Friday 29 April 2022

Recent Reading - Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel

I was attracted to Station Eleven because it is a story about what happens when a new and extremely lethal virus arrives in the world; I hoped it might give me a better understanding of what happened to us all over the last two years. 

The novel was published in 2014 and the virus it imagines kills 99 per cent of those it comes in contact with. The action switches back and forth from not long before the pandemic hits to the aftermath, describing what existence is like for those who still remain. 

Given that St John Mandel's fictional virus is so extremely deadly, I ended up feeling that the contemporary parallel the book reflects most clearly is not actually the events following the appearance of COVID19 but the situation now, as we move mostly blithely through what may be the last days before an outbreak, large or small, of nuclear warfare.

Station Eleven is one of the most entertaining contemporary works of fiction that I have read in ages. It is very intricately constructed, (possibly a little too much so, slightly straining the reader's credulity occasionally). Even though until the very end there isn't a really urgent plot line, it kept me glued. I don't think it is the kind of novel that leaves you wiser at the end, or provides an insight into humanity or existence, but it is exceptionally imaginative, clever and compulsive. I enjoyed every page and, unlike so many novels, it didn't peter out towards the end.

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