By Emily St. John Mandel
Knopf, 2014. 336 pgs. Fiction
Fifteen years after a pandemic flu wiped out most of
civilization, Shakespeare lives on as the most requested playwright. Twenty-something
Kirsten performs Shakespeare as a member of the traveling symphony, who tours
the settlements of survivors throughout the US. She is asked often about her last real
day before the pandemic hit, when famous Hollywood actor
Arthur Leander died of a heart attack on the stage of King Lear. Kirsten would not have suspected that their stop in St.
Deborah by the Water, home to a violent prophet, may be her last.
Station 11 is a quiet,
meandering, and character-driven novel, contrary to how the plot summary may
sound. Written in a nonlinear format, it alternates between the past, the present,
and the perspectives of several different characters. The chapters are short
and concise, and for the most part the transitions between them are seamless, although they didn't always hold my interest evenly.
The devastated world and the characters – all connected in
some way to Arthur Leander and the graphic novel Station 11 - are strangely fascinating. For
the most part I felt like it was a realistic interpretation of what a world without
government, technology or electricity would look like. The loose ends come
together poignantly at the novel’s conclusion, quietly proving the symphony’s
motto: Because survival is insufficient.
HSG
HSG
1 comment:
Fifteen years after a pandemic flu wiped out most of the world's population, what's left of society have come together in small communities trying to survive together. Kirsten is part of a group of actors and musicians who travel from settlement to settlement, performing Shakespeare or pieces of music. The novel jumps between characters who are tied together by a single event just before the pandemic spread, and the threads of the novel jump between the past and present. Certain threads are kept hidden until everything is unraveled by the end. I found this to be a compelling, somewhat haunting tale of a post-apocalyptic society.
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