Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

Amy  

science fiction

Sea of Tranquility is really four stories in one relatively short novel. Each of the four is connected by an unusual event that was witnessed by different people at different points in time. Edwin is an aimless third son of a wealthy British family who travels to western British Columbia, Canada in 1912. Mirella is trying to locate a spurned old friend of hers in 2020 after realizing that her friend may not be guilty of the crime for which she had been originally accused. Olive, a resident of one of the moon colonies in 2203, is touring around Earth on a book tour just as a new pandemic is emerging. Meanwhile, a man named Gaspery has found his way to speak with each of them.

This is one of those novels that gets under your skin to the point that when something a bit difficult to swallow happens about halfway through the book, you feel compelled to accept it and hope that the author doesn’t take the story in a direction which would mess up your enjoyment of the novel. I went with the far-fetched premise in order to enjoy the story. The mechanics were a little tricky but it was a fun ride by Emily St. John Mandel.

Sea of Tranquility reminded me of Anthony Doerr’s Cloud Cuckoo Land in the way that it focused on separate stories told from vastly different time periods which were connected by a common thread. What fun! The writing was fabulous, particularly in Edwin’s section at the beginning. I loved the way he was described as being “capable of action but prone to inertia” and his reflection on how “Sometimes you don’t know you’re going to throw a grenade until you’ve already pulled the pin.”  Some characters’ situations were more interesting than others but all of them were unusual and caught my interest. The ending was very satisfying.

There were four narrators: John Lee, Dylan Moore, Arthur Morey, and Kirsten Potter. Lee read Edwin’s section and I had mixed feelings about him. However, one of my main issues turned out to not be his fault.  The author wrote the first three chapters with gaps between paragraphs (or very small groups of paragraphs) and Lee left long pauses in his reading to relate those gaps. It was quite annoying at first. I stuck with it and these gaps were no longer noticeable by the fourth chapter. But I had been so annoyed that I actually went to Amazon where you can “Look Inside” the books in order to verify that these pauses were, indeed, designed by the author. Sigh. My other problem with Lee was that his section was about an 18 year old young man but Lee sounds, very obviously, much older. It was poor casting. But he was a good reader and had a variety of voices and I would’ve liked him more if not for the two annoyances I mentioned. Moore voicing Mirella and Potter as Olive both did nice jobs. Sadly, Morey, as Gaspery, had occasional saliva sounds (dentures?). Aside from Lee, the others had narrow vocal repertoires. I will give this cast a B-. Honestly, I’m not convinced there needed to be four narrators.