Station Eleven

Before the world stood still, three people meet under most unpleasant and confusing circumstances. They don't know it yet, and won't remember for a long time, but they are destined to meet again- despite all the death and destruction they will come to face. The book is beautifully written with delicate prose that makes it hard to tear your eyes away from the pages. It connects the intricate storylines of every person with ease and - despite having a simple plot - the true highlight lies in the examination of the world before and after the apocalypse and the conclusions the characters inside the book make about it. Mandel manages to pack so much into these 300 pages: How we live in a world that doesn't really want us in it anymore. How people and humanity can only be remembered by the stories told about them. And how every human tells those stories differently. "Station Eleven" shows how the absence of the world as we once knew it makes space for infinite possibility. And infinite beauty.

Die Geschichte von Emily St. John Mandel hat mir besonders gut gefallen, weil auf eine sehr natürliche und unaufgeregte Art diese post-apokalyptische Welt, Stück für Stück entfaltet wird. Auch erfrischend finde ich, dass die Charaktere mal nicht die Helden/Heldinnen der Geschichte sind, sondern einfach damit beschäftigt sind, in dieser neuen Welt zu wandeln. Nicht nur der Inhalt hat mich fasziniert, sondern auch dass aus den vielen verschiedenen Sichtweisen der Charaktere erzählt wurde, die mitunter auch in ganz anderen Zeitabschnitten spielen. Ich habe mir das Buch auf Englisch gekauft (als deutsche Abiturientin), bin aber sehr gut damit zurecht gekommen. Ich kann dieses Buch also wärmstens empfehlen, wenn Sie gerne dystopische und postapokalyptische Romane lesen, langsam aber keine Lust mehr auf die Standartgeschichte „Held/in rettet die Erde“ hat.

I was so sad when this book ended. Isn’t that weird? Wouldn’t it have been more appropriate to feel tremendous relief about being able to wake up from the nightmare of this dystopian novel about a pandemic, published in 2014? Except we can’t leave it behind any longer. It has gained in momentum as, here and now, we are catching mere glimpses of everything that can or could happen: Civilization is brutally interrupted. Nature conquers back Earth: “The forest has crept up to the edges of the school parking lot and sent an advance party out toward the building, small trees growing through cracks in the pavement.” /// Mandel has turned the nightmare into a strange dream. She writes like a goddess, no less. And like a goddess, she gets to decide who will live and who will die: “As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods”! Even so, you will instantly trust her fully and wholeheartedly. Any resentment is impossible. Like a goddess she has woven the strands of various loosely connected characters and their stories together, from the recent past before and up until twenty years after the pandemic catastrophe, mercifully leaving out the middle. Even the shortest insights into their lives will make you feel you know these characters and “get them”. Mandel lulls you and snows you in, with both real and fake snow. At times, it does seem easier to let snow bury all the memories, softening the pain of all this loss, mostly of things (and people!) we take for granted. /// This novel leans heavily on “King Lear”. “The weight of this sad time we must obey,/ Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say./ The oldest hath borne most: we that are young/ Shall never see so much, nor live so long.”/// It’s a consolation that Shakespeare should have survived it all. Along with the quotes from Star Trek. And some Calvin and Hobbes philosophy. But also this wonderful graphic novel about Dr. Eleven, Captain Lonagan and Station Eleven, aka the Undersea. There is a strange comfort in it that some characters in the book feel, even with very different results. I wish someone would actually draw it and make it a “real” thing. I would love to read that, too. Dive in and linger there, just like I would have wanted to linger in this superb novel much longer.

„Station Eleven“ selbst ist ein Comic über eine verlorene Welt, der eine der Hauptfiguren sehr beschäftigt, und eine klare Parallele zur Geschichte darstellt. Der Roman ist sehr ungewöhnlich, reißt viele Themen an und bietet dadurch für ganz verschiedene Lesergruppen Anknüpfungspunkte. Er wurde lange vor der Pandemie geschrieben, schnell verfilmt und ein großer Erfolg. Liest man ihn in Corona-Zeiten, was ich hier ausdrücklich empfehlen kann, lässt er einen mit der beruhigenden Erkenntnis zurück, dass alles noch viel schlimmer hätte kommen können.

A wonderful book that set within an post apocalyptic world that was hit by a pandemic. It encapsulates in beautiful writing the lives of the people before and after the world as we know it ends. The prose makes the characters shine and it makes the story as lovely as it is sad.