Shortlisted for the 2014 National Book Awards Observer Thriller of the Month DAY ONE The Georgia Flu explodes over the surface of the earth like a neutron bomb. News reports put the mortality rate at over 99%. WEEK TWO Civilization has crumbled. YEAR TWENTY A band of actors and musicians called the Travelling Symphony move through their territories performing concerts and Shakespeare to the settlements that have grown up there. Twenty years after the pandemic, life feels relatively safe. But now a new danger looms, and he threatens the hopeful world every survivor has tried to rebuild. STATION ELEVEN Moving backwards and forwards in time, from the glittering years just before the collapse to the strange and altered world that exists twenty years after, Station Eleven charts the unexpected twists of fate that connect six people: famous actor Arthur Leander; Jeevan - warned about the flu just in time; Arthur's first wife Miranda; Arthur's oldest friend Clark; Kirsten, a young actress with the Travelling Symphony; and the mysterious and self-proclaimed 'prophet'. Thrilling, unique and deeply moving, Emily St.
John Mandel's Station Eleven is a beautiful novel that asks questions about art and fame and about the relationships that sustain us through anything - even the end of the world.
This was difficult to read, I think it always would be a little difficult to read as it gets quite real with how it presents a viral apocalypse - before, during, and after. But reading it right now made it that much more difficult. I do not suggest reading it right now. After this is all over? sure, go for it - but not right now (early-mid 2020, or is this Year 0?). Not unless you know for sure that you can deal with it.
I particularly enjoyed the part where one of our characters is fantasising about finally being rescued and he imagines that they will congratulate him on stocking up on 7 trolleys worth of groceries in a single evening.... including toilet paper and hand sanitiser. I am sure this would have been a nothing scene before 2020, but reading it while some of the shop shelves are still empty and we are only just now getting toilet paper regularly available again really made me laugh.
I was worried for a bit that there would be a lot of focus on the religious fanatic - there are a few things I struggle with reading, and religious fanaticism is right near the top. It's the Pagan in me I think, all religious fanaticism ends with me being burned at the stake, it is legitimately real world terrifying to me, so I struggle to read about it. Thankfully it wasn't a huge focus - despite being a major part of the story, the actual fanatic isn't really in the story all that much. Thank goodness.
This is not a horror story or anything, but it is kind of scary because it is quite realistic about certain things. And while the majority of the story is full of endings and loss, it is also full of hope - "survival is not enough" being the borrowed motto of our main troupe. And the ending is very hopeful in my opinion.
