One of the most uniquely charted books I've ever read - not quite a spiral, or a circle, nor an oscillation between past and future or a continual revOne of the most uniquely charted books I've ever read - not quite a spiral, or a circle, nor an oscillation between past and future or a continual revealing "memento style", Station Eleven is more like a spiderweb of space-time-people. St. John Mandel follows one strand into an intersection into another strand, like those games in which one traces lines in a pattern until all have been covered - only here, going over a line more than once is allowed as long as it's done in a different shade/memory/voice/time. Really quite ingenious, the most creatively structured novel I've read in a VERY long time.
On the surface, Station Eleven is a dystopian "apocalyptic" tale - 99.9% of humanity gets wiped out by a flu, and the rest struggle to come to terms with what's happened, and to survive. But really, it's so much more than that (in fact, the "scientific" aspects of the "sci-fi" bit are almost absent and inherently flawed - more on that below). The story weaves between time periods (again, not in a simple back and forth pattern), and along the way, we are treated to profound observations about the nature of human hope, belief, endurance, regret, and the like. Not philosophical-thesis profundity, more like wise-grandma-who-lived-through-it-all-profundity: very authentic, relatable, applicable, realistic...
I cannot gush enough about how unique and creative the structuring of the story is; if you read the synopsis you might think it follows a traveling theater through their journey on a devastated Earth. Ok, I guess it kind of does that. But like I said, this is not a straightforward linear storyline. In fact, one might say the center of the spiderweb is someone who dies in the first two pages, before the apocalypse. The rest is told from the perspective of many characters whose lives-even just tangentially- intersected with this dead guy's. John Mandel brings their voices together in unique formats, sometimes stretching and other times radically condensing the flow of time: there are letters, and excerpts from a book, from newspapers and interviews. There are paragraphs describing the back-story of a character, 20 years to a page, and there are pages dedicated to single moments in time, 20 pages to a moment. I don't usually like such condensations or dilutions of essence in novels, but in this case, the techniques work brilliantly.
Now, the science and the rest of the mechanics behind the "apocalypse" are why my rating isn't a 5. In fact before I was won over completely by the story and by Mandel's writing, I was hovering at a 2.5 or 3 for the scientific holes. I've complained of other sci-fi books (like the recently popular The Martian) for being all science while failing to explore the human dimension at all, and I find Station Eleven to be at the other end of the spectrum. A couple points:
* Basically, we're not really sure how the people in the book survive at all (all that is mentioned in terms of food for example is hunted meat, and we all know a fully carnivorous diet doesn't sustain human life)... Also the minutia aren't really touched upon - where do they get their needed salt? water? Why do people congregate around airports/motels/Walmarts and not huge comfortable homes? (like why would they rather live in makeshift tents than someone's mansion in a formerly nice neighborhood)???
* Second, considering it's the FLU that wiped people out, i.e. there is nothing inherently wrong with machines/tech, it seems inconceivable that not one person survived who took some remaining gas, drove up to some drill/rig and pushed the "on" button. Or figured out how to work a windmill... I mean come on! No one survived who knew how to do ANYTHING to restore power or transportation or communication (ham radios anyone?!)...
* Then - how did the flu wipe out 99.9% of the population yet at least a hundred people or thereabouts survived at the airport mentioned? I'm sorry, no level of quarantine explains this (if indeed this flu was so contagious, it wouldn't have failed to permeate such an open space).
I could go on and on about the scientific details that just don't make sense or aren't adequately explained, but whatever, not all books can do everything and it's clear that Station Eleven isn't really about the science of the apocalypse, but about human memory/transcendence/resilience... And it does a brilliant job of exploring those dimensions....more
I read this first in HS; then, I would have given it 5 stars, as at the time it just blew my mind. Now that I am a bit more mature, I would maybe rateI read this first in HS; then, I would have given it 5 stars, as at the time it just blew my mind. Now that I am a bit more mature, I would maybe rate it down to 4 stars, for some logical .. flaws (I wouldn't call them inconsistencies, per se, just ideas that were not fully resolved or worked out in the book). However, I leave my rating at 5, for a book doesn't have to be perfect in my eyes to earn the top rating--as long as it's well written (this book is brilliant in this department) and makes one think about the deeper issues of existence, and as long as it follows a plausible and relatively good story, which the Handmaid's Tale certainly does.
Some particulars: Writing style: many have mentioned its lack of quotation marks as a minus in their reviews, and the seemingly haphazard story (the writing does not have clear distinctions between memories and present, rather the story flows from one memory to another without clear breaks)... This, to me, is a ridiculous argument: the writing is PURPOSEFULLY this way, to showcase not only the disjointed nature of the Handmaid's tragic existence/consciousness, but also because it is supposedly reconstructed by historians who find the Handmaid's tale in the form of a recording many hundreds of years later. Historians don't use quotation marks (unless directly citing other sources), and this wasn't a "novel" written using standard punctuation by the Handmaiden.
Substance: My favorite aspect of this work is how it manages, in almost every paragraph, to make insightful commentary on all aspects of experience, from the trivial to the intricately complex: from the nature of freedom, "There is more than one kind of freedom, freedom from and freedom to", to the nature of control over one's destiny, "I would like to believe this is a story I'm telling. I need to believe it... If it's a story I'm telling, then I have control over the ending" to the nature of inaction, "We lived, as usual, by ignoring. Ignoring isn't the same as ignorance, you have to work at it", to the nature of extreme deprivation, "The minimalist life. Pleasure is an eff. Blessings that can be counted... but possibly this is how I am expected to react. If I have an egg, what more could I want?" The book abounds in insightful profundities.
Problems: Some aspects of the story are not perfectly ironed out: I find it very difficult to believe that such a takeover could have been possible, with all men complicit, and all women waiting silently by for what may come, in such a short period of time. Further, the racial element wasn't really worked out, though it was mentioned in the postscript (the society in the novel is white supremacist, but there's nothing particularly about this which has a biblical foundation. However, at the end it is explained away as a white supremacist Christian movement spurred on by racial diversity in the modern era. I find it very hard to believe, however, that women, most men, and non whites stood silently by as the insanity of Gilead took over).
Also, the following made me mad, though as a seasoned reader I know better than to rate down the book for engendering passion in this way: The Handmaid is a weak and detestable (to any feminist like myself) heroine, who has for the most part assimilated in thought to the new regime (she often chastises herself for breaking the rules or for having particular feelings which are outside the bounds of Gilead accepted norms), and although she years for the "time before," she would rather wallow in inaction than risk security for authenticity and freedom.
This contrast is worked out mostly through her memories of her mother and a good friend, Moira. Her mother used to be a staunch feminist who had fought her entire life for women's rights, yet at one point the Handmaid mocks her, saying "Mother, I think. Wherever you may be. Can you hear me? You wanted a women's culture. Well, now there is one." Of Moira she is more reverent, admitting that she doesn't have Moira's courage.
This book is Brilliant, overall, for the amount and quality of thinking it inspires....more
