John Mandel's Station 11 Essay

Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven tells the story of six characters whose lives intersect before and after the collapse of civilization due to the outbreak of a lethal pandemic. The novel depicts the lows and highs of human experience, from our obsessions with fame or the violent aftermath of the apocalypse to the pleasures of art and the eventual rebuilding of civilization. When reviewed by the New York Times, the novel is said to have faltered in its ‘imagination of disaster’ by Sigrid Nunez. While the novel doesn’t exactly delve into a staggering amount of detail during the events of the apocalypse, the authors’ writing shows the realism of human desperation during, and after a global catastrophe.

The review, by stating the falter in imagination, overlooked the fact that this book was written in Point of View style of the characters, which included their thoughts, feelings, and actions. The author kept true to the writing style through Kirsten, whom besides Arthur Leander, had the most appearances, and several times mentions she has no memory of the first few year after the collapse, which would for arguments sake be when the most ‘imagination of disaster’ would shine through. In an interview Kirsten tells that she “can’t remember the year we spent on the road, and I think that means I can’t remember the worst of it” (195).

Even

However, it’s never been about remaining good at heart. The author, Mandel, heavily implied that each person had committed some act at one point or another to survive, but the narrative throughout the book has been about how people overcome these horrific events that individuals are sometimes forced into. The underlying thoughts have been about the characters refusing to let these acts define them, about healing the bridges that had been broken in the wake of the