“Station Eleven,” by Emily St. John Mandel, tells the story of the Symphony, a wandering troupe of actors and musicians that perform Shakespeare 20 years after the collapse of civilization, along with a Hollywood actor’s life pre-collapse. The novel opens at the end of the actor’s life, but at the beginning of the post-apocalyptic world, the night that a deadly flu begins to sweep throughout civilization. In a second timeline, 20 years later, the book follows the then 8-year-old girl, now 28-year-old woman, Kirsten, who was part of the cast the night he died and has been traveling with the Symphony as an actress for over a decade.
The novel follows a winding cast of characters, some before the flu, and some after. The most notable are Arthur, the Hollywood actor, his former wives and friends, a paparrazo, Kirsten, her friends within the symphony, and a mysterious prophet. The characters are connected through a complex web of relationships, though they don’t always know it. All of the characters are flawed and none of them are perfectly likeable, which ultimately makes them feel more three-dimensional and real to the reader.
The author’s writing is one of the strongest parts of this novel, and makes it hard to put down. “Station Eleven” is beautifully written, and every so often there will be a line that makes you pause for a second and just think about it. Her writing style is generally detailed and descriptive, but only of the things that truly matter within the story, rather than the details of post-apocalyptic life.
“Station Eleven” focuses on what being human truly means. When most of the world dies of the flu, the electrical grid goes out, cities stop running, and all of a sudden, the characters are living in a world more akin to that of centuries ago, even as they are surrounded by the relics of modern civilization. For most of the humans still alive, survival is the most pressing issue, but the Symphony exists for an entirely different reason. They preserve the art of a bygone era, because they believe that without stories, without art, human life is just about surviving, and as the motto of the Symphony reads, “Survival is Insufficient.” The book therefore focuses on the idea that humanity isn’t defined by modern civilization, that one can exist without the other, because creation and art make humanity what it is.
The story does jump around a bit through various timelines and character’s lives, so this would be a less enjoyable book if you prefer a plot that follows a more linear progression, but if that doesn’t bother you, I highly recommend picking this up. The takeaway is subjective, but almost everybody would find something to love within this story.