Review | Station Eleven

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This is the second book I've read by Emily St. John Mandel. I do have to say that the post apocalyptic stories she does are right up my alley. I've often enjoyed stories of a similar nature. I am very much looking forward to reading more of her writing.

Summary

A pandemic brought about by the fictitious Georgian flu, an aggressive swine flu variant, eliminates most of the world population. Twenty years later those left have started to rebuild in any way they can. We are introduced to a number of characters, spread across time in usual Emily St. John Mandel fashion. The story doesn't hesitate to jump from before the pandemic and anywhere in between the next 20 years. Oh the webs we weave, a common saying that this story takes seriously. As we join the traveling symphony on their continuous journey from town to town, and see the struggles of each character as they made their way though the post pandemic world we see the connections they all have with one another and their growth though time.

World Building & Character Development

Somehow the author is able to do something in one relatively short book, that other authors sometimes struggle to do across two or three. That of course, is Major world building in a complex story. This is the type of story that could be easily stretched out, into a series of multiple books, and of course it has become an HBO max series (one I have not seen as of writing this yet). While the author does a lot with the short length of this book, it does come with a few downfalls, that leave me wanting to see a little more.

We get a pretty equal amount of time with each character to understand them and their motivations, and she writes them with very distinct characteristics which is great. However there are moments of the book that seem to come up short. The whole arch of The Prophet leaves something to be desired. It's great that we see a twist with his character, but hes such a background character that it's hard to see him as anything other than a nuisance to the main characters, rather than any kind of major antagonist. It feels like we get the start of something very interesting, and then it's a bit rushed to get to the ending.

Hope for Humanity

While we get to see some of the shortcomings of being human, I think this story is a very human positive one. Often we see books and TV shows telling us how terrible humanity is and that we are the cause of all the problems on earth. But in this book we see the beauty of what it's like to be human, and our ability to adapt to any situation, while keeping some semblance of that beautiful humanity. The travailing symphony is the perfect example of this, it's not enough to just survive "survival is insufficient" we require something more, something that makes us human, song, art, story telling. There is so much we take for granted today and at the same time so much we view as important, that isn't. A message I took away from this book is to evaluate what is important to you right now in this life that you have. Because at any moment it could be gone, human civilization is indeed fragile.

Final Thoughts

I enjoyed this book, and would recommend it to any of my fellow post apocalyptic fans out there. However with a warning, that the story leaves you wanting a bit more, as the story is complex enough with a good amount of characters that it could have been more than just one book. I look forward to reading more books by Emily St. John Mandel and look forward to watching Station Eleven on HBO, hoping that it will scratch that little itch I felt after putting this book down.

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