“Station Eleven” Summary

What we enjoyed about the book:

• Interesting how everything was connected
• Characters from the caravan were cool
• Felt realistic even though it was written before our pandemic, kudos to the author
• Difficult to read post-pandemic
• Didn’t focus too much on the disease and suffering, rather on coping
• What is important in such a situation?
• Relatable: stocking up on food and toilet paper. Hard to read
• New generation portrayal interesting: stay connected to the world before
• Well written
• Theatre and Shakespeare parts brilliant
• Survival is not enough, you need more: theatre, the arts, something else to live for
• Memory as a key theme: how do we remember? What do we forget? What is being lost?
• Readers get a more complete backstory than any of the characters
• Hopeful ending, joy despite the bleakness
• Art as the most important thing in a postapocalyptic world, changes the genre
• Museum: remnants of a civilization lost, artefacts
• Global scale of the novel well done
• Makes us question everything we take for granted today
• How would I explain electricity or the internet or airplanes to somebody who has never encountered it? What a wild thought!
• Chance encounters not by chance — interconnectedness satisfying!
• Vibe of the book was cool
• Airport storyline fascinating: waiting for a saviour, work together, save themselves
• “I really really liked it generally”
• Beautiful writing
• Humans working together, humanity, wonderful despite the horrible situation
• Not leaning too much into the violence and aggression
• Retaining one’s humanity, trying to stay to connected to the person one was before the pandemic
• What keeps people going? Art! Music! Science! Special interests. What sustains us?
• Eerie and strange reading it after a pandemic. Made one reflect a lot!
• More than mere survival is important: what gives us joy? Keep the joy alive!
• No zombies was refreshing! The only evil = humans
• Novel purposefully tries to avoid the ‘catastrophy porn’, more nuanced, more about people, lighter
• Graphic novel series was lovely, how everything resolves around it was satisfying
• Miranda survived because of the comic, how important and escapist can a comic be? And later on it helped them facing trauma. Relating to art from both sides: pre and post pandemic
• Shakespeare’s timelessness: arts connects people, we need it, desperately
• Arthur also connected all narrative strands, holding it all together, yet he’s the one who dies right away

What we discussed:

• Novel a bit underwhelming, “I liked it but I didn’t like it as a whole”, too many storyline? Focus more on airport storyline or “going all over the place”
• Bit disorienting, going back and forth in time, confusing. When is this? Past, present, future?!
• Pretty predictable, e.g. identity of the prophet
• Prophet easy to spot and a bit meh
• Open questions: how do people react to sick people afterwards? What happened to the sickness? What happened to the second wife of Arthur?
• Felt a bit too constructed and artifical? Yet also somehow nice
• Pandemic story just lost after a while, nobody worries about it any more? Why?
• Tired of stories where postapocalyptic religious people are all extreme; cults full of fanatics, stereotypical; why not normal religion? Religion can offer comfort? And people then use it to gain power?
• Ending of prophet very anticlimatic, “there should have been a bit more action there”
• Rushed ending too @ prophet
• Satisfying because everthing came together in the end but also artifical, felt a fake
• Kirsten connection bit far-fetched
• Arthur unlikeable character who is the center of the story somehow? Meh, too much clichee
• Jeevan partly unlikeable
• Pre-pandemic parts a bit boring: relationship drama; instead: more world building?
• Cut down the prophet storyline, motivation of the prophet dubious? Just because of a runaway ‘wife’?
• Beginning a bit hard to get into? Felt random? Unconnected? Slow going? DNF potential, give me more pandemic…
• Narrator bit on the nose… Wasn’t ominous? Don’t tell us everything? Leave us some mystery and leave us wonder? We can imagine things ourselves?
• Apocalypse, hell quotes, bit on the nose at the very beginning
• Hard time caring about some characters? Make us care a bit more? Let us get to know them?
• Origin of the flu from Russia? Stereotypical from a US author?
• Why do they move into a Wendy’s or fast food chain building in a pandemic? All houses are available? Why do that? “I didn’t get it. Why do you wanna live there?”
• Why were people named after their instruments??? Dehumanising? Whole group? Errrrr?

(Weird) Ratings!

• 4.5/5 obvious Shakespeare references; refreshing genre addition; maybe hyped because
• might change because not finished yet: 3.5/5 King Lears “not fully sure what I think of it yet”
• 4.5/5 false prophets
• 3/5 TV guides
• 4.5/5 airplanes
• 4.5/5 instruments
• 4.5/5 comic book series

Interesting: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/persons-of-interest/the-rewriting-of-emily-st-john-mandel

Also check out “Sea of Tranquility”