OK, I know what you’re thinking: “Not another apocalyptic novel!” But if you read Station Eleven, you’re guaranteed a major surprise.
There are absolutely no zombies, few guns and the storyline is surprisingly refreshing and original. To put it simply, there are no primal instincts and behaviors needed to get across a character’s personality. This novel contains art, and artists are at the center of the story. So you can relax and finish reading this review.
These are the latter days – and, yes, they suck – but author Emily St. John Mandel reassures us that fine arts still thrive amid the rotting corpses and evacuated cities.
A Russian flight containing a virus crashes in America, and it spreads rampantly. So far it sounds like your average, cliché, campy dystopian novel, right? Well, here is where it gets wild – or cultured, if you will. People who have survived the virus begin to form wandering tribes, and at the center of the novel is a tribe called Traveling Symphony, which symbolizes that art will survive and thrive in the midst of death and suffering – not just our primal needs of eating, sex and occasional sips of alcohol.
The characters are well thought out, relatable, three-dimensional and plot-driven. There are Shakespearean themes throughout, which is really cool because it begins with a famous Hollywood actor dying suspiciously in a production of King Lear.
This book is futuristic fiction and is a great read for those who are interested in seeing two drastically different topics: an apocalyptic future and the fine arts.
Grade: A Minus
