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kareila_books2021-05-17 05:42 pm
kareila) wrote in kareila_books2021-05-17 05:42 pm
#25: Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven
About 18 months ago, the five members of my local book club each picked three books to read together. We're still working our way through those choices, and this is the second one that ended up being about a pandemic wrecking civilization. (This was the other one.)
There's a lot going on here though, moving forward and backward in time. There's the pandemic, a flu that is horribly contagious and brutally swift, from onset to death in 48 hours -- but there's also the central figure of a famous actor who died onstage of a heart attack the night the outbreak went global, and the people his life touched, and how their passions and choices echoed through the ensuing two decades, until we meet a girl in her late twenties traveling between scattered settlements in the wreckage of the former world, part of a performing troupe sharing symphonies and the plays of Shakespeare with those who are merely surviving.
The enjoyment of the story is found in seeing how everyone is connected, even if they don't realize it, although I selfishly wished more space on the page had been devoted to the post-apocalyptic practice of the performing arts. I'm glad that the book had a hopeful ending.
There's a lot going on here though, moving forward and backward in time. There's the pandemic, a flu that is horribly contagious and brutally swift, from onset to death in 48 hours -- but there's also the central figure of a famous actor who died onstage of a heart attack the night the outbreak went global, and the people his life touched, and how their passions and choices echoed through the ensuing two decades, until we meet a girl in her late twenties traveling between scattered settlements in the wreckage of the former world, part of a performing troupe sharing symphonies and the plays of Shakespeare with those who are merely surviving.
The enjoyment of the story is found in seeing how everyone is connected, even if they don't realize it, although I selfishly wished more space on the page had been devoted to the post-apocalyptic practice of the performing arts. I'm glad that the book had a hopeful ending.