If a book is described as post-apocalyptic or dystopian, I’m all ears.
When I read the plot synopsis for Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven – A traveling band performs Shakespeare in a world ravaged by a powerful flu – I was sold.
Mandel’s premise is presented in a hauntingly realistic way. The slow spread of information via television and social media, the initial refusal to process the gravity of the situation, the ensuing panic that left cars jammed on streets 20 years after the aftermath – all of the details seen through the eyes of various characters help illustrate the crumble of a civilization.
That the flu was naturally spread is also something that makes the plot even scarier. The idea of a disease decimating the human population made me think of Margaret Atwood’s Madaddam series, but this plot seems even more sinister, just because of the flu’s organic origins.
As Mandel dances forward and backward along the story’s timeline, she also plays with tense, switching back and forth between past and present. The style contributed to the changes created from the narrative switches, and it also helped create a sense of immediacy.
Mandel’s treatment of time also helped me truly understand the scope of the destruction. When we’re introduced to the Traveling Symphony, it’s 20 years after the flu. Then, through the introduction of various characters, we’re taken backward and forward in time, juxtaposing the world Before with the world After the destruction. As the plot moves forward, Mandel creates a web of characters who are intricately connected. We’re there when the cracks begin to form, and we can follow the characters as they try to climb out of the rubble.
