Book Review: Station Eleven

#stationeleven #bookreview #fivestars

“Survival Is Insufficient” - Emily St. John Mandel / Star Trek

It’s been quite a while since I had a solid read, especially with the hectic chaos of college apps and school courses, it was definitely a refreshing moment to interweave both novel and human condition all at once.

Although the book was written in 2014, Station Eleven weaves between before and after the pandemic, jumping between timelines and completely different worlds with only the characters and the comic book Station Eleven being the connecting threads between the before and after the colossal event. Centering around the main characters and the people surrounding Kirsten Raymonde and Arthur Leander, I loved how all the worlds were able to interconnect from the paparazzi of Hollywood to the remnants of forested survival with no standing infrastructure.

Shakespeare's performance, a prevalent link through the worlds.

But most importantly, I truly loved the humanization of each individual (maybe apart from the Prophet guy). Even though we were rooting for Kirsten and Aruther, each were, in a way, fighting for survival in their own worlds. Kirsten is more physical, such as scavenging old houses for costumes and remnants of the life of Arthur Leander through magazines. In the same way, Arthur Leander had to build the world through his acting, and although was surrounded by eyes and celebrity, often had to face the world alone, making uncertain turns and failing to care for those he loved along the way. I loved how the world of entertainment, which is heavily based on capitalistic pursuit and mass communication, was still able to seamlessly fit into the world of baseline survival and hunting. Regardless of which world these characters were in, the main thing that truly drove them through all was the art of performance and music. Even today, as those aspects of culture are overlooked with rising technology and political issues, I believe, as the others did, that the art of music and performance bring color and beauty within us and with the community.

Overall, I do recommend this as more of a dramatic but easier read with the point of science fiction in mind. I also enjoyed that the ending seemed strong with hope, not in a rushed or illogical manner, but it also seemed, in a sense, very clean.