suffer from a few flaws. The most interesting characters tend to be secondary, while the primary characters do feel... flat at times. (Maisie excepted -- I want to see her in another book!) There are annoyingly contrived blocks of dialogue from characters who talk non-stop. Unfortunately, it's not just the other characters in the book who suffer when they do this. And there are at least two spots where the book just seems to lose steam while it tries to carry the story forward.
Not nearly as much fun a read as To Say Nothing, not quite as dark as Doomsday Book, and not Willis' best work. Still, this is better than 90% of anything else you'll find out there.

Passage by Connie Willis is a slow, slow buildup to a delightfully unexpected 3rd act that I thought was both audacious and worth the effort to get there (barely).

My paperback version is nearly 800 pages. Call me impatient but this story could've easily been told in 300-400 pages. So unless you don't mind what too often feels like plot stalling, know that Passage, expertly written though it is, takes its sweet time.

This novel had my interest from the first chapter. The premise is quite believable and interesting (studying near death experiences in a chemically simulated, monitored environment). However, an editor should have intervened at some point. How many times does the reader have to experience the main character, Joanna Lander, running into her religious-nut counterpart, calling Kit to do some research, figuring out a different route in the hospital to avoid someone, etc. These situations occur repeatedly to the point of becoming wearisome. A little nip and tuck from the editor's pen (or mouse) would be welcome and actually enhance the novel rather than take away from it. Still, the story is compelling and Willis has a knack for the telling of it. I was reminded of characters and situations in the book while hearing the daily news or talking with friends. This has lasted well beyond the reading of the final chapter. I think of it as a compliment to the author when a novel manages to intrude upon the reader's daily life.

Joanna spends her days chasing after patients in her hospital who have had near death experiences (NDEs). She is continuously searching for a thread that binds them all together. But she's also convinced that many people reinterpret their NDEs to fit their commonly held beliefs of life after death: angels, religious figures, life reviews, etc. Joanna becomes a partner in a medical experiment that chemically induces NDEs and eventually, because of lack of quality volunteers, begins to undergo the chemically induced NDEs herself. Her exciting NDE adventures in the other world her brain creates lead her to amazing discoveries about the purpose of NDEs. The book is interspersed with fun characters and references to well-known books and movies. The author has obviously done her medical homework to be able to write this book. Although I was getting annoyed with the repetitions in the lives of the characters (racing around the hospital, avoiding people, not answering pagers, cafeterias that are always closed, hospital locations that are insanely difficult to get to), I finally realized that these were unifying forces in the book and mirrored the NDE experiences. The book was well worth the read and won't soon be forgotten.

I own every single one of Connie Willis' books, but do not love them all equally. My favorite is the first of hers I read, "The Doomsday Book", but this new book, "Passage," has just clearly taken a close second.
I thought of this book as being like a bubble bath versus a shower. When you take a shower, you're trying to get to the end and get on with life. With a bubble bath, the pleasure is in the soaking, not leaving the tub. You're sad to realize the water is cold and the suds have fizzled. That's the way I felt when I reached page 674 all too soon, though I managed to stretch it out over two weeks by willpower.
I confess I felt like this book was tailor-made for me, since it was based around two things that hold my attention -- research in a hospital, and the Titanic disaster. You don't have to love the Leonardo diCaprio movie to enjoy this book, and in fact it's probably better if you can poke fun at James Cameron's version of events. The book is filled with believable and likable characters, who you will miss when you've finished it.
The only reason I give this book 4 stars instead of 5 is because of the ambitious nature of the story. Ms. Willis has attempted to take on and describe the afterlife, and as this is a big deal, open to many interpretations, it is likely to disappoint a bit in the end. But don't allow that to keep you from boarding "Passage" for the trip -- if you've ever been on a cruise, you'll know it's not the destination, but the journey that holds the magic.

If you are put off by Near Death Experience books, do not let that deter you from reading this book. It's not what you think. It isn't spiritual nor is it paranormal. It's as close as you can get to scientific and still be a work of fiction. Indeed, if you are of a scientific bent and abhor the gulability of the masses you will see your faith in the scientific method maintained. I found myself growing impatient reading this book because I felt the abundance of detail, normally a good thing, got in the way of the plot. I found a few of the characters to be somewhat shallow and repetitive. The Yorktown guy reminded me of Mike in the Red Green Show; and I wasn't as enamored of Maisie as I was obviously supposed to be. I also thought the protaganists were wusses in that they seemed to be so easily buttonholed. Why couldn't they just say "No" and walk away? I guess that shows how the author captured me in her yarn despite myself. The book is definitely not light weight. You can't breeze through it like a Cat Who book. I cannot believe anyone could read this and not be compelled to ponder the possibility that life isn't quite what we thought it was. I've never read anything quite like this. It's unique. Guaranteed.

