Kirsten is a young actor in a group known as the Travelling Symphony, a motley group of actors and musicians who travel the countryside from town to town presenting Shakespeare in horse-drawn carts. Unusually though, this isn’t a quaint seventeenth-century tale, but a thoughtful story about the state of the world following the outbreak of a virulent flu virus. Starting with actor Arthur Leander’s heart attack on stage in a Toronto theatre, we hop around from the time before the outbreak and head up to […]
Survival is Insufficient
Normally when I love a book, the highest compliment I can pay is saying I want to live in the world the author created. Here, I have to say that’s the last thing I would do. I didn’t want to read this book. I mean, I wanted to read this book a lot (which is why I own it), but about halfway through I put it down and started reading something else. I didn’t want this book to end, and the faster I read it, the […]
Station Eleven
The end of civilization, Shakespeare, and crazy cult people. I don’t know, I’m really tired right now. You can read my full review here.
Where has everybody gone?
Station Eleven made a lot of noise when it was published earlier this year. It was heaped in critical praise and when it began to be shortlisted for prestigious awards, even more noise was made about how Mandel had written a novel so brilliant it had defied the limitations of its genre. Such hyperbolic waffle tends to make me roll my eyes and end up disappointed (I’m looking at you, Donna Tartt), so I approached Station Eleven with caution. And as any regular reader will know, the caution […]
A Tender Apocalypse
Station Eleven’s set up is typical for a post-apocalyptic story: worldwide epidemic (in this case, the Georgia Flu) wipes out nearly everyone (in this case, 99%) in a short amount of time (in this case, less than a week). Lucky survivors toughen up or die in the new world, quickly learning how to live without modern technology, grieving their lost loved ones–and lost comforts–and try to figure out what’s next for themselves and humanity. Babies are born, people band together, life is brutal and often short. Settlements […]
Station Eleven: Clever Post Apocalyptic Tale
There have been so many post apocalyptic novels out there that I now tend to avoid them. It’s become such an overused trope – right up there with vampires and zombies and…well you get the idea. However this one seemed special so I took a chance. Worth it. The story starts out just before the onset of the apocalypse ( “The Georgia Flu) with the sudden death of an aging Hollywood actor one snowy night while he is playing “King Lear”. An EMT in […]
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