Station Eleven
I woke up thinking about Turkish drummers
It didn’t take long, I don’t think much about Turkish drummers
But it made me think of Germany and the guy who sold me cigarettes
Who’d been in the Afghan secret police
Who made the observation
That it’s hard
To live
“Get Up Jonah”
Bruce Cockburn
Why does all the best art come from Canada?
Could it be the government support, or the framework of the country, a giant high school spread over a vast landscape where everybody knows each other and you can never rise above so you dig deeper into who you are and end up creating works that touch the soul in a way nothing from south of the border does.
Come on, whether it be Broken Social Scene or its descendants, if you want cutting edge music you look to the Great White North. And now you do for books too.
“Station Eleven” is the best book I’ve read since “The Goldfinch,” the only one that cried out to me all day long to be read.
It was recommended to me by Felice, not my Felice, but Felice Ecker of Girlie Action, in New York. We’ve never met, but we’ve exchanged notes on books. She told me to trust her on this one.
I trust no one. What kind of existence is that? I know. But ever since my divorce… That wrecked me. You stand up in front of God and family and say it’s forever and when it’s not, when someone jumps ship, it does something to you, makes you realize we’re all on our own and if you’re not looking out for yourself, no one else is.
So I researched “Station Eleven.” And it turns out it was nominated for the National Book Award. Which is imprimatur enough for me, although I was worried, you know how the highly vaunted is oftentimes unreadable, laden with so much description, so rewritten as to be bulletproof.
But “Station Eleven” is not.
“Station Eleven” is about plot. And mood.
So I’m sitting in an Airbus high above the western landscape, ruminating about my anger over the entitled, those with service dogs on the plane, when suddenly something happens in the book that creeps me out so much, weirds me out so much, that I say to myself…THIS IS FANTASTIC!
It was ominous. In a way horror can be, but “Station Eleven” is not horror.
“Station Eleven” is a post-apocalyptic novel. Not my thing at all. But the great thing about life is anything can be your thing if it’s good enough, and “Station Eleven” is.
“Survival is insufficient.”
That’s what you get in award-winning books, aphorisms, nuggets of wisdom the author has hoarded for years to deposit into the pages, and the result is oftentimes so disjointed and fake, because no one talks that way, and what we’re looking for in our art is truth.
But it turns out the above quote is from STAR TREK! I love a book with popular culture references. And the truth is, survival is insufficient.
That’s what’s wrong with American culture today, it’s all about survival.
Let’s start with the best and the brightest. Going into banking and tech not for the fulfillment, but for the financial rewards, they’re driven by a fear of being poor.
And those in the arts are imitative. Or bitching that they’ve got no recognition, that they can’t survive