Connie Willis simply deserves another five star review for this wonderful book! I only discovered Willis a couple years ago when I first purchased Blackout on a whim while I was browsing in the bookstore. Soon after, I decided I needed to read as many books of hers as possible and out of all the others I would have to say Passage is my favorite. Incredibly inventive science ideas about Near Death Experiences combined with smart dialogue and loveable and, above all, understandable characters mean this is a book you can read over and over again without it ever getting old. I feel like it's aged well, too--it still feels like most of the action could have taken place only yesterday.

A note: I haven't read any of the other reviews, but just in case anyone's talked about this: the topic the author deals with is a sensitive one, and she has some very pointed humor directed at "religious" people who exploit it. The author is liberal (most writers are) BUT this does not mean she herself does not appreciate religion. If you pay attention to the book, you realize she really is only criticizing a certain kind of religious believer, a kind of religious believer even other believers should criticize.

POSSIBLE SPOILER WARNING BUT IMPORTANT IF YOU ARE A CHRISTIAN THINKING ABOUT READING THIS BOOK: As a conservative, Magisterium-following Catholic (who has a strong interest in science issues and loves science fiction shows like Primeval and Doctor Who), I felt that the way she concluded the natural/supernatural debate was absolutely perfect.

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.

Slow to start, slow in the middle, and underwhelming at the finish.

Couldn't really bring myself to really like either of the main characters (Dr. Lander and Dr. Wright). Their lives were purely scientific based and work oriented (which is fine as long as you love it), but they didn't even seem to be that passionate about it. Also, they constantly mocked anyone and anything that went against their ideals and beliefs. Kinda like a person that's right, no matter what facts and logic are presented against them.

Any characters that went against their ideals were written to be ignorant, stupid, and loathsome. Sorry Connie Willis, but if these are your ideals, great, but please don't have your characters express them every other page.

Whenever I read past the 1st 100 pages of a book hoping it improves, I'll finish it. I did, but it didn't really get any better. The plot just didn't draw me in. A great idea (what are NDE's and what causes them), but poorly made into a story. Three quarters of the book is spent chasing information that doesn't really make any difference. Boring.

It wasn't a horrible book, but could never recommend it to anyone. Have a strong feeling I'll never pick-up any other of this author's novels again. At least I really liked the character Maisie, a little bad-ass dying girl who's just so lovable because of her attitude.

I thought this book had an interesting premise but it didn't live up to it. Parts of it were boring and repetitive. She should have cut out at least 100 pages. There's an interesting plot twist 3/4 of the way through the novel which did make it a little more compelling.
One thing that stuck out as unlikely was that the main character Joanna Lander, a clinical psychologist, couldn't identify that a man she had previously known had Alzheimer's disease. The thought didn't even cross her mind. It had to be explained to her. I could see a layman making this mistake, or even a psychologist who had not previously known the person. But in this case it stretched belief.
I was somewhat puzzled by a reviewer on the back cover comparing Connie Willis to John Donne, the metaphysical poet. I even did a search on the store trying to find a modern writer of the same name. It's not who I would have first thought of. But perhaps he was thinking of Donne's theological works and not his poetry.
The Doomsday Book, also by Connie Willis, is incredibly good and I would recommend that completely.

I think that Connie Willis is the best science fiction writer out there today. It's just that this here is not up to par with the other two books of hers that I have read. `To Say Nothing of the Dog' is a classic that I would recommend to anyone, even those who scoff at the mention of Sci-Fi. And `Doomsday' was a very enjoyable read in its own right. But what kind of put me off in `Doomsday' was the same thing that made me upset with `Passage.' `Doomsday' was a very linear book, the plot of it started at point A and headed without departure from its track to its end. That was o.k. because there were a few things going on that broke the plot up a bit. `Passage' on the other hand starts off in one direction and for 600 pages we pretty much know what is going to happen. I was very frustrated by Willis in that I was constantly flipping past well-written pages to hurry along the plot. I felt like I was listening to a great song that starts off well for the first minute, and then a soloist hits a high C note and holds it their for the next four minutes until finally the band starts up again and finishes off in a semblance of order. Or maybe you could say that this would have made a great 40-page short story, but for some reason it is 600 pages long. Or it could just be that Willis needs to read and examine some suspense authors to see how important it is to keep the plot moving and the reader engaged.

I would recommend to Willis that she read `Wind Up Bird Chronicle,' a book by Murakami. It would be interesting to see how Willis' books would change if she brought in some of the narrative devices that Murakami uses. He is constantly going off on tangents that help the reader think and expand the scope of the book. Another author Willis might get something from would be Russo's `Nobody's Fool.' This is another book that is all about small stories with in a larger context. I think that Willis was playing with this tangent device a little, but it was not pulled off with great success here.

