Willis, Connie - Passage

[oyceter]

I don't really know what to say about this book. I think I am an immensely non-partial reviewer, especially for this, because I've been thinking about the whole mortality thing recently (brooding, you might actually call it), so a book on near-death experiences and what they mean wasn't really the best thing for me to pick up. This was compounded by the fact that I read it on the airplane, in that gray limboland between actual places, in which everything is just a little too surreal and maddening.

So. The back of the book said it was ultimately enlightening, but I mostly found it scary. It wasn't written to be a scary book, I think, but it was for me. I kind of liked the way Connie Willis was extremely scientific about NDEs (near-death experiences), but I was also a little offput by the rather heavy-handed sneering at New Agers who believed in NDEs as a sign of life beyond death and at the main character's Christian sister. I mean, I don't particularly agree with any view in the book, but I do think it's a bit unkind to have them be raving cariactures who no one would take seriously.

Also... the Titanic? What? I was going along fairly well in the book while Joanna Landers was exploring the mysterious corridor/tunnel and really fascinated by the scientific process of trying to document a NDE and the pains of avoiding leading questions, etc. And then she ended up on the Titanic. I get why, but I felt the final explanation of NDEs as an alarm from the brain to try to somehow resuscitate the body was a little off. I mean, it made sense medically, but I wasn't quite sure why something so elaborate as the Titanic scenario had to be stuck in, and why we had things like the mysterious last words of Greg and fifty-eight. Was all of that Joanna's subconscious? Why was the Titanic so real? Why did she have to substantiate that it was the Titanic? And if all the people kept insisting the NDEs felt real, why was Maisie's so surreal? I don't know. I was following while I was reading the book, but looking back and thinking about it, it just seemed to be a very elaborate explanation that didn't really fit for me. I mean, why do most people see a corridor with light? They can't all be seeing the Titanic. And it was so strange how Joanna's findings seemed to point at the Titanic being near universal -- what came of that? Was it just Joanna's attempts to make things make sense? Plus, what about cultures for whom the Titanic is really not that big a thing? This is my general problem with most religions. They all feel very culturally specific to me.

So in the end, I was mostly scared because of the subject, and a bit confounded by the ultimate explanation.

Comments

[veejane.livejournal.com]

So, I'll be the lone voice baying in the wilderness about Passage. I love the idea that, as the brain sends out its emergency signals, trying to restart the heart, it also (accidentally) fires up the imaginative, sense-making part of the brain, and the two end up working in parallel. We tell the mega-story story that, backhandedly, tells the micro-story of what our brains have been trying to do.

I don't think the idea is that everyone, ever, sees Titanic when they go into arrest. Indeed, before Titanic went down, it was certainly something else, and since then it's been many things else. The things that Titanic and the Hartford Circus Fire and the Hindenburg -- and the wild west of Coma Carl -- have in common are popular knowledge/imagining about them, the risk of life, and the many survivors. Nobody imagines him/herself into a disaster in which there were no survivors at all; and nobody imagines him/herself into a disaster nobody cares about (like, a factory explosion in which nobody is injured). It's the chanciness of some surviving and some not.

And the survivors, being survivors, having spread the story into the general consciousness -- in news articles, in cheap western novels, in "tragic" movies starring Leonardo DiCaprio -- enough that people can imagine themselves there. Willis's thesis is that each person imagines him/herself into a frightening, chancy situation according to his/her own imaginative landscape: if you'll recall, the Asian med student (Anne?) found herself in a lab, being tested on her knowledge, unable to find the right formula.

Why big disasters, most of the time? I think it's for the reasons that explain Maisie: we're fascinated with them. They tell a story that moves us and frightens us, attracts and repels at the same time. We wonder about death, and also fear it; we're disgusted when autopsy photos or execution photos or snuff films or -- from the 19th C -- face-casts in clay from the moments after death are taken and circulated (and published in newspapers!), but most of the time, we also sort of want to look. And, irrelevant of the real people and their real feelings, we incorporate the events into our own stories, e.g. Jim Cameron deciding Titanic wasn't sexy enough and adding in a doomed love story.

(As for the details -- fifty-eight, the geography of the boat -- part of Joanna's fascination is trying to verify whether she's really there, like transported through time, or whether she's in an imaginative space. The other part is how much of this stuff people -- Joanna, Greg, Kit -- know, without knowing they know it. I knew about the dog on the Hindenburg, e.g., although I'd forgotten I knew it till Maisie talked about it.)

[oyceter]

*nods* I can understand why the disaster, except I think it just threw me a little out of the very hard science feeling of the beginning. Also, there just seemed to be a very large disjoint between the first ventures into NDEs and the chase for the Titanic -- I still don't quite get why everyone seems to see a tunnel and a light.

[(Anonymous)]

possibly because the light and the tunnel have also become part of the general consciousness

from circa 1970:
"We're winding down the war."
"We can see the light at the end of the tunnel."
"Peace is at hand."

[qiihoskeh]

the anonymous comment was mine -- sorry -- repeated below

possibly because the light and the tunnel have also become part of the general consciousness

from circa 1970:
"We're winding down the war."
"We can see the light at the end of the tunnel."
"Peace is at hand."

[(Anonymous)]

a very late reply, but your voice isn't the only one (your comments are right on though, better than what I've written below).

I liked the way the details all tied in: the theme, characters, setting (the hospital maze). The clueless running around is part of this, too.

Kit is well-characterized, even if Mr. Mandrake is a caricature (like the clergyman in Jane Eyre).

[qiihoskeh]

the anonymous comment above is mine also