Author: Emily St. John Mandel
Title: Station Eleven(Future History/Apocalypse and Post-Apocalypse)
Publication Date: 2014
Number of Pages: 352
Geographical Setting: Toronto, Severn City Airport
Time Period: Past and Future
Synopsis:
From
Amazon.com:
“An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days of
civilization’s collapse, Station Eleven tells the spellbinding story of
a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming
the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art
and humanity.
One snowy night Arthur Leander, a famous actor, has a heart attack onstage during a production of King Lear. Jeevan Chaudhary, a paparazzo-turned-EMT, is in the audience and leaps to his aid. A child actress named Kirsten Raymonde watches in horror as Jeevan performs CPR, pumping Arthur’s chest as the curtain drops, but Arthur is dead. That same night, as Jeevan walks home from the theater, a terrible flu begins to spread. Hospitals are flooded and Jeevan and his brother barricade themselves inside an apartment, watching out the window as cars clog the highways, gunshots ring out, and life disintegrates around them.
Fifteen years later, Kirsten is an actress with the Traveling Symphony. Together, this small troupe moves between the settlements of an altered world, performing Shakespeare and music for scattered communities of survivors. Written on their caravan, and tattooed on Kirsten’s arm is a line from Star Trek: “Because survival is insufficient.” But when they arrive in St. Deborah by the Water, they encounter a violent prophet who digs graves for anyone who dares to leave.
Spanning decades, moving back and forth in time, and vividly depicting life before and after the pandemic, this suspenseful, elegiac novel is rife with beauty. As Arthur falls in and out of love, as Jeevan watches the newscasters say their final good-byes, and as Kirsten finds herself caught in the crosshairs of the prophet, we see the strange twists of fate that connect them all. A novel of art, memory, and ambition, Station Eleven tells a story about the relationships that sustain us, the ephemeral nature of fame, and the beauty of the world as we know it.”
(Synopsis from Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Station-Eleven-Emily-John-Mandel/dp/0385353308)
One snowy night Arthur Leander, a famous actor, has a heart attack onstage during a production of King Lear. Jeevan Chaudhary, a paparazzo-turned-EMT, is in the audience and leaps to his aid. A child actress named Kirsten Raymonde watches in horror as Jeevan performs CPR, pumping Arthur’s chest as the curtain drops, but Arthur is dead. That same night, as Jeevan walks home from the theater, a terrible flu begins to spread. Hospitals are flooded and Jeevan and his brother barricade themselves inside an apartment, watching out the window as cars clog the highways, gunshots ring out, and life disintegrates around them.
Fifteen years later, Kirsten is an actress with the Traveling Symphony. Together, this small troupe moves between the settlements of an altered world, performing Shakespeare and music for scattered communities of survivors. Written on their caravan, and tattooed on Kirsten’s arm is a line from Star Trek: “Because survival is insufficient.” But when they arrive in St. Deborah by the Water, they encounter a violent prophet who digs graves for anyone who dares to leave.
Spanning decades, moving back and forth in time, and vividly depicting life before and after the pandemic, this suspenseful, elegiac novel is rife with beauty. As Arthur falls in and out of love, as Jeevan watches the newscasters say their final good-byes, and as Kirsten finds herself caught in the crosshairs of the prophet, we see the strange twists of fate that connect them all. A novel of art, memory, and ambition, Station Eleven tells a story about the relationships that sustain us, the ephemeral nature of fame, and the beauty of the world as we know it.”
(Synopsis from Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Station-Eleven-Emily-John-Mandel/dp/0385353308)
- Story line is speculative, set in both the past and the future
- Explores what the world could be like after a flu epidemic
- World building: Reader gets to know this new world through the Traveling Symphony and the various towns they pass through.
- Is not full of jargon or technical descriptions.
- Story is more literary and places emphasis on the characters.
- Fairly fast paced. Characters always on the move.
- The Dog Star by Peter Heller
- On Such a Full Sea by Chang-rae Lee
- The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood
- Find Me by Laura Van den Berg
- The Stand by Stephen King
Author Read-a-likes:
- Nalo Hopkinson
- Albert Camus
- Justin Cronin
- Jose Saramago
I used the synopsis available on Amazon because I thought it did a great job describing the story. There is a lot going on in the book and I thought that summary succinctly included many of the main points without spoiling anything.
I don’t regularly read science fiction, but every once in a while I will find one that intrigues me. I noticed Station Eleven recently because it was on many of the Best of 2014 lists. I am not big on the hardcore science fiction that is full of technical details. Station Eleven is much more my type of science fiction. It reminded me a bit of The Road and Blindness but a bit less bleak. I also got flashes of The Walking Dead because the Traveling Symphony was always on the move and they were never sure if they were safe. I liked how many of the characters were linked together and I thought St. John Mandel did a good job switching from the past to the future. The transition between the past and the future was never jarring and seemed natural.
I think this novel would appeal to those who don't read science fiction because the story is very character-driven and isn't filled with jargon and aliens. It is a very human story. Sometimes I think people get too attached to genre labels. A number of people might not pick up this book because it is located in the science fiction area. Being open to genres outside your norm can lead to some great reads.
I'm really enjoying the annotations this week because I love science fiction and I am getting some good book suggestions out of it. You did a nice job summing up the plot of this book and explaining why it fits in with the sci-fi genre. Sounds like an interesting read.
ReplyDeleteI agree about getting caught up in genre labels. In fact, we recently decided to take our science fiction and fantasy labels off of our books because of that. It came out of a discussion about the fact that the labels don't accurately represent the genres and were very juvenile (a planet for sci-fi and a wizard for fantasy), but we realized that a lot of books, like "Station Eleven" and the book I read this week, "Lock In," have a lot of cross-genre appeal. People who like literary fiction, mysteries, thrillers, etc., could pick up and read a science fiction book and not even realize that it's science fiction. It's a genre that is much broader than a lot of people realize - it's not all spaceships and aliens, and, in fact, you can read dozens of sci-fi books without ever seeing outer space.
ReplyDeleteI mean, it's too bad and I wish people wouldn't get stuck on the idea of genres and expand their minds, but it's easier to take those labels than to try to teach someone that they do, in fact, like science fiction if they'd just read the book! :)
DeleteI really struggle with Science Fiction but I always want to "get it" a little more because it is such a popular genre that I want to be able to converse with patrons openly about. I think I'll try this book to get a feel for it. Thank you for the great annotation.
ReplyDelete