For an 800 page novel, it was surprising how sparse the story was. The premise was interesting, and based on the first hundred-odd pages, I thought I was in for a very good read. Unfortunately, 'Passage' turned out to be less than thrilling.

There's no doubt Willis has an engaging style - how else to explain why I sat through page after page of endless plot repetition? She's easy to read; her prose is clear and flows well, and it was clear to me that the constant traipsing back and forth through the maze-like halls of Mercy General by her characters was a sort of uber-metaphor in a book about NDE and metaphors. And that's just it - it was clear to me after the first few dozen pages - why keep hitting the reader over the head with it?

Additionally, there was absolutely no character development. Hell, there were no real characters to begin with - you can't make a five-course gourmet meal out of a cardboard box and a turnip. The characters were merely mouthpieces to expound an interesting, but ultimately boring, theory. You might even say the characters themselves were only metaphors. The relationships between the characters are totally undeveloped, with the exception of the protagonist, Dr. Lander, and her friend Maisie, a little girl in ICU waiting on a new heart. But even there, the relationship turns out to be - guess what? That's right. A metaphor.

My last gripe is not so much with Ms. Willis or this book itself as it is with the marketing of the book. When I pick up a book in the science-fiction section of my local bookstore, I expect to read a science-fiction book, which 'Passage' is clearly not. It's a metaphysical and philosophical exploration, sure, but absolutely not scifi.

Based on the strength of her writing ability (after all, I DID read an 800 page book about nothing), I'll try one of her other works, but I won't hold my breath expecting something fascinating.

As usual, Connie Willis' writing is outstanding, and the plot kept me turning the pages. I am continually impressed with how each Willis book explores new themes, uses new structures, and challanges the reader with new ideas. There is little repetitive in Willis' writing. While this book was not the overwhelming joy of TO SAY NOTHING OF THE DOG (and deals with much darker topics), the book really held my attention; I can see why it made the Hugo nomination list.
I really like the touch of providing an alternative interpretation of the standard elements of a "near-death experience". Willis shows how they could be combined to create a different set of images without ignoring any of the classic elements. The plot turns around a pyschologist type who wants to understand what people really experience in such experiences and a neuroscientist who wants to explain what is happening in the brain during an NDE. It is really science fiction, even though it could have been a Robin Cook medical thriller. (Only the last short chapter feels like fantasy for me.)
One of the few repeated elements in Willis' fiction is a well-captured characterization of a little girl who's reactions is critical to making you care about the people in the story. (I'm beginning to think these are as typical of Willis as the "Old Man" was in Heinlein novels). She treats this character with skill and uses the character well to move the plot forward and to provide sort of a happy ending. Structrually, the book reads very much like 3 related novellas, and they each have individual themes and styles. Of the three, I liked the middle story best, after the psychologist experience her own drug-induced NDEs, and as she tries to make sense of them. I think that Willis does an interesting job of presenting that difficult issue of "experiential evidence", as opposed to verifiable experimental evidence.
I give the book less than 5 stars, on an admittedly personal scale, because it doesn't quite live up to its promise for me. Too much of the book led me to think the book was raising questions about the meaning of death, even though the book provides internal warnings that it is more about the methods of medical research. Despite those warnings (and given what a good writer Willis has always been), I was expecting a conclusion addressing some of the broader themes of the work. None-the-less, this is a solid 4-star book, well worth anyone's reading. It would probably appeal to an audience for medical thrillers as well as SF fans.

Entertaining, enjoyable, a bit suspenseful, sometimes sad (but not too much), definitely quirky. These are the phrases that apply to Connie Willis’ novels. Part science fiction but almost magical realism, we wish her scenarios existed.

For an 800 page novel, it was surprising how sparse the story was. The premise was interesting, and based on the first hundred-odd pages, I thought I was in for a very good read. Unfortunately, 'Passage' turned out to be less than thrilling.

There's no doubt Willis has an engaging style - how else to explain why I sat through page after page of endless plot repetition? She's easy to read; her prose is clear and flows well, and it was clear to me that the constant traipsing back and forth through the maze-like halls of Mercy General by her characters was a sort of uber-metaphor in a book about NDE and metaphors. And that's just it - it was clear to me after the first few dozen pages - why keep hitting the reader over the head with it?

Additionally, there was absolutely no character development. Hell, there were no real characters to begin with - you can't make a five-course gourmet meal out of a cardboard box and a turnip. The characters were merely mouthpieces to expound an interesting, but ultimately boring, theory. You might even say the characters themselves were only metaphors. The relationships between the characters are totally undeveloped, with the exception of the protagonist, Dr. Lander, and her friend Maisie, a little girl in ICU waiting on a new heart. But even there, the relationship turns out to be - guess what? That's right. A metaphor.

My last gripe is not so much with Ms. Willis or this book itself as it is with the marketing of the book. When I pick up a book in the science-fiction section of my local bookstore, I expect to read a science-fiction book, which 'Passage' is clearly not. It's a metaphysical and philosophical exploration, sure, but absolutely not scifi.

