THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, October 18, 1995 TAG: 9510180039
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E3 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY DIANE SCHARPER
LENGTH: Medium: 68 lines
THE TITLE OF Elizabeth Berg's third novel, ``Range of Motion'' (Random House, 217 pp., $21), is a pun suggesting the levels on which this novel is designed to work. It first refers to the passive exercise given to Jay, a coma victim who is the novel's subject. Because Jay is unable to move, a therapist must put Jay's body parts through the motions they are capable of.
The title also refers to Lainey's state of mind. Lainey, Jay's wife and the story's narrator, remembers Jay as he was and worries about Jay as he might be. She also seeks comfort from her neighbor and friend, Alice. Later, she learns she must give comfort to Alice. But Lainey's mental range is even wider, because she sees and hears (or thinks she does) a ghost.
Evie, the ghost of a woman from the 1940s who used to live in Lainey's house, reminisces about the way things used to be and advises Lainey. Her advice connects the present to the past to the cosmic - at least from Lainey's point of view. Readers, though, will have trouble connecting - at any range - to advice given by a ghost.
The novel's present-tense, first-person narration gives it a memoir-like quality, which Berg has used successfully in her other novels, especially ``Talk Before Sleep.'' Lines like this put readers directly into the action: ```I'm here,' I whisper, my mouth close to his ear . . . I straighten up, rub hard at the small of my back, look around. The curtains . . . are a brown and yellow print, and a big tear in the corner of one of them has been sloppily repaired.''
The plot begins as Jay, hurt in a freak accident, is being transferred from a hospital to a nursing home. Three months before, he was hit by a falling icicle and knocked unconscious. He has been in a coma ever since.
Visiting Jay twice daily, Lainey wonders whether he will awaken. She listens for his voice, sometimes thinking she hears him. Jay does seem to speak/think in italicized paragraphs, which appear every 10 pages or so.
These paragraphs read like prose poems, at times offering ironic comment on the situation, at times presenting Jay's condition. Here Jay ``reflects'': ``. toward all that calls. Things move aside, let me in. . . . I can't tell you. But I feel you.''
Hoping to coax Jay awake, Lainey obsesses about possible ways to bring him to consciousness. As Lainey talks to Jay, she muses, ``I see the sound going deeper, going somewhere I can't, spreading out like ripples on water.'' Her words suggest the pun in the title, yet another range of movement.
In addition to the main story, there are several others. There's the story of Alice's marriage, which is rocky and serves as a foil to Lainey's marriage. Alice's problems give Lainey, and readers, something to think about other than Jay. They add a new dimension to the plot, widening its range.
Another story line concerns Ted and his wife, Jeannie, who is also in a coma and who dies. Readers wonder whether Jay will die and whether Lainey and Ted will get together. There's also the story of Evie, the ghost who may be a figment of Lainey's worry but who is probably present, because Alice also thinks she sees Evie.
Berg uses Evie to extend Lainey's (and the reader's) range of interest. But a ghostly presence makes the range of the novel too wide. Evie brings in supernatural elements that need to be resolved but cannot be, given the emotional weight of this plot. So, when the author wishes to call readers home with a surprise ending, she is unable to - having taken her readers too far afield. MEMO: Diane Scharper teaches memoir writing at Towson State University. She is
the author of ``The Laughing Ladies,'' a collection of poems. by CNB