Station Eleven
This is my second time through Station Eleven. The first time I read it, I inhaled the entire book in a day. This time I made an effort to stretch it out (by juggling a few other books at the same time) so I could absorb it a little more slowly. This is the sort of book that rewards deeper thought, and it definitely gave me a lot to think about.
Station Eleven is very concerned with home and with interrogating the idea that you can't go home again. It opens with a flu that kills over 99% of the world's population in a few days, leaving the remaining few to find a way to live in a vastly changed world. Small settlements pop up here and there, but the post-apocalypse story focuses on a traveling theater troupe. In a very real sense, these people can't go home again. There's no home to go to, and the main characters have chosen to make their home on the road.
Even the pre-apocalypse characters, Arthur and Miranda, have left behind their hometown in favor of making a life in the wilder world. The two are from the same small island in the Pacific Northwest, and while that shared history binds them together for a time, it isn't enough to keep them together for more than a few years. Both of them move beyond it, pursuing relationships and careers that take them ever farther from it. And while Arthur ultimately feels a strong affinity for Toronto, ultimately adopting it as a home, Miranda ultimately feels more comfortable on the road, much like the Traveling Symphony.
And then there's the prophet, who's determined to make everyone else conform to his idea of home.
The prophet clearly identifies with the main character of the fiction graphic novel that's at the center of this book. Station Eleven is a piece of science-fiction about a group of people living together on a space ship. The people in charge are determined to get as far away from Earth as possible, where an alien race has taken over the planet. But a small faction wants to return home and uses terrorist techniques to attempt to gain control of the space station and enact their agenda. The prophet thinks he's Doctor Eleven, ushering humanity towards a new future for their own good, when he really has more in common with the terrorists, stuck in the past and using extreme measures to try and get people to conform to their way of thinking.
Of course, the other bit of science-fiction that gets referenced, Star Trek: Voyager is all about making it home again despite impossible odds. And ironically, this piece of pop culture is embraced by the Traveling Symphony, suggesting that they are looking for a home after all. They're just content to get there in their own time, doing what they can to enrich their own lives and the lives of those they meet along the way.
And then there's the Shakespeare. I don't know enough Shakespeare (and specifically King Lear) to properly analyze this book through that lens. But I've read The Tempest since I last read this book, and it really brought Miranda into focus for me. In some ways, this book serves as a sequel to that play, once Miranda gets off the island, frees herself from Caliban (shitty boyfriend Pablo), leaves Ferdinand (ex-husband Arthur) and follows in Prospero's footsteps. Miranda creates the comic book Station Eleven, which has such on impact on the rest of the story, blurring the lines between fiction and reality and shaping the future in ways she couldn't have dreamed of.
My familiarity with The Tempest added enough to my experience of this book, that I now want to re-read King Lear (which I read in high school) and then revisit this again to get a better understanding of Arthur. It's probable that his three ex-wives are meant to take the place of Lear's three daughters, with Miranda filling the role of Cordelia, but that's all vague guesswork based on a hazy remembrance of the play.
The point is that we fill our lives with stories, but even though we're the protagonists in our own stories, we're just supporting characters in others. This book doesn't have a clear protagonist. You could argue for Kirsten or Miranda or Arthur. Maybe even Jeevan. But they're all connected to each other in myriad ways, and they all play their supporting roles in each other's stories.
Writing about this book, I'm impressed with how much meat there is on the bones. Mandel packs a lot into a pretty short book, and it really rewards both re-reads and familiarity with cultural artifacts. I'm looking forward to my book club's discussion of it (I'm gonna have to try hard not to play the role of English teacher), and I can't wait to read it again someday. Once I've revisited some Shakespeare, of course.
Station Eleven is very concerned with home and with interrogating the idea that you can't go home again. It opens with a flu that kills over 99% of the world's population in a few days, leaving the remaining few to find a way to live in a vastly changed world. Small settlements pop up here and there, but the post-apocalypse story focuses on a traveling theater troupe. In a very real sense, these people can't go home again. There's no home to go to, and the main characters have chosen to make their home on the road.
Even the pre-apocalypse characters, Arthur and Miranda, have left behind their hometown in favor of making a life in the wilder world. The two are from the same small island in the Pacific Northwest, and while that shared history binds them together for a time, it isn't enough to keep them together for more than a few years. Both of them move beyond it, pursuing relationships and careers that take them ever farther from it. And while Arthur ultimately feels a strong affinity for Toronto, ultimately adopting it as a home, Miranda ultimately feels more comfortable on the road, much like the Traveling Symphony.
And then there's the prophet, who's determined to make everyone else conform to his idea of home.
The prophet clearly identifies with the main character of the fiction graphic novel that's at the center of this book. Station Eleven is a piece of science-fiction about a group of people living together on a space ship. The people in charge are determined to get as far away from Earth as possible, where an alien race has taken over the planet. But a small faction wants to return home and uses terrorist techniques to attempt to gain control of the space station and enact their agenda. The prophet thinks he's Doctor Eleven, ushering humanity towards a new future for their own good, when he really has more in common with the terrorists, stuck in the past and using extreme measures to try and get people to conform to their way of thinking.
Of course, the other bit of science-fiction that gets referenced, Star Trek: Voyager is all about making it home again despite impossible odds. And ironically, this piece of pop culture is embraced by the Traveling Symphony, suggesting that they are looking for a home after all. They're just content to get there in their own time, doing what they can to enrich their own lives and the lives of those they meet along the way.
And then there's the Shakespeare. I don't know enough Shakespeare (and specifically King Lear) to properly analyze this book through that lens. But I've read The Tempest since I last read this book, and it really brought Miranda into focus for me. In some ways, this book serves as a sequel to that play, once Miranda gets off the island, frees herself from Caliban (shitty boyfriend Pablo), leaves Ferdinand (ex-husband Arthur) and follows in Prospero's footsteps. Miranda creates the comic book Station Eleven, which has such on impact on the rest of the story, blurring the lines between fiction and reality and shaping the future in ways she couldn't have dreamed of.
My familiarity with The Tempest added enough to my experience of this book, that I now want to re-read King Lear (which I read in high school) and then revisit this again to get a better understanding of Arthur. It's probable that his three ex-wives are meant to take the place of Lear's three daughters, with Miranda filling the role of Cordelia, but that's all vague guesswork based on a hazy remembrance of the play.
The point is that we fill our lives with stories, but even though we're the protagonists in our own stories, we're just supporting characters in others. This book doesn't have a clear protagonist. You could argue for Kirsten or Miranda or Arthur. Maybe even Jeevan. But they're all connected to each other in myriad ways, and they all play their supporting roles in each other's stories.
Writing about this book, I'm impressed with how much meat there is on the bones. Mandel packs a lot into a pretty short book, and it really rewards both re-reads and familiarity with cultural artifacts. I'm looking forward to my book club's discussion of it (I'm gonna have to try hard not to play the role of English teacher), and I can't wait to read it again someday. Once I've revisited some Shakespeare, of course.
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