Based on the strength of her writing ability (after all, I DID read an 800 page book about nothing), I'll try one of her other works, but I won't hold my breath expecting something fascinating.

As usual, Connie Willis' writing is outstanding, and the plot kept me turning the pages. I am continually impressed with how each Willis book explores new themes, uses new structures, and challanges the reader with new ideas. There is little repetitive in Willis' writing. While this book was not the overwhelming joy of TO SAY NOTHING OF THE DOG (and deals with much darker topics), the book really held my attention; I can see why it made the Hugo nomination list.
I really like the touch of providing an alternative interpretation of the standard elements of a "near-death experience". Willis shows how they could be combined to create a different set of images without ignoring any of the classic elements. The plot turns around a pyschologist type who wants to understand what people really experience in such experiences and a neuroscientist who wants to explain what is happening in the brain during an NDE. It is really science fiction, even though it could have been a Robin Cook medical thriller. (Only the last short chapter feels like fantasy for me.)
One of the few repeated elements in Willis' fiction is a well-captured characterization of a little girl who's reactions is critical to making you care about the people in the story. (I'm beginning to think these are as typical of Willis as the "Old Man" was in Heinlein novels). She treats this character with skill and uses the character well to move the plot forward and to provide sort of a happy ending. Structrually, the book reads very much like 3 related novellas, and they each have individual themes and styles. Of the three, I liked the middle story best, after the psychologist experience her own drug-induced NDEs, and as she tries to make sense of them. I think that Willis does an interesting job of presenting that difficult issue of "experiential evidence", as opposed to verifiable experimental evidence.
I give the book less than 5 stars, on an admittedly personal scale, because it doesn't quite live up to its promise for me. Too much of the book led me to think the book was raising questions about the meaning of death, even though the book provides internal warnings that it is more about the methods of medical research. Despite those warnings (and given what a good writer Willis has always been), I was expecting a conclusion addressing some of the broader themes of the work. None-the-less, this is a solid 4-star book, well worth anyone's reading. It would probably appeal to an audience for medical thrillers as well as SF fans.

Entertaining, enjoyable, a bit suspenseful, sometimes sad (but not too much), definitely quirky. These are the phrases that apply to Connie Willis’ novels. Part science fiction but almost magical realism, we wish her scenarios existed.

I figured the back of the book looked interesting, so took a chance and picked up Passage. I was very pleased that I did. Willis's writing style is refined, but not overly edited. In other words she tells her story with the poise that her lead character Joanna posseses. The themes in the book are subtly explored for the most part, i.e. Willis resists temptation to sermonize too overtly over her own beliefs. My favorite characteristic of the novel was the refreshingly lack of saccharine romances that find its way into too many of the best thrillers. A male and female character can have feelings for each other without neccesarily consumating their love in physical manner. The only real critique I have of this novel is its length, Ms. Willis suffers from a mild case of Dickenitus using pages of description where a paragraph or two will paint vivid image for reader. In conclussion I can not say I'm a rapid Willis fan after reading this book, but will explore some of her other novels having enjoyed this one.

Just great stuff. As I've gotten older, and have more responsibilities during the day, it's become really rare for me to stay up past "bedtime" to read a book, but this one kept me up. The premise -- a drug that allows doctors to induce Near Death Experiences in an experimental setting -- is ambitious, and Willis handles it well. The early part of the novel, when Dr. Lander and Dr. Wright are interviewing people right after their experiences is down right frightening. I thought the book was going to turn out to be a horror story rather than sci fi. But once Dr. Lander volunteers to be a subject herself, the book changes tone and becomes more of a mystery. The characters are great -- particularly Maisie, a little girl with a heart condition who is at death's door. And the weaving in of historical information is a lot of fun too. If I have any complaint, I'd say that I would have been tempted to omit the final chapter, which I think was unnecessary and actually diminished the impact from what it would have been without it.

Joanna is a scientist studying "near-death" experiences but she becomes frustrated with interviewing patients who have coded. She forms an alliance with Dr. Richard Wright a neurologist who has found a drug that manufactures the effect of dying. Joanna decides to try it herself in a series of experiments...

This novel confronts the physical, emotional and mythical contexts of death head on. The plot spirals through a series of loops, each one taking us a little deeper into the mystery but not crossing the barrier until the shattering conclusion hits with the force of revelation: death is a spiritual voyage and once truly launched there is no turning back.

This is one of the most original works of science fiction of our time. Some of the scenes have a fine satiric touch. The sinking of the Titanic becomes a recurring image, one that Joanna thinks holds the key to her research. Make no mistake about this book: it is a scary story. Here, away from all the demented serial killers of the world, lies true horror, true beauty and true life: in the midst of life, we are in Death.

