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A review by john_pascoe
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
5.0
“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. No more avatars.”
Station Eleven is the most enthralling pageturner; just try putting it down. Mandel’s writing asks just the right questions to keep the reader longing to know what will happen next.
Famous Toronto actor Arthur Leander dies on stage performing the role of a lifetime. That same night, a deadly virus touches down in North America, killing 99% of the population. Many privileges we take for granted are gone after a few days: internet, TV, electricity, et cetera.
Twenty years after the disaster, Kirsten, a member of the Travelling Symphony, re-enacts Shakespeare in the hamlets that have developed since the collapse. But, much to her dismay and shock, her new, hopeful world becomes threatened by a sociopathic male who believes he must abuse his power.
In literary terms, Station Eleven is a magnum opus. The story is presented in a way that makes the reader keep asking questions: what will happen next? What if they die? Who can be trusted in a world of strangers? The novel is also unfathomably quotable with intertextual references and thought-provoking statements. Additionally, the book contains sacrosanct literature such as Station Eleven comics, King Lear, Dear V and Frank writing a play. This proves what a magnificent medium the written word is.
Furthermore, the novel did an unbelievable job of predicting what the effects of a highly contagious virus would be on the modern universe. Its characters compare the virus to SARS, buy inordinate amounts of toilet paper and canned goods and watch the news on TV for frivolous lengths of time in a height of worry. It is remarkable how accurate Mandel’s surmise of this was. During the COVID-19 pandemic, people acted in very similar ways.
On a more disappointing note, the HBO TV series Station Eleven does not do Mandel’s work justice and is a massive disgrace to those who have read and enjoyed the novel. There are innumerable inconsistencies between the book and the series. There are many things in the TV show that do not happen in the book. For those people who have not read the book and perhaps aspire to someday, the TV show is a decent starting point, but I found that during reading after watching it, I was constantly involuntarily making comparisons regarding the egregious differences. They share a similar message, but the book is significantly better. The main benefit of films and TV shows is that it is more immersive for the viewer, but because of how meticulously Mandel has written Station Eleven, it does not need the adaptation.
Station Eleven is the most enthralling pageturner; just try putting it down. Mandel’s writing asks just the right questions to keep the reader longing to know what will happen next.
Famous Toronto actor Arthur Leander dies on stage performing the role of a lifetime. That same night, a deadly virus touches down in North America, killing 99% of the population. Many privileges we take for granted are gone after a few days: internet, TV, electricity, et cetera.
Twenty years after the disaster, Kirsten, a member of the Travelling Symphony, re-enacts Shakespeare in the hamlets that have developed since the collapse. But, much to her dismay and shock, her new, hopeful world becomes threatened by a sociopathic male who believes he must abuse his power.
In literary terms, Station Eleven is a magnum opus. The story is presented in a way that makes the reader keep asking questions: what will happen next? What if they die? Who can be trusted in a world of strangers? The novel is also unfathomably quotable with intertextual references and thought-provoking statements. Additionally, the book contains sacrosanct literature such as Station Eleven comics, King Lear, Dear V and Frank writing a play. This proves what a magnificent medium the written word is.
Furthermore, the novel did an unbelievable job of predicting what the effects of a highly contagious virus would be on the modern universe. Its characters compare the virus to SARS, buy inordinate amounts of toilet paper and canned goods and watch the news on TV for frivolous lengths of time in a height of worry. It is remarkable how accurate Mandel’s surmise of this was. During the COVID-19 pandemic, people acted in very similar ways.
On a more disappointing note, the HBO TV series Station Eleven does not do Mandel’s work justice and is a massive disgrace to those who have read and enjoyed the novel. There are innumerable inconsistencies between the book and the series. There are many things in the TV show that do not happen in the book. For those people who have not read the book and perhaps aspire to someday, the TV show is a decent starting point, but I found that during reading after watching it, I was constantly involuntarily making comparisons regarding the egregious differences. They share a similar message, but the book is significantly better. The main benefit of films and TV shows is that it is more immersive for the viewer, but because of how meticulously Mandel has written Station Eleven, it does not need the adaptation.