Monday, March 14, 2016

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel




  Every year for the past 14 years The Santa Monica community has held what has come to be known as Santa Monica Reads. This is a time when the library chooses a book the general public will be reading and discussing for a period of time.
   This year the book is of the genre science fiction. It takes place sometime in the future when the world is being invaded by a strain of virus referred to as the Georgia flu. Not everyone is killed but the world is altered.
   The story centers on a female called Kirsten Raymonde yet is told in the third person. It is layered as it moves between time and characters. It always returns to Kirsten who at the start of the story is seen as a young child playacting in King Lear. She is part of a group called the Symphony. As the story develops we are carried along as she strives to understand what has happened.
   The story is a search motif or maybe a quest.
   The story is told in both the present and the future covering a long stretch of time.
   The title Station Eleven refers to a place where life can start over, a place of rescue.
   The story appears to be not an optimistic one. A strain of flu sweeps through the world. Societies are broken up. Those left are trying to find each other to start over.
   But it ends in hope as a new community is seen through a spy glass-- Their station eleven.

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