Station Eleven: Survival Is Insufficient

     Before starting this book, I did a lot of research on it and found out that there is a lot of hype surrounding this book. This is a lot of people favourite book and some might even go to such lengths and call this a masterpiece. So from the begingng I was hooked and I just want to say that this book did not dissapoint. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel started off as a suspenseful, melancholic novel that projected a striking image of a very bleak future in a post apocolyptic wolrd. However, while doing so, it highlights the importance of art and appreciating modern simplicities that are taken for granted. The author created a world where people must survive in the wastelands of fast-food restaurants or department stores after a pandemic of a Georgia Flu that killed nearly everyone. As described early on, the life that we know is no more to the extent that there are “no more countries, all borders unmanned” (Mandel, 31). Nontheless, humanity struggles to survive, but culture still thrives. 

    

      Set in different times: the past, the present, each time frame introduced and elaborated on the backstories of specific characters. This created a beautiful web of seemingly different stories that I think will come together, in the end, to paint a grand picture. The first section of the novel introduced three of the most important characters; Arthur Leander, a prominent Hollywood actor, Kirsten, a child actress and Jeevan, a training paramedic and former paparazzi. It was set in the past at a theatre where Arthur suddenly died of a heart attack on stage during the production of King Lear. Coincidentally, Jeevan was there when he collapsed and tried to perform CPR on him, but it was too late. Kirsten was also onstage. After Arthur died, Jeevan and Kirsten spoke to each other for the first time as they discussed Arthur’s death as Jeevan told Kirsten, “…if acting was the last thing he ever did, then the last thing he ever did was something that made him happy.” (Mandel, 8). Kirsten told Jeevan that acting was the thing she loved the most. I realized that the characters desired to do something important in life something. Their desire to do something that mattered resonated with me because my hopes are to offer better qualities of life as a doctor. 

      The author also presented the novel’s main threat in this section, the Georgia Flu. Throughout the section, Mandel foreshadowed the future writing s about one of Arthur’s co-worker’s death, “of all them there at the bar that night, the bartender was the one who survived the longest. He died three weeks later…” (Mandel, 15). I was shocked because it was a morbid comment to make about someone’s life. However, as I kept reading, I realized that lots of things will be lost, including people, whether I like it or not. Moreover, Mandel listed normal things that would not exist as a result of the pandemic, such as “porch lights… cities… pharmaceuticals… flight… Internet social media…” (31- 32). I believe that in many ways, Mandel treats the pandemic symbolically rather than realistically, and her ruined society of the future doesn’t seem particularly accurate or well-imagined. I saw an interview of her and she said that the focus of the book wasn’t on how humanity perishes rather how the survivors fare after it happens. The only reason she chooses the flu as the pandemic was because it was the easiest choice. So far, her interest seems to be in relationships, not the nuts-and-bolts of starting up generators and getting the electricity going once again. 

    

       Then, the story jumped twenty years into the future, the present time frame, after the pandemic destroyed everything. I like that the sort jumps back and forth between timelines, it is something that I’m not used to and I’m looking forward to seeing more of it in the book. Moving on, Kirsten is now part of something called the Traveling Symphony: 20 or so musicians and actors in horse-drawn wagons who roam from town to town in an area around the shores of Lakes Huron and Michigan. At each stop, the Symphony entertains the public with concerts and theatrical performances — mostly Shakespeare. There’s a lot to think about when we’re confronted with the Traveling Symphony’s motto of “survival is insufficient” (Mendel, 58). Surviving physically isn’t enough if the mind and soul die, too. Without art to express emotions, Mandel and the Symphony believe that one would be merely living. I think that it reminds themselves of their humanity instead of becoming mindless robots. This recalled my love for art and art making. As a workaholic and perfectionist, I tend to forget that I need time to remember my own limits to maintain my mental health. Making art and looking at art helps me revive myself from stress like acting helps the Symphony. 

     

      Moving forward, I want to know more about this Arthur and Miranda relationship. They’re obviously two troubled souls, but their getting together made me morose. They began their relationship after Miranda was abused by her ex-boyfriend, and she was never given her own time to heal. Although I'm only about 100 pages into the book, I think it’s definitely going to be one of those books where everything comes full circle in the end. All of these characters’ lives are interconnected. I am looking forward to learbning more about the charachters and how they survive. 

Works Cited 

Mandel, Emily St. John. Station Eleven. HarperCollins Publishers, 2014.