A Dystopian Novel Unlike Others: Station Eleven

        A pandemic sweeps the world in Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, sparing only a small fraction of the global population. The disease is highly contagious, and is able to reach people faster than people are able to communicate and compile information about it. In one day, the world goes from seven billion to a quiet few thousand. Everything that defines the world as it is now; the technology, electricity, running water, transportation, flickers out in six days. History is defined by the pandemic: before and after.

In Chapter 1, Arthur Leader, a renowned Hollywood actor, seems to be the focal point of the story. He dies onstage during a production of King Lear, mid scene, from a heart attack. However, this is not the main plot of the story. Something more dramatic, inconceivable to the audience just shocked by the dramatic death of Arthur, is coming: the pandemic. After Arthur’s death, Jeevan, who is preparing for the epidemic, seems to be the main character of the story. After the pandemic, Kirsten, who is part of a travelling band of musicians and actors, seems to be the protagonist. The author jumps from between characters, before and after the epidemic, reality and fantasy throughout. Although Mandel transitions into and from things seemingly unrelated, in the end, all of the stories of the individual characters come together in one big picture. This unique structure helps Mandel develop her storytelling voice, which captures the emotional turmoil of the characters, the grimness of the world after the pandemic, and the way the survivors adapted and carried on in the changed world.

Among the many characters in this book is Jeevan, who is informed by a friend about the severity of the outbreak, and is preparing for a disaster. “It was eleven twenty. The supermarket closed in forty minutes. He was imagining how long it would take to bring the cart up to Frank’s apartment, to unload it, the time required for explanation and tedious reassurances of sanity before he could return to the grocery store for more supplies” (Mandel 22). The short sentences represent the rapid thoughts Jeevan had as he calculated the time he had. The long sentence embodies how the nature of the undertaking was long and tedious. The impatience the reader feels as they read the short, straightforward sentence followed by the long represents Jeevan’s own impatience. Mandel proves, not only through this paragraph but also through the novel, that that she is capable of capturing both moments in books and the audience’s attention with her diction and sentence structure.

After finishing the story and sitting down to write a review, it is hard to summarize Station Eleven. Although this may be perceived as a negative reaction, in this case, it is positive. Station Eleven is a story hard to summarize not because it is easily forgettable, but because of the complexity of the story. The introduction, the climax, and conclusion aren’t necessarily what make the story shine. Rather, the way the worlds and characters of Mandel’s novel are interconnected and are presented is what distinguishes the novel from the enumerable dystopian novels that mimic each other. She was ambitious, and was successful in her endeavor, creating an enthralling tale that leaves the reader thinking.