"Passage" suffers from the same major problem that plagued Willis' book "Bellwether"-they both run a joke or a character trait into the ground through endless repetition. The hospital that serves as the main setting for "Passage" is always under construction and so any time a character goes from one place into the hospital to another, the reader is treated to a discourse on the detours required. In addition, the oily charlatan Mandrake never wavers from his one message, not does the veteran Wojakowski-every time they are brought on the scene, the dialogue is essentially the same. This extreme repetitiveness makes parts of the book drag on and the mid-section could have been edited down to a few pages.
That said, the book takes several interesting turns and it has the guts to leave many important questions unanswered. It is a book to get readers to think about death/dying/afterlife and not one to provide resolution. The central conceit (simulating near death experiences through drugs) was well explored and had enough zest on its own to pull me through a few hundred slow pages. While not Willis' strongest work, still intriguing enough to cause me to daydream about it a week after I finished the last page.

Although I finished this book, which in similar circumstances I often don't, I submit this review as a warning. I am currently unemployed and have too much time to spare. I do not recommend this book to readers more pressed for time. Even though the notion of an inquirery into the nature of Near Death Experience is a compelling one.
I found the novel wordy and extremely repetitious in the beginning. An example of the tedium; The Dr.'s voicemail is full so he hears an indefinite fragment of Joanna's message agreeing to work on his project. He spends A PAGE dithering, trying to determine if she agreed to or not from the fragment while WE ALREADY KNOW. Okay we're reminded of this as a metaphor near the end of the book, but the length seems so unnecessary! Also I believe a better writer could convey THE IDEA that Joanna and Dr. Wright do things over and over and argue chemical and psychological theory in circles without showing them doing things over and over and arguing in circles again and again.
Except for the kid the main characters were flat. Joanna, the driven career women; the doctor obsessed with his research; the flirtatious assisting nurse, and the bossy black ER nurse. The plight of the secondary characters Briarly and Kit was touching and the subject of Alzheimer's effectively handled.
Yet the originality of where Joanna found herself after coming out of the tunnel into the light compelled me to keep reading. An ultimately frustrating experience, since I found some of Joanna's theories why her NDE took her where it eventually did, inane and the final outcome of her journey silly. Indeed, the clever apt-ness of Joanne's NDE metaphor, with relentless signaling by many means and frantic efforts to escape, astutely characterized as "the mirror image of death" by Briarly is by far the novel's best conceit. But its ingeniousness is the novels undoing. It renders those NDEs of Amelia, even Maisey's circus in a blimp, and especially Dr. Wright's (Star Line headquarters, for goodness sake) pedestrian, even clumsy and unbefitting the premise by comparison. I can't think of another metaphor that bares comparison myself and since the author apparently couldn't it renders the basic idea of the novel untenable.
Richard Powers does this sort of story: A band of highly motivated scientists exploring the cutting edge of science, much better. Especially in The Gold Bug Variations and Plowing the Dark, which is thematically (virtual reality rather than NDE) very similar. One of the themes of Brain Storm by Richard Dooling is brain research, a book I enjoyed a lot.

Dr. Joanna Landers is studying near death experiences by interviewing people who have had them. She has no religious agenda and is annoyed by a popular writer who interviews people but ruins their evidence by asking leading questions and giving them cues as to what they are 'supposed' to have experienced. She teams up with doctor Richard Wright, who has developed an artificial way of creating near death experiences and is investigating them biochemically.

This is a thick book, and there is a lot packed into it. There is a soft pedaled romance, all the more poignant because both doctors are involved in their work and one is almost oblivious even to his own feelings. There is all the excitement and drama of hospital life. Most of all there is the excitement of actually thinking scientifically about near death experiences, although I am not sure the author always has it perfectly realistic.

As a reading experience, this book suffers from too many words, and some repetitiveness. Realistically, science and research is less exciting to read about than to do, and making it otherwise is sometimes challenging. Yet eventually there is action, and the author does a good job of creating tension even before then.

The reason I give this novel five stars is because Connie Willis does something amazing. Either answering yes or no to the question of life after death would be too easy, and it wouldn't be any more than the author's opinion. Instead she's given us an ambiguous symbolic framework, which makes it feel as if she's managed to forward the discussion in a way. It has to be read to be understood, but this book will stick with you. This is one of the few books worth sticking with even if you feel bogged down at some point.

"Passage" is one of those novels that you put down and wonder how one writer could have made such insights into the human spirit.
In her latest novel, Willis takes a look at NDE's (Near Death Experiences) and focuses on two doctors researching the phenomena. Willis develops the characters beautifully, and portrays Joanna Lander, the main character as a workaholic who slowly spirals into obsession after having her own induced NDE.
Connie Willis is a very talented writer. This book demonstrates her amazing writing ability-- the characters are well developed and sympathetic, The plot is engaging. I read this book in a night, unable to put it down.
The last 150 pages will shock you; this is one of the best twist endings I have ever seen. Even if you don't like thrillers this is a book that should not be missed.

