Emily St. John Mandel - Station Eleven

So a couple of months ago, I was browsing in a bookshop and I found the new David Mitchell book that had just been released, The Bones Clock, which excited me because I enjoyed Cloud Atlas because it was engaging and thought provoking.  However, when I got to the till, I started to have a conversation with the young woman serving me about David Mitchell and other books both of us have read (yay! Bibliophiles together) and she recommended Station Eleven to me because it was different yet something I could find interesting because it was in the same field as David Mitchell's books in a way and now that I have read it, I can understand why she recommended it to me.

Station Eleven is the fourth novel from Emily St. John Mandel and is an interesting trip into a post-apocalyptic world which flits between various moments in time, prior to an outbreak of a pandemic that wiped much of the world, during the outbreak, and a number of years after the outbreak after civilisation has crumbled.  It's a different take on the post-apocalyptic/dystopia fiction we have out because it shows the fall of civilisation as well as the normal aftermath.

Rating: 10

Recommended To: Post-apocalyptic fans

Favourite Characters: Jeevan - understand his motivation throughout the book; Kirstin - interesting

Favourite Part: "What a terrible time that was," Clark said softly to an imaginary Robert, practising for the future.
"Awful," Imaginary Robert agreed.  "Remember those days when you were in the airport, and I didn't know where you were?" - Page 240

Good Points: How this random group of people is linked; the flitting between different times; different from other post-apocalyptic books

Bad Points: More could have been heard from the prophet

Station Eleven begins on a snowy night when Arthur Leander, a well-known Hollywood action collapses and dies onstage during a production of King Lear.  Hours later, the world that we know begins to collapse and civilisation begins to crumble because of a deadly virus.  Mandel continues through Station Eleven to flit back and forth in time, to Arthur's early years as an actor where he met Clark and Miranda (his oldest friend and first ex-wife respectively) to many years into the future where a troupe of musicians and actors called The Travelling Symphony perform Shakespeare for those that have survived the outbreak and continue to fight for survival in this wasteland by travelling from town to town.  Mandel documents how the fates of the six key characters are twisted together in Station Eleven which makes for an interesting and thought provoking novel.

The entirety of Station Eleven is told from the point of view of five characters but follows an additional character that is a mystery to the very end.  Each narrator tells their story from a different point in time, varying from before the outbreak, during, and after.  I enjoyed this part about the book because it made Station Eleven stand out amongst the other post-apocalyptic books out there.  Everyone sees things differently and I like how each of them see the world, due to their age etc. and what happened to them at the time of the outbreak that triggered this catastrophic event.  Between Jeevan, Clark, Kirsten, Arthur, and Miranda, we see life and death in this new world which is fascinating; it seems complicated but Mandel is clear about which narrator is speaking and when their story is set so on this point alone I would recommend this book.

What was interesting, along with the different narrators, about Station Eleven was the flitting between the different times because it brought new things to life over the course of the book; Mandel planned the chapters well, ensuring that the information was all there when necessary, making it all fit nicely together, this big puzzle laid out for everyone to decipher.  Sometimes I found the whole time skips/flitting through the years back and forth a bit confusing but the change of perspective helped lessen the confusion because each voice separated the timeline.

I loved how Station Eleven was from other post-apocalyptic/dystopia fiction like The Hunger Games and Divergent where the world has changed years after our own time because in Station Eleven, you see the world before, during, and after the fall of society so you can compare the three points in time and see how it has changed which is unusual for post-apocalyptic/dystopia fiction.  This also brought a sense of realism to the book because it could happen, the world could collapse from a pandemic which is worrying but a possibility, even if it's slim.

Jeevan's chapters flitted about the timeline of this book more so than the other narrators due to his age, as he was in his late 20s/early 30s, when the world fell so he was able to provide a grander perspective on this world as it falls because he knows what it was like before, during, and after.  They may be why I favoured Jeevan out of all the characters, other than Kirsten, because he was the one to show us the fall and his fight for survival while also observing others around him.  We won't know unless it happens but I feel I would try and act the same way as Jeevan in his situation, helping out family and such.  While Clark also provided some perspective on the fall, I found Jeevan's chapters more interesting because he ventured out of his shelter in the end while Clark just remained in the airport; Jeevan had a bit more adventure about him.

Kirsten was my other favourite character because her chapters held my attention the most with all of the action as she and her troupe continue to survive this post-pandemic world.  It was interesting that these actors chose Shakespeare to perform to the world even though a large portion of the population won't remember performances of the playwright from the pre-fall days.  Kirsten herself was interesting too due to the years that occurred before we meet her properly as a 20-something year old; Mandel gave her a past, making her three dimensional, along with members of her troupe, and while we met her as a child the night of the fall, she hadn't experienced atrocities by that point.  Some writers would just imply that Kirsten was the little girl from the play Jeevan sees the night of the fall and then leave it at that which would have made her flat and unimportant but she has a history she not proud of, she wants people to know about the world's past and sacrifices one of her oldest possessions to do so, and loves her friends and will defend them greatly like a true hero in my opinion.  On a side note, for a post-apocalyptic/dystopia protagonist, I found her to be wonderful because she didn't whine about her present condition because she's known no other way really which I enjoyed.  However, Kirsten lives under different circumstances - a world fallen to disease not oppression - so I can't really compare her to anyone else, it was just refreshing.

From the blurb, it is implied that we will six different narrators but in the end, we just heard about the prophet, the rumours as well as some first-hand accounts from a couple of the narrators whose chapters are set in the post-crisis era.  His voice could have provided another perspective on this strange new world, particularly one that would contradict the others' opinions of the prophet as one would assume that he would be positive about his own actions.  He also sees everything differently as he seems to see the world and the people in it something to dominate which makes a terrifying character in this bleak world.

"What a terrible time that was," Clark said softly to an imaginary Robert, practising for the future.
"Awful," Imaginary Robert agreed.  "Remember those days when you were in the airport, and I didn't know where you were?" - Page 240

I love this coping mechanism, visualising someone you love speaking to you as you go through a traumatic event, because it is a comforting thing, having someone to talk to that you love and in a novel, it shows how important a particular character (in this case Robert, Clark's boyfriend) is to another.  When I get worried or stressed out, I do the same thing, I talk to my mum, sister, or even best friend because I know they will always be there for me and when Clark does it, I can relate to him better because I can understand his motivation and need to talk to someone he loves and can picture him sat there, talking to himself quietly (or loudly if that's the case) no matter if he looks a little mad.

This was a fantastic novel in my opinion because it was different from the post-apocalyptic/dystopia fiction I have read because it show the fall of civilisation as well as before and after as others tend to focus on the aftermath but this time, I got to learn more about the characters and what they were like before this harsh world came down on them.  The multiple narrators were interesting because they provided different information at different moments and gave their own perspective on certain events such as how they met one another as well as the fall of civilisation.  Though I would have liked to have heard from the self-proclaimed prophet because he could have brought another perspective into the mix, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would recommend this to anyone and everyone because it's not too unusual like other post-apocalyptic fiction which requires more imagination but it's not light and fluffy so it is engaging from the very first chapter as a main character takes his last breath.