BINGO – Book Club (CBR Book Club selection for 2020)
A pandemic has wiped out most of the population of Earth. Very few survive to see the world collapse, but there they are. Some go wild. Some dive head first into fringe religious belief. Some take refuge in music and theater. Everyone, though, in one way or another, is trying to do more than just survive. Told through a multiple timelines, points of view, and narrative styles, Station Eleven tells the story of how people cope with the end of the world.
Alright, I am firmly in the Emily St. John Mandel fanzone. I tremendously enjoyed The Glass Hotel earlier this year, and I also very much enjoyed Station Eleven. I get the hype around this author, now. And I’ll be adding my voice to the mix.
What I love about Mandel’s writing is the ease of it. Reading this book felt like settling in to a beloved story even though this was my first time to read it. What makes the writing so relatable is Mandel’s ability to highlight the mundane in beautiful ways. Station Eleven focuses on everyday connections or meetings, mostly purely happenstance or coincidence, that have profound impacts on people.
There are a lot of moments where things come together. A lot of “Ohhhh, that’s the same guy from before who…” kind of moments. In less deft hands, these types of plot devices would be clunky, contrived, and/or overwrought. Mandel, however, does such an excellent job of slowly leaving just enough breadcrumbs here and there for each story line that everything just works.
Even though this book is about a pandemic, and we are still living through global pandemic as I type this, this book is a reminder about the power of community in trying times.