I loved this book, everything Ms Willis writes is engaging and you remember the characters for years after. However, having read many many books written about or occuring in hospital situations I must wonder from where comes the ridiculous notion that nurses are EVER referred to as "Nurse Gibbons" or "Nurse Jones" . 30 years of being a nurse and working in at least 20 different hospitals all over the country no one ever, ever, calls a nurse "Nurse Jones" Nurses are usually called by the first name by both patients, doctors and other staff members, because it is easier and no nurse wants their last name bandied about where potentially nut case patients can hear. Doctors are always called by just their last name "Jones" or "Gibbons", but rarely Dr. Jones, or Dr. Gibbons. If they are well known to or are sleeping with the nurse in question it will be "Joe" or "Pete". Replacement nurses are never called "subs" They are referred to as "Agency" These are competant RN's with many years experience that can do everything at a moments notice. They are also referred to as "Old War Horses"

This is an odd and spooky book with considerable depth. As in the author's Doomsday Book, a theme is the ubiquity of death behind the rich details of life. The treatment is very different in this book, where the approach is through "near death experiences" analyzed in a scientific experiment.
There is a constant flirtation with fantasy, but the book stays
in touch with plausibility enough that I would count it as SF rather than fantasy. There is a shiver of fear through much of the book, but that's very appropriate to the subject matter! I liked this more thoughtful treatment much more than the Doomsday Book, which I found miserably relentless.
Passage has a LOT of description of mundane details - more than I or many male readers usually like - but it's very appropriate to the theme here.

Finished Connie Willis' Passage tonight.

Over 800 pages, but I never felt it dragging - on the contrary, I had to force myself to put it down. Apparently in contrast with about half the folks who have read it ....

I love the way she writes. Her characters - the primary ones, anyway -- are so believable. She writes dialogue with all the fits and starts and digressions and oh-by-the-ways of real life - and it's so real that it hooks you right into the story. Does me, at any rate.

Her secondary characters (Mr Mandrake in Passage, Mrs Gallbladder and her womanizing son in Doomsday Book) are charicatures, and the comedy of errors thing she is (rightly) famous for gets old across 800 pages ... and yet ....

... and yet, just like The Doomsday Book the story starts in an almost lighthearted manner and then it grabs you by the stacking swivel and it won't let go. The very end was somewhat disappointing --- like too too many popular stories there is this huge buildup and it gets resolved in the last (literally) five minutes with a happy ending. Except Passge doesn't, really ... the happy ending isn't, really. I'm still not quite sure if the very last chapter was an ending or a chapter break (though the book is a standalone, not part of any trilogy or series).

The Doomsday Book was about death and survivors. Pasage is about death and the dying. Heavy stuff. I am not ashamed to say I cried for Agnes and I cried for Joanna ... and that's a spoiler. Not that it matters. I knew where both novels were going early on, but the journey's the thing and Ms Willis did not dissapoint there.

I am not a big reader of science fiction anymore, but I read every book that Connie Willis releases.
Why? great characters, inventive plots with enough twists to ensure that you will be left guessing till the very end and a great writing style which conveys a sense of fun,
This book is a departure from Ms Willis normal subject of time travel, chosing instead to explore near death experiences - what are they? a glimpse of the afterlife, the final firing of the brains synapse as it dies, or something much more interesting. And to explore this mystery she creates a cast of characters who are intelligent, sympathetic and believable.
Recommended, read this book and then go read "to say nothing of the dog"

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.

This book is BREATHTAKING. I've admired Goldsworthy's simple yet stunning nature-mimics-nature for a few years now, but this book managed to blow me away.

Much of the photographs are devoted to the use of light on his works. Shadows, times of day (or year!), reflections, and the passage of light make astounding changes in his works.

Goldsworthy includes his notes and journal entries for the works, explaining his goals, emotions, and reactions to the process. A valuable look into the works, but also into the artist himself and his thoughts.

Goldsworthy is a master at using nature in creative ways. I own his book, "A Collaboration With Nature," which is also a beautiful book, but what i love about "Passage" is how it documents and details the design process and the way Goldsworthy actually created his artwork. My favorite piece of work of his in this book is the one he calls pool of light - a huge circle of split wood facing a certain direction so that when the sun hits it, it is illuminated a rich golden color, surrounded by more split wood facing a different direction so that when the sun hits the circle or "Pool", the surrounding wood is dark. By the afternoon, when the sun hits the field of wood from a different direction, the colors are reversed, with the circle appearing dark, and the surrounding wood illuminated golden.

