Station Eleven: A Mysterious Novel

Emily St. John Mandel writes an intriguing story with an interesting plot in her novel, Station Eleven. The narrative follows the lives of multiple characters for years after the decline of human existence due to an epidemic of the Georgia Flu. The plot of the book is impressive as St. John Mandel manages to tie together and link all of the prominent characters in the book using discrete, but important references to objects. St. John Mandel manages to write a novel with a captivating plot, but also uses a particular tone.

In Station Eleven, the main character, Kirsten Raymonde, meets people throughout her strange life who all tie back to one man, Arthur Leander. When Kirsten was a child, she witnessed Arthur die of a heart attack onstage while performing in a production of King Lear. From that moment on, everything went downhill. The world as Kirsten once knew it collapsed due to an awful illness that took the lives of almost the entire human population. Only a few were left to exist after the flu took it’s course. The initial plot to St. John Mandel’s novel immediately captivates the audience with the interesting plot. Who doesn’t love a book about an apocalypse? Among those who survived the epidemic, were Kirsten and her friends in the Traveling Symphony (a group of music and theater oriented people who travel to perform plays) and the Prophet (a self-proclaimed god). Station Eleven interestingly summarizes the accounts of their experiences surviving in a world with almost nothing. No government, no electricity, no airplanes, no police, not many complete families, and certainly no trust. St. John Mandel found a way to intertwine the two biggest characters in the book using an object that would not be thought of as extremely important. “‘ I found it in the prophet’s bag’... A folded piece of paper fell out of the book. I was a page torn from a copy of Dr. Eleven, Vol. I, No. I: Station Eleven, the first page of Station Eleven she’d ever seen that hadn’t come from her copies of the books” (303-304).  This passage connects the Prophet and Kirsten directly to Arthur Leander as they both have copies of the same comic strip written by Arthur’s ex-lover. Before Arthur died, he gave copies of the comic, Station Eleven, to Kirsten and to his son. The fact that the Prophet has a copy of the comic in his possession proves that he is Arthur Leander’s son because after the decline of human existence, everyone kept all of their belongings. Therefore, Kirsten and the Prophet have a mutual friend from before the epidemic. This part of the plot is definitely the climax because the entirety of the novel is tied together due to the knowledge of the relationship between the Prophet and Kirsten. In a way, the climax of Station Eleven is also the resolution because it solves the conflict of who the Prophet was and why he was a self-proclaimed god. Additionally, the tone of the novel is mysterious and perplexing because the identity of the characters is hidden until the climax. By withholding this information, it was a bit confusing as to why certain characters were even relevant to the plot, but St. John Mandel did a wonderful job tying them together at a point in the novel where the reader didn’t even see it coming.  

All in all, Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel was an entertaining novel due to the complexity of it’s plot and the overall tone of the book. Although many people think that the point of view change throughout the book is confusing, it actually enhanced the book by adding to the mysterious tone. This book is a great read for those who enjoy post-apocalyptic reads.