Station Eleven: An Intricately Spun Novel 
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel depicts a post-epidemic world, where almost all of the world’s population has been lost to the Georgia Flu. The night before the epidemic rips across North America, Arthur Leander is acting the lead in the production of King Lear in Toronto’s Elgin Theatre when he has a stroke and dies. Station Eleven follows the lives of a paramedic at the scene, a child actress in the production, as well as Arthur’s close friend, ex-wives and son, Tyler. Each ventures across the country and world in the midst of and after the outbreak. With armed, self-proclaimed religious cults, a traveling symphony and stray wanderers, it seems that the world has never been more chaotic. All the while, “Station Eleven” comic books painted by Arthur’s ex-wife Miranda are passed along. Using a third-person omniscient point of view, Mandel moves forwards and backwards through time to carefully describe characters’ backstories and to interweave various storylines.

Near the end of the novel, Mandel takes the time to elaborate on Arthur’s final day alive. She writes, “He [Arthur] found he was a man who repented almost everything, regrets crowding in around him like moths to a light. This was actually the main difference between twenty-one and fifty-one, he decided, the sheer volume of regret. He had done some things he wasn’t proud of. If Miranda was so unhappy in Hollywood, why hadn’t he just taken her away from there? It wouldn’t have been difficult. The way he’d dropped Miranda for Elizabeth and Elizabeth for Lydia and let Lydia slip away to someone else. The way he’d let Tyler be taken to the other side of the world. The way he’d spent his entire life chasing after something, money or fame or immortality or all of the above. He didn’t really even know his only brother. How many friendships had he neglected until they’d faded out (Mandel 327)?”

Mandel’s diction, syntax and structure are what bring this passage to life. Immediately, in the first sentence, her simile paints a picture in the readers’ minds. Her imagery describing Arthur’s regrets surrounding him “like moths to a light” allows readers to visualize and get a sense of the magnitude of his regrets. It creates a feeling of being cramped and suffocated, much like the guilt smothers Arthur. Additionally, Mandel’s diction is clear and direct, not overly elevated or inflated. She uses precise but simple words such as “unhappy,” “chasing,” and “neglected” to illustrate Arthur’s emotions explicitly.  

The second aspect that creates Mandel’s distinct voice is her syntax. Notably, in the middle of the paragraph, she starts three sentences with the words “the way.” This repetition creates a sense of dull, tiring rhythm. This can subconsciously allow readers to feel weighed down as well, relating to Arthur’s feelings of guilt and helplessness.

Finally, this passage is very well structured. Mandel begins with the broader idea--Arthur reflecting on the volume and magnitude of his regrets. From then onwards, she describes this thought process in detail with the specific people he let to slip out of his life. To conclude, Arthur broadly thinks about the possibilities of other friendships he missed out on. Furthermore, she varies sentence lengths in a way that creates a flow. Apart from the sentences beginning with “the way,” the paragraph includes a mix of short, medium and long sentences. The types of sentences also vary between declarative and interrogative ones. The flow created by these factors enables readers to follow her ideas smoothly.

Station Eleven as a whole is filled with many similar passages, creating a feel that the plot was intricately spun, carefully crafted, not just thrown together. As the numerous stories piece together at the climax and resolution of the book, it is absorbing to see the plot lines come together. That being said, Mandel often goes on long tangents. At times, these help to enrich our understandings of the characters, but more often, these tangents could be much more concise. As a whole, despite the dull tangent every so often, Station Eleven effectively intertwines seemingly unrelated characters into one grand novel.