Emily St. John Mandel did a beautiful job with the composition of this modern-day dystopian novel, Station Eleven. It truly is unlike any other dystopian society I've ever read about, but that's not the only reason this book is unique.
The beginning of the novel is set in Toronto, Canada. This is where we meet one of the novel's many characters, Jeevan Chaudhary. Chaudhary, an EMT in training, has just attempted to save the life of a beloved celebrity, Arthur Leander. Leander has the starring role in a Canadian theatre's production of King Lear. Unfortunately, Leander experiences a heart attack, and dies on stage in front of the young child actors who play Lear's children. As Jeevan is trying to shake off a feeling of failure, he receives a phone call from a friend of his who is a doctor at a hospital.
Jeevan's friend warns him of an illness called the Georgian Flu, and it isn't long before most of the world's civilization has died from the pandemic. At this point in the story, we have flashed forward 20 years after the incident occurred. This is Year 20, where "countries and borders have vanished." It is also where we run into a group called The Travelling Symphony. The group performs Shakespeare and various orchestral pieces for the towns they travel through. They have a very profound motto that comes from "Star Trek: Voyager." "Survival is insufficient." One of their members just so happens to be Kirsten Raymonde. Raymonde was 8 when the pandemic began, and she was also one of the three child actors to witness Leander's death.
When The Symphony gets to a town called St. Deborah by the Water, they realize something is very wrong with the town's inhabitants. They are ragged and downtrodden--which, for a dystopian society, is really saying something. But, what is even more surprising, is that a lot of the young women in the town are pregnant. We soon learn that this is the work of a man who calls himself "The Prophet." (Yep, in a dystopian society, there's always at least one, folks!) The Prophet soon chases The Symphony out of his town, but he decides to follow them to their next destination: The Museum of Civilization.
The book weaves in and out of two different time periods: Before The Pandemic and After The Pandemic. It also allows for several different perspectives of life before and after. Mandel gives us a look at life from the viewpoints of Leander, Chaudhary, Raymonde, Leander's 3 ex-wives, and Leander's best friend. While I believe this was expertly done, (transition-wise) I feel like Mandel stuck with Kirsten's story a lot longer than the rest of the bunch. This was especially surprising to me considering the story started with Jeevan.
Even so, Mandel shows us just how interconnected each character is to the other. I think that this is the element of the novel that I most enjoyed, and it is also one of the hardest things to do correctly when writing a novel. Mandel does a fantastic job in this department! She also does a great job enthralling the reader with the lives of each of the novel's characters. However, I cannot say that the novel was perfect in every way. Nor will I say this about many of the novels I review on this blog. (Owen Meany is a rare exception!)
Again, I'd like to explain that I really enjoyed this novel, but there was one big problem I had with its plot: We don't really get to see the decimation the pandemic has caused. Not in detail. One would imagine that, even 20 years after the "liquidation" of the majority of humanity, people would be malnourished, missing teeth, getting sick at alarming rates, and unable to breach language barriers. While we are aware that things aren't easy for the people who survived the pandemic in this novel, we are never shown just how hard they are. I feel like that could have definitely been a bigger part of the novel.
Lastly, I just want to say that, composition-wise, this is novel is stunning. It's just that it's plot is a bit lacking, and for that reason, I give it 4/5 stars.
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