Goldsworthy's ability to use the ordinary changes in nature (such as the sunrises and sunsets, the ocean tides or currents in rivers), and to weave those changes into his art in an interactive way, is nothing short of genius. The photography is also extraordinary. This book is inspirational - it makes you want to go outside, commune with nature, and a create something!

Kudos to Connie Willis for another great story. She always manages to create suspense, believable characters and an engaging plot line. This is about research into 'near-death' experiences, but it does not go where I had expected it to take me. I had an equally engaging English teacher,and the other characters like Massie, Richard, Joanna and Kit are well drawn. This is about near and long term memory and puzzles.
Moving, and thought provoking.

This author has done a masterful job of answering the question of life-after-death in a way that STILL leaves room for many interpretations. Yes, the story's ending gives a definite answer. Or does it? hmmmmm
I inhaled this book, literally could not put it down, and I was sorry to turn the last page and know it was finished. I even stood over the stove cooking dinner with my nose in the book!
I haven't yet read the 'Doomsday Book' but I have to take a long plane trip this week and I'm taking it with me. If that book is as good as this one was, my trip will be very pleasant, indeed.

At 700+ pages, with lengthy descriptions of travels through a labrynth of a hospital and exactly how many phone messages the main character has to fast-forward through, Passage is a bit on the indulgent side, suggesting that Connie Willis has used the screwball comedy of "Bellwether" and "At the Rialto" once too often. However, she makes up for it with an intriguing plot, and a daring that sets her apart from most science fiction (well, make that fiction, period) writing these days, It's not up to "The Doomsday Book" (my vote for her personal best), but it is a smart, entertaining diversion.

I'm disappointed. This book could have been cropped 200 pages at least. I liked the concept, and it would make a good movie(because it would be edited). As always, Ms. Willis seems to do an inordinate amount of grand research on her books, in this case, Near Death Experiences. On the other hand, the book was too long, not as humorous, and achieved only one-dimensional character development. The constant motif of going up and down hallways and passages got longwinded and overabused. I GET it; when one has an NDE, there is a long tunnel. May I suggest, Lincoln's Dreams, or the Doomsday Book instead, or for pure enjoyment, To Say Nothing of the Dog.

I found the story to be engaging and the characters were a bit stereotypical, but realistic and likeable. The scientific premise and the wonderful fine line between the knowable and the supernatural was handled beautifully. Highly recommended overall.
My complaint is one that I have had with Willis' books before -- the artificial tension created by the reader knowing that one character has the information that another character needs to know, but they keep missing each other. In moderation, this is a wonderful device, but in Passage, it seems that the reader knew everything they needed to know to piece everything together by the end of the first 2/3, so the final section was just the frustration of trying to get everyone synced up. A little of this type of irony goes a long way. The ending (and plot twists) did surprise me.

A major disappointment. The tremendously talented Connie Willis writing a novel on near-death experiences (NDEs) promises much. With her signature mix of wit, morbitity, and intellectual acuity, one expects great things -- but the result (despite referencing and disparaging the film) is a really, really long, dull knockoff of eighties camp classic Flatliners.
A big problem: the "wit." Not only do the seemingly endless parade of eccentrics chatter for pages at a time, virtual none of them are funny past the first appearance. Each is a one joke stick figure, yet recurs endlessly. Yes, the characters are annoyed by them, too, but come on -- literally hundreds of pages are given over to this stuff.
Sadly, the main characters suffer the same 'one trait stick figure' problem. Heroine Joanne is somewhat appealing in that she shares the dry, exasperated good sense and competence of Willis protagonists, but she has no life outside the 'mystery' beyond her woefully cliched mantalk with stick figure ER doc best friend. The less said about theoretical romantic interest Dr. Wright (Dr. Right -- get it!?) the better.
Poor characters needn't sink a medical mystery thriller. Many do fine without them. The biggest problem with Passage is, unaccountably, the biggest problem with Flatliners: are we really supposed to believe that the dreamlike, suggestive impressions of patients drugged to simulate a near death experience have any objective meaning? It's absurd. These are clearly subjective events. Willis acknowledges this at first, debunking NDE mysticism and focusing on brain chemistry, but by midway this rigor is all but forgotten, as the not so riveting mystery of characters trying to remember crucial details from their NDEs is stretched out over hundreds of pages. The final solution returns to science, but after what we've been through to get there, warrants no more than a shrug.
A interesting twist occurs around page 550, and given the subject matter one cannot help but keep reading, but the end is both predictable and a sad turn into the traditional NDE mysticism that for 750 previous pages the book has been mocking.
Willis is a terrific writer -- check out the wonderous Doomsday Book or the less ambitious but terribly charming To Say Nothing of the Dog -- but none of her talents are shown to good effect here.

I think the lady at the bookstore was pretty tired of me calling and pestering her, because when I asked if "Passage" had arrived last Friday she just about lost it. That was the third day straight that I called, but oh well... The truth is, I love Ms. Willis and I couldn't wait for this book to arrive. And when I finished it (in pre-calc, despite getting yelled at by that horrible villain Mr. Smith. He's very Maurice Mandrake. I can definitely see him pulling that scurvy funeral trick. Anyway... turn away from the light and emerge from the parentheses) the lovefest continued. The ideas were brilliantly ingenius and original. The characters were believable and not uniformly likable (because you just can't like every character all the time or we miss that little thing called PLOT). I love the little eccentrities-- like Dr. Richard "the walking soup kitchen" Wright. Ditto on the movie references! And amen to NOT LIKING TITANIC! Now I realize that this review has been scattered and fairly random, but I want everyone to read this. I don't know if it's quite on the same altar of sainthood as "Doomsday Book" (for instance, I would love to do something like an airlift of that book, throwing free copies down at the sadly unenlightened. I mean, I couldn't really do that with "Passage" for the simple reason that it's hardcover and it would really hurt to get hit on the head with... and all this time there's been little angels telling me to exit the parentheses and receive psychic powers... Maybe I could get a book deal like Mrs. Davenport) but it is one of the best novels I have ever read. I recommend it! And I will close my review by saying that perhaps the greatest thrill in this book was the references to Denver. I live in that great city, and whenever one of the main characters would be driving somewhere, and Ms. Willis would say something along the lines of, "She went down Hampden to University" I would picture the intersection. It really added to the realism-- although I guess those unlucky and slightly damned souls who don't live here can't understand. I am deeply sorry.

It's hard for me to identify with female characters, so I usually stay away from books that are focused on them. There are rare stories that bridge that gap, and this is one of them. I can particularly identify with this story, because the heroine is doing research, and she has to fight uphill against opininated bias, charlatans, and all kinds of assorted quackery. (Is that a word?) Anywho, this book has some great dialogue, great characters, and realistic as hell. 800 pages is a bit long, but it went too quick. Really great ending too.

I enjoyed all of Connie Willis's time travel books and was happy to see her switch subject matter for this book. However, I found this book some what frustrating as it dragged on repeating the sameness of thoughts and character action while postponing the final answer. I found myself skimming through the pages to move the story along. I did enjoy the ending, it just should have happened a whole lot sooner.

Flip513

Connie Willis has never been an easy read. Her books are multilevel, long, often over-written, and filled with a complexity of ideas and language that are unique to SF. If I would choose an author that exemplifies the raisng of traditional SF to the level of literature, I would choose Connie Willis as a prime example. 'Passage' is no exception.
Most high quality literature requires requires a lot from the reader and 'Passage' is no exception. It took me 2 attempts to get into the book. After allowing myself to really attend to the book, I felt greatly rewarded. This is a book that, like oatmeal, will stick with you long after you have consumed it.

This book was a 400 page novel that somebody told her to lengthen to 780. The continual explanations of the routes that characters take through the hospital are exasperating and the constant avoidance that every chracter practices had me tearing my hair out. She wastes at least a hundred pages telling us how the chracters avoid each other. Do adults behave this way somewhere in the world? The final 200 pages are a complete recap of the 200 before them and by the end, I didn't care about the characters anymore.
We are constantly asked to believe that characters who have just met form lifelong, deep, enduring friendships in a few weeks. The characters are completely one dimensional and seem to have no life outside of plotting their next route through the maze-like hospital or ducking into the ever present stair wells to avoid talking to someone they don't want to see. The symbolism is forced on us and is not the least bit subtle.
Even Maisie, the child heart patient is written so as to be copmpletely annoying. There are at least 75 pages of filler with this character alone and by the end she completely loses her charm. The interaction between Maisie and the rest of the characters began to remind me of an episode of Father Knows Best, where everything the children do is viewed as cute and endearing. This child pages emergency room doctors under false pretenses and they laugh at her resourcefulness.
This was my second Willis novel and I have to say, this attempt didn't come close to living up to the expectaions created by Doomsday Book.
Save your money and more importantly your time and try Doomsday Book instead.

Connie's latest book pushed every one of my literary buttons. The characters are real and heartfelt, particularly the little girl, Mazie. The ideas, which a lot of folk believe are at the heart of science fiction, are huge and human. What could be more important that what happens to us when we die? Connie takes narrative risks, which I'm not going to talk about because it would spoil the plot, but 3/4 of the way through she does something that seems impossible to pull off, and I think she does.
I gave the book to my wife who doesn't read much SF other than my own, and she was fascinated.
Connie has been my favorite, contemporary author. I recommend LINCOLN'S DREAMS, REMAKE and THE DOOMSDAY BOOK to everyone looking for something to read. I return to her short stories to learn more about the craft of storytelling. PASSAGE has enlarged her reputation.
If you believe thinking is important; if you enjoy being entertained; if you want to be gripped by a book that won't let you go, read PASSAGE....