Author: Emily St John Mandel
I read Station 11 a while ago and struggled to write a blog because so much can be said about it. To start with, what an incredible book! I love most books I read because I appreciate creativity, and I can usually find something good about most books. But Station 11? Wow! It seldom happens that a book instigates so much reflection and thinking, in this case, as unique as it is, I dreamed about the book while I was reading it.
The way I read this book was as to what could have been with COVID-19 had the world not instituted lockdowns and had COVID-19 been more severe and deadly than it was. But then I also read it as what could still happen if a new pandemic comes and people don’t take it seriously due to what happened with COVID-19 restrictions, which in some countries were excessive and based on generational solidarity (that barely exists) rather than societal need as a whole. In a way, the book is terrifying because I also got reminded of worries, early in the COVID-19 pandemic about economic collapse if too many people suddenly get sick. This is exactly what happens in Station 11, which portrays what happens when no action is taken, and things unravel. I do wonder why the term societal collapse was not used during the COVID-19 pandemic, which would have been a message that would bring more people on board with restrictions. When I remember the first lockdown statement by Boris Johnson in the UK, where I was during the COVID-19 pandemic, the main discourse was that the NHS would collapse and become unable to care for people, which is fair enough but I think the message should have gone further into societal collapse if the spread is not slowed down and too many people fall sick.
Station 11 book is about Georgia flu that suddenly came to the United States with flights because authorities did not lock their borders despite knowing that the flu was spreading, and that people fell sick hours after exposure and then died within 48 hours. Not locking down is not directly communicated as criticism, but it is implied in my view. As a result of not locking down, American and global societies collapse and this is a term that is being used in the book, societal collapse. It sounds as terrifying as it is. People start falling sick and dying, and since nobody is doing anything, as things start unravelling, people start walking away from their jobs and homes and society collapses. A particularly poignant moment is when characters in the book describe how one thing after another disappeared, TV programmes, the news, the internet, water, and electricity. There was nobody to look after facilities and provide services as people started to die and the others walked away with Georgia flu wiping out the majority of society, 99% of the world population. The story in this book becomes a story of survival in the new, unsafe and unknown world and also a story of memory and loss of what used to be. It is also a story of art, which I loved because even in dark times actors try to preserve art and present it to people, which is portrayed through a Symphony group that travels around and organizes plays. Nonetheless, it is also a story of generational memory and loss because as Kirsten says when giving an interview to an archivist who is trying to create a memory of the former world, she poignantly says that the older you are the more you lose because you remember more. She was 8 at the time society collapsed and remembers less than older people.
The book interestingly follows a group of people who survive the flu and who start wandering around in search of food and safety and all characters are connected to a famous actor Arthur Leander who dies on the theatre stage on the day the outbreak in the US started. A young girl Kirsten who was an actress in the King Lear play, a former paparazzo Jeevan who was training to become a paramedic and who ran to the stage to try to save the actor he knew from his paparazzo and later briefly journalism days, Arthur’s best friend Clark who forms a Museum of Civilization in the airport where he got stranded when the country collapsed along with some passengers who stayed at the airport and made it their home whilst others took planes and fuel and tried to go back to their states to find loved ones, or they just walked away. We also meet religious zealots who initially we don’t know in terms of their background, but later find out there is a link with Leander. The book skips through what used to be, before the pandemic, and 20 years after the collapse, which is the present in the book.
Apart from a very vivid portrayal of societal collapse that runs through the book and narratives about the main character’s lives, another beautiful thing is the Museum of Civilization where Clark puts items no longer used in the new world, such as stilettos, iPads, iPhones, credit cards, and everything people used to find normal but no longer have use for. This again reminded me, as with the Ministry of Time book I read before this one, about taking communications and technology for granted. In this book, the characters tell a story of listening to the news about chaos ensuing as Georgia flu spreads and eventually even journalists either fell sick or walked away, thus society going into the dark and not knowing what is happening anymore because communications disappear. Therefore, people find themselves stranded without knowing where their loved ones are due to people trying to leave, then blocking highways by either dying in cars or running out of fuel and walking away, air traffic stops, and when electricity dies, there is nothing civilized left other than walking around in search for food and someone who can help, smaller communities form and everybody wants help but none comes…
Another beautiful moment that runs through the book is Station 11, a comic book written and drawn by Miranda, the actor’s first wife who gifted the comic book to him and which he gifted to the little actress who after societal collapse, survives and joins a Symphony, a travelling acting group that performs Shakespeare and other old plays to various places. Station 11 ends with hope, which remains unexplored but might be the subject of a new book (I hope!).
No blog or review can do justice to this book. It is absolutely incredible and a must-read.
Thank you for reading!