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A review by gwendle_vs_literature
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
5.0
I highly recommend this book.
The concept is good, and it’s execution is nearly flawless. The characters, even the ones I disliked, had such believable and human motivations and reactions to the circumstances in which they found themselves. The phrase painted on the lead caravan of The Traveling Symphony (which comes from an episode of Star Trek: Voyager) “Because survival is insufficient” is repeated in the text of the novel often enough that it becomes a kind of mantra which reinforces the notion that in a world stripped of technology, of infrastructure, of approximately 99% of its former human population, art and culture would become more vital than they are in a society where the majority of our basic needs are so easily met — but the text also reinforces that human connection, and our connection, via memory, to the past are also vital. Survival is insufficient.
The symphony travels the way that theatrical troops in the Middle Ages traveled, a few performances in each town and then moving on again, slowly, covering a vast territory. I don’t know whether this connection occurred to the author, or the connection that plagues were common in the Middle Ages — she certainly made the connection to Shakespearean times.
The way that the novel shifts through time and between the intertwined stories of its main characters creates mystery and tension. The thread of the two-volume comic book from which the novel borrows its title provides connection between characters who never met, and for whom it came to mean completely different things.
I will definitely be reading this one again.
The concept is good, and it’s execution is nearly flawless. The characters, even the ones I disliked, had such believable and human motivations and reactions to the circumstances in which they found themselves. The phrase painted on the lead caravan of The Traveling Symphony (which comes from an episode of Star Trek: Voyager) “Because survival is insufficient” is repeated in the text of the novel often enough that it becomes a kind of mantra which reinforces the notion that in a world stripped of technology, of infrastructure, of approximately 99% of its former human population, art and culture would become more vital than they are in a society where the majority of our basic needs are so easily met — but the text also reinforces that human connection, and our connection, via memory, to the past are also vital. Survival is insufficient.
The symphony travels the way that theatrical troops in the Middle Ages traveled, a few performances in each town and then moving on again, slowly, covering a vast territory. I don’t know whether this connection occurred to the author, or the connection that plagues were common in the Middle Ages — she certainly made the connection to Shakespearean times.
The way that the novel shifts through time and between the intertwined stories of its main characters creates mystery and tension. The thread of the two-volume comic book from which the novel borrows its title provides connection between characters who never met, and for whom it came to mean completely different things.
I will definitely be reading this one again.