By Emily St. John Mandel (2014)
I enjoyed reading this novel, although I’m not completely sure how the different parts hang together. It’s a complex story in which a piece of art and an art project link several individuals and communities following a catastrophe that separates them and everyone around them.The piece of art is a graphic novel called Station Eleven, written by one character and shared with some of the others. It doesn’t seem to have a narrative and rather than inspiring, it seems to be captivating imagery about a very repressive society. Nevertheless, everyone who sees it seems to be inspired by its beauty. Or perhaps they just don’t want to lose the few objects of beauty that remain.
The art project is a travelling group of players who perform music and Shakespearean plays in the isolated surviving communities after the disaster, taking the motto from a Star Wars episode, “Because survival is insufficient.” Clearly the survivors of the catastrophe agree, because they flock to see the shows even at a time when strangers are a potential risk.
Outside of these remnants, the survivors struggle to live in a world where modern ways of life cease to exist. The health catastrophe has led to a social breakdown in which people fight each other for any remaining resources. St. John Mandel doesn’t dwell on this period, saying that people don’t want to remember it. It’s not what St. John Mandel wants to write about, and not I would choose to read about, either.
While small communities live together, they are on the alert for roving bands that might want to rob them of what they have. Without people to manage a fuel infrastructure, essentials such as heat, water and electricity fall back to whatever communities can make on their own. All this seems realistic, reflecting what a collapsed modern society would look like. While dangers from other people and the loss of modern technology would certainly be threatening, many people would join together to support each other and rebuild a cooperative society. They couldn’t survive in any other way.
And they would be looking for something beyond survival – art to give them a sense of something beyond daily life. I think we do look for this, even those of us who are materialists and don’t believe in a spiritual world. We have to accept that the non-rational has a place in human life. However, the role that St. John Mandel gives the graphic novel in linking the characters seems a bit mystical. It may be best to think of it as a literary device that casts a light on different lives – people respond to it in different ways. Even the nastiest character, who does not know its history or significance, keeps his copy and seems to value it. It turns out that people are linked in surprising ways, even if the links are not meaningful. The meaning comes only from what we give it, not from intrinsic value. Perhaps this is what the novel shows: even in the worst times, we look for art that goes beyond daily life and we give it our own meaning. Sometimes that is a connection with other people and sometimes not, but that does not diminish its power as art.
The novel has many different story lines that don’t really seem connected: the successful actor and his unsuccessful relationships, the friend who is successful at an unrewarding job, the actor in the travelling players, and the medic who cannot save everyone but provides the services that he can. They all find meaning in their lives, linked to each other even they don’t know it. They seek connection and the hopeful ending comes from the possibility of rebuilding it. Interestingly, while the human links are essential to each of the characters, the links are also what causes the catastrophe. Without easy travel and close living conditions, the disease that destroys human life would likely have been limited to a small area and died out before infecting the world. Like the storyline in the graphic novel, the novel is very ambiguous and supports multiple interpretations. It’s not a simple narrative, but that makes it richer and more rewarding. I didn’t expect the novel to take me in this direction, and that may be its greatest strength.
