post-apocalyptic
Station Eleven looks at the world 20 years after a deadly
pandemic. The disease spread at an astounding rate and killed patients the same
day symptoms appeared. Most people on Earth were
dead within a month. The novel spotlighted the lives of a few survivors in order to give the reader a rich impression of their pre- and post-pandemic
realities.
A deadly pandemic is not an unusual concept for a book.
However, this novel felt very unique because of all the individual choices Emily St. John Mandel made in order to tell this story. Focusing on actors and artists
surprisingly worked! I thought the
choice to not dwell on the pandemic itself was brilliant. I originally thought
the focus on a traveling symphony/acting troupe was odd but the travelers’ views
of the post-apocalyptic world were ideal for telling this story. With people so
spread out, those who traveled would have had a richer experience of the
various survival lifestyles.
I really loved the way the author switched gears, timeframes,
and characters frequently yet seamlessly.
She had me eating out of the palm of her hand in order to get more of
the backstory and understand how the characters arrived in their current
circumstances. I thought her vision of a
post-apocalyptic world was realistic and actually much more positive than many
others about which I’ve read. Usually, those novels highlighted
the terrible aspects of human behavior rather than the human desire to live in
peace and harmony. I don’t believe I’ve ever read a novel where the focus of
the story took place so long after the catastrophic event either. It was so
compelling.
This novel made me think a lot about the uncertainty of our future.
Especially given the fact that we are currently surviving a pandemic
(thankfully, not one as deadly as in Station Eleven), it made me think about
what I would do in a post-pandemic world that looked totally different than my
world today. There were so many different layers to the story. Lots of
characters were centrally tied to one of the characters and were all woven together in a
captivating narrative.
The narrator, Kirsten Potter, did a terrific job. I liked
her voice and acting a lot! However, she didn’t really have a repertoire of
different voices, per se. She did have different accents which were good. I’ll
give her an A.
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