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A review by stephen_arvidson
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
5.0
At its onset Emily St. John Mandel’s latest foray doesn’t seem structured to keep the reader's interest, but the slow-burning plot thankfully steps up several gears, revealing itself through quiet details and stylish, lyrical prose. Although classified as a science fiction story, Station Eleven is so much more than that. There’s something undeniably special about this book. A dystopian novel, to be sure, but more than anything it’s a reflective tale of intertwining relationships set before and after the fall of civilization. Laced with rousing dystopian scenes to satisfy genre readers, Station Eleven offers thought-provoking depictions of life’s ephemeral nature, the endurance of art, and mankind’s resiliency in the face of extinction.
Philandering actor Arthur Leander lies both at the heart of this story and the dusty floor of a Toronto theater after collapsing, mid-performance. Leander succumbs to a fatal heart attack despite the heroic efforts of ex-paparazzo-turned-EMT Jeevan Chaudhury, who at the time was occupying a seat in the orchestra section. Arthur’s death marks the beginning of a virulent flu pandemic that wipes out 99% of the world’s population in a matter of weeks.
Fast-forward twenty years to an uncertain world wherein mankind’s glimmering technology has been lost, presumably forever, and the few “lucky” remnants wander the ravaged landscape in search of modern society’s last remaining vestiges. ‘Survival is insufficient,’ so sayeth a caravan of actors and musicians—the Traveling Symphony—that roam the Midwestern ruins in horse-drawn wagons, performing Shakespearean plays for scattered settlements, clinging to scraps of civilization. Kirsten Raymonde, who was onstage as a child actor the night Arthur Leander died, is one member of this peripatetic band. Amongst her personal effects are an exquisite glass paperweight and a pair of bedraggled comic books titled Station Eleven; the eponymous sci-fi comics were penned by Arthur’s first ex-wife, Miranda, prior to the collapse. The lambent series stars “Dr. Eleven,” a physicist aboard a malfunctioning space station inhabited by a band of rebel survivors in the wake of an alien conquest. Mandel draws several obvious parallels between Miranda’s comic stories and the events of the novel.
With a meticulously crafted narrative spanning forty-plus years, Mandel’s novel underscores not only the strength and frailty of interpersonal relations, but also the power of human attachment to material objects. Like the myriad character relationships, certain objects weave in and out of the story, exchanging hands over time, and new sentimental bonds are formed around these relics. Take, for example, Miranda’s hand-drawn comics that can be traced from her possession to Arthur’s, to his second wife’s son Tyler, to Arthur’s mistress, and finally to Kirsten. Readers will draw pleasure from the careful tracing of these threads and the relevance of their connections. The greater meaning behind these old-world totems ultimately becomes clear to Kirsten as she rediscovers their serendipitous links to herself and her bygone world—most especially when the Station comics prove instrumental in saving her life after the roving Symphony crosses paths with a maleficent, self-proclaimed prophet in the sparsely populated town of St. Deborah by the Water. Mandel handles this rather peripheral antagonist with subtlety and alarming believability; and, through the story’s natural progression, reveals the prophet’s identity and origin story in a manner that makes frightening sense.
Mandel skillfully plots the lives and relationships of these affecting characters with beautiful intricacy, using a nonlinear narrative to interlace multiple character threads, thus weaving a marvelous tapestry of storytelling. Readers will be enchanted by seeing these disparate lives bound together by inexplicable twists of fate and, despite the horrors of this devastated world, these kindhearted souls are united by an impulse to preserve the past and safeguard the literary arts so often regarded as superfluous in the post-apocalypse. Life and art are inseparable, and Mandel illustrates this human need for art even in the face of terrifying circumstance.
Mandel displays brilliant acumen and a keen penchant for lyricism. The novel’s evocative language infuses the narrative with a certain clear-eyed compassion that gets beneath the surface to explore the human condition. Along the way Mandel pays tribute to everything from Star Trek: Voyager to Justin Cronin’s post-apocalyptic vampire saga, The Passage, and applies clever themes and story elements that are reminiscent of Shakespeare’s plays and The Canterbury Tales.
Incredibly vivid and surreal, this elegiac tale of interconnectedness is a literary achievement that warrants reading.
Philandering actor Arthur Leander lies both at the heart of this story and the dusty floor of a Toronto theater after collapsing, mid-performance. Leander succumbs to a fatal heart attack despite the heroic efforts of ex-paparazzo-turned-EMT Jeevan Chaudhury, who at the time was occupying a seat in the orchestra section. Arthur’s death marks the beginning of a virulent flu pandemic that wipes out 99% of the world’s population in a matter of weeks.
Fast-forward twenty years to an uncertain world wherein mankind’s glimmering technology has been lost, presumably forever, and the few “lucky” remnants wander the ravaged landscape in search of modern society’s last remaining vestiges. ‘Survival is insufficient,’ so sayeth a caravan of actors and musicians—the Traveling Symphony—that roam the Midwestern ruins in horse-drawn wagons, performing Shakespearean plays for scattered settlements, clinging to scraps of civilization. Kirsten Raymonde, who was onstage as a child actor the night Arthur Leander died, is one member of this peripatetic band. Amongst her personal effects are an exquisite glass paperweight and a pair of bedraggled comic books titled Station Eleven; the eponymous sci-fi comics were penned by Arthur’s first ex-wife, Miranda, prior to the collapse. The lambent series stars “Dr. Eleven,” a physicist aboard a malfunctioning space station inhabited by a band of rebel survivors in the wake of an alien conquest. Mandel draws several obvious parallels between Miranda’s comic stories and the events of the novel.
With a meticulously crafted narrative spanning forty-plus years, Mandel’s novel underscores not only the strength and frailty of interpersonal relations, but also the power of human attachment to material objects. Like the myriad character relationships, certain objects weave in and out of the story, exchanging hands over time, and new sentimental bonds are formed around these relics. Take, for example, Miranda’s hand-drawn comics that can be traced from her possession to Arthur’s, to his second wife’s son Tyler, to Arthur’s mistress, and finally to Kirsten. Readers will draw pleasure from the careful tracing of these threads and the relevance of their connections. The greater meaning behind these old-world totems ultimately becomes clear to Kirsten as she rediscovers their serendipitous links to herself and her bygone world—most especially when the Station comics prove instrumental in saving her life after the roving Symphony crosses paths with a maleficent, self-proclaimed prophet in the sparsely populated town of St. Deborah by the Water. Mandel handles this rather peripheral antagonist with subtlety and alarming believability; and, through the story’s natural progression, reveals the prophet’s identity and origin story in a manner that makes frightening sense.
Mandel skillfully plots the lives and relationships of these affecting characters with beautiful intricacy, using a nonlinear narrative to interlace multiple character threads, thus weaving a marvelous tapestry of storytelling. Readers will be enchanted by seeing these disparate lives bound together by inexplicable twists of fate and, despite the horrors of this devastated world, these kindhearted souls are united by an impulse to preserve the past and safeguard the literary arts so often regarded as superfluous in the post-apocalypse. Life and art are inseparable, and Mandel illustrates this human need for art even in the face of terrifying circumstance.
Mandel displays brilliant acumen and a keen penchant for lyricism. The novel’s evocative language infuses the narrative with a certain clear-eyed compassion that gets beneath the surface to explore the human condition. Along the way Mandel pays tribute to everything from Star Trek: Voyager to Justin Cronin’s post-apocalyptic vampire saga, The Passage, and applies clever themes and story elements that are reminiscent of Shakespeare’s plays and The Canterbury Tales.
Incredibly vivid and surreal, this elegiac tale of interconnectedness is a literary achievement that warrants reading.