But perhaps that is beside the point. Instead, just like the survivors themselves, the novel recuperates, recovers, and restores vestiges of value and meaning, symbolized here mainly by art and literature. What actually does is how the comic series frames, reflects, inspires, and adds meaning to the existence of surviving humans like Kirsten in post-Georgia Flu earth. And for Jeevan, his “ending” is not some grand utopia, but a quiet simple, domestic life, every detail of which is lovingly described in the last few chapters. But unlike its fellows in the genre, this dystopian novel does not dwell on how bad things are or on how much has been lost. Much the same holds true for the Planet of the Apes remakes. Movies. The characters may have no choice in the matter, but the novel presents its “utopia” as an alternative model of life altogether, one that is, as we have seen, lovingly described, and not simply because the characters have no choice. Click here for directions to Metropolitan Police Station 22A Camberwell Church Street London SE5 8QU on Google Maps. It posits the existence of separate communities, such as that of the Traveling Symphony and Jeevan, and does not labor to bring them together. Station Eleven ’s critique of traditional apocalyptic logic is most evident in the figure of the prophet – Tyler – through whom Mandel self-reflexively appropriates religious apocalyptic tropes to subvert them from within. They struggle and squabble – someone has scribbled "Hell is other people" inside one of their caravans, and someone else has crossed out "other people" and written "flutes" – but find safety and purpose as well as "moments of transcendent beauty" in their shared endeavour. The world of Station Eleven is stark and blighted, most of the novel set in the aftermath of the Georgia Flu, a pandemic that has killed almost 100% of the world’s population. From the beginning of the novel, we know Arthur has three failed marriages, and Station Eleven non-chronological narrative imbues multiple aspects of the story with dramatic irony. The old world, for instance, is recalled via disparate memories and objects. On a personal level, the primary characters of the novel are all connected to Arthur in some way. In this life, everybody leaves each other alone, and minds their own business. Perhaps one can do without the religious fundamentalism and go secular, but it would still a totalizing initiative all the same. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. More generally, Station Eleven implicitly criticizes those who would choose to live in the past. And the climactic confrontation between Kirsten and the Prophet is rather counterbalanced by his anti-climactic death; he is shot in the head by one of his young followers. “The Symphony was insufferable, hell was other flutes, or other people….but the truth was that the Symphony was their only home.” Art, not religion, was their salvation. 6 Tyler, the son of Arthur Leander, the character who links the text’s pre-apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic narrative strands, is only a child when the pandemic hits the world, … But whereas most apocalypse novels push grimly forward into horror or dystopia, Station Eleven skips back and forth between the pre-flu world and Year Twenty after global collapse, when the worst is over and survivors have banded together into isolated settlements. ( Log Out / The “high functioning sleep walker”, as described by Dahlia is a clear criticism of the use of technology in modern society, as it blinds individuals to their surroundings. In an anarchic society, we can be free(r) and self-determining, and we can witness the withering away of the state. “all of our activities, Sayid, you must understand this, all of your suffering, it’s all part of a greater plan.” Which elicits this response from a Symphony member, Sayid, “You’d be surprised at how little comfort I take from that notion.” In a different conversation, Sayid mocks the Prophet(’s followers) again. As the Matrix and the Terminator teaches us, our highest civilizational achievement — Artificial Intelligence — is also our biggest downfall. The man who links them all, Arthur Leander, is a famous actor who dies on stage just before the Georgia Flu sweeps the world. And well as the withering away of the state. Unlike Anne Washburn in her recent play Mr Burns, which also featured a travelling band of actors in a dystopic future America, Mandel isn't interested in how apocalypse might act upon art: this is very much a novel about individual rather than collective destiny. Essays for Station Eleven. One way to The making of Station Eleven 31/08/2014; Literary Station Eleven book club questions 12/07/2015; Literary ‘When it comes to capitalism, the virus is greed.’ Octavia Bright on the capitalist dystopia of Emily St. John Mandel’s The Glass Hotel 13/08/2020 Station Eleven contains many explicit references to other works of art, and relies on them heavily for source material. 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