Station Eleven: A Marathon

Station Eleven: A Marathon

Reading Emily St. John Mandel’s book Station Eleven  is like running a marathon: it seems a bit slow at the start, almost regrettable in the middle,  and by the end, there’s an anticipation to finish it. The book focuses on the journey of The Travelling Symphony after the world collapses due to the deadly plague  called the Georgia Flu.  Kirsten, one of the main characters of the novel and a member of the symphony, is used as a means of interconnecting the story with multiple characters. This exposes the reader to different perspectives of the new world before, during, and after the apocalypse. The wholesomeness of the book is attributable to these different experiences, but many of them were dull and prolonged. The absence of consistent, interesting conflict at the beginning of Station Eleven  leads to the reader’s lack of engagement and intrigue for the majority of the book.

The stories of the characters Jeevan and Clark are unnecessary and, frankly, irrelevant when it comes to captivating readers to continue to read  Station Eleven. Both characters are essential in providing context,  and their stories serve as a means of transitioning into pivotal events throughout the book. However, the depth in which their stories are described takes away from the reader’s  initial anticipation of reading about action and drama. People would rather read about the violent and unbelievable stories of the post-apocalyptic world than about the lives of a man who hates his job and another who can’t find a suitable one. It is understandable that Mandel pushes for the reader to understand the emotional journeys of certain characters, but she already does so in an effective way in Chapter 6 of the book. The characters of  Station Eleven experience the hardships of surviving in an anarchical society and often reminisce on what once existed before the Georgia Flu. Mandel dedicates a whole chapter to what characters reminisce as they continue to exist in the new world; one part of that chapter goes as follows:

No more countries, all borders unmanned. No more fire departments, no more police. No more road maintenance or garbage pickup... No more Internet. No more social media, no more scrolling through litanies of dreams and nervous hopes and photographs of lunches, cries for help and expressions of contentment and relationship-status updates with heart icons whole or broken, plans to meet up later, pleas, complaints, desires, pictures of babies dressed as bears or peppers for Halloween. No more reading and commenting on the lives of others, and in so doing, feeling slightly less alone in the room... (p.68)

The structure of the passage is list form, which is expected from the title of the chapter: "An Incomplete List". Though this structure and Mandel’s starting each sentence with the words "no more" make the passage seem somewhat repetitive and tedious, her diction and syntax account for that by capturing the reader with the vivid realities of  life post-apocalypse. Both her vagueness and specificity in describing the losses of the new world dig into the emotional, mental, and societal detriments of the characters of the book. Mandel connects the readers to the characters by finding a common ground: humanity. This is the content that will push a reader to continue a book, and it simultaneously allows the reader to comprehend the context and current state of the new world and its people.  

Overall, although the end of Station Eleven suffices to the standards of spontaneity and action set in this review, it does not compensate for how tedious the beginning was. If a reader is not captivated throughout a book, that book will not be finished. There is no way one will appreciate a book when he/she puts it down in the middle and is reluctant to pick it up -- unless it is to complete a mandatory high school reading requirement. Mandel’s choices for Station Eleven  are apprehendable and respectable, but how she portrays some of these choices is detrimental to the book.