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samdalefox 's review for:
Station Eleven
by Emily St. John Mandel
dark
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I almost did not finish (DNF) this book. Of the genre, 'post-apocolyptic societal collapse' this one feels more relevant reading in 2022 since the cause of the collapse in the book is due to a pandemic. I suppose it's also one of the more hopeful post-societal collapse books since the ending focuses on human's curiosity and capactity to invent e.g. they rediscovered how to generate electricity and a key theme of the book is the motto of the travelling symphony: "Because survival is insufficient" (nicked from Star Trek).
I've bullet pointed the key themes below, if any of these sound interesting to you, you may enjoy this book. The reason I've rated it so low is because I simply didn't enjoy it. I didn't find the story novel or interesting. I didn't find the device of linking all of the named characters back to Arthur Leander interesting or additive. I didn't find Arthur Leander likable or interesting. I only continued reading is because I wanted to add it to my reading goal for this year, which I'm currently a little behind on. Station Eleven itself refers to a comic book which was relatively more interesting. The author should have focused on writing that instead.
Key themes:
I've bullet pointed the key themes below, if any of these sound interesting to you, you may enjoy this book. The reason I've rated it so low is because I simply didn't enjoy it. I didn't find the story novel or interesting. I didn't find the device of linking
Key themes:
- The role of the arts and how to thrive rather than just survive. Trying to cultivate curiosity in education, learning, medicine, music, and other trades and skills that are not directly related to survival but enrich the human life and require dedicated time to improve.
- The impact of lost knowledge (practical and theortical)
- "Adulthood is full of ghosts." The disappointment of the capitalist trap. People don't realise that they're unhappy and have a deep want to do anything else. The book explicitly describes people in the 'before' world as "sleepwalkers" who are "minimally present in the world". Happiness/contentness = distraction in this system. People think work is meant to feel this way i.e. exhausting and unfufilling.
- People imagine saviours. People can't imagine self (group) sufficiency and mutal aid.
- Relevance to the climate crisis - the characters in the book are still scavenging 20 years 'after', they are still dependant upon the old unsustainable society, no new stable and sustainable one has been built. This highlights the importance of an early transition and cooperation. It highlights the dangers of hierachial power structure like religion through
Tyler's development into The Prophet . It also details some more practical consequences from societal collapse with a huge loss in population that should scare people e.g., the fall of the pharmaceutical industry, meaning that there is no access to or new production of medications. - Disability theory, Frank and his wheelchair how would he cope in the new world vs the old world.
- Highlights how lucky we are to live with advanced communications and transport technology. We should not take these for granted.
- People's need for meaning, purpose, and structure, misplacing that in 'god' and religion as exemplified through
Elizabeth - The essentialness of human contact, we are social animals
- The role of knowing history. "Does knowing these things make them more or less happy"? History has importance beyond making us happy or not.