Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

 

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel is one of those books that I have heard a lot of positive things about over the years. Accordingly, it had been on my radar for a long time, but I hadn't gotten around to actually reading it. I made it part of my 22 in 2022 Reading Challenge, so I had plans to finally pick it up sometime this year, but seeing the series on HBO receive positive reviews made me extra-interested. I decided to give it a shot last week.

The plot of the novel follows five people before and after a deadly pandemic strikes the world, decimating the population and putting an end to the modern way of life. They include an actor who dies from a heart attack on stage moments before the pandemic begins in earnest, a man from the audience that tries to save him, the actor's closest friend, the actor's first wife, and a young actress performing in a post-pandemic traveling Shakespeare troupe. The narration jumps back and forth in time, telling these characters' stories from before and after the Georgia Flu changed their lives forever. Everyone in the novel has connections to each other, and as more details about them are explained, the depth of these connections are more clearly revealed. Station Eleven is generally about humanity starting over in the face of unprecedented disaster, but it looks as much into the past as it does into the future, making the story more of a character-driven exploration of the things that are truly important in life, and what we would most miss if it were suddenly taken away from us. 

It was pretty clear from the first page of this novel that it was going to live up to all the hype. Emily St. John Mandel is a beautiful writer, and her way of describing even the most mundane things felt weighty and beautiful. Reading her words made it easy to appreciate everyday things like cars, planes, the internet, electricity, and everything else we have that makes life easier for us. Watching the characters lose all that and have to make do without it really made me feel like all the modern conveniences we have are miracles. I suppose they are, when you think about it.

The characters were similarly well-written. Each one was interesting and distinct, and it was easy to be invested in their stories. I also enjoyed the narrative method of jumping back and forth in time. It allowed me to think more deeply about the writing as I tried making connections across the different parts of the text. The characters are only loosely connected, but the ways in which their lives tangentially touched made me think about the interconnectedness of all people--how we have these loose ties to everyone we interact with. It gave me a "we're all in this together" kind of feeling, which was surprisingly nice. For a book about a pandemic, it was pretty uplifting. It ended on hope, which I liked.

I don't have much else to say about this novel, but I did really enjoy it. It's one of those books that feels really deep and important, but is tough to elaborate on beyond saying, "it was really good and made me feel good." I'm definitely looking forward to reading more by this author in the future. I already own The Glass Hotel and I am excited to pick up Sea of Tranquility later this year. I'm happy to have finally given this novel a chance and I'm looking forward to checking out the show soon too.

Challenge Tally

22 in 2022: 3/22

Total Books Read in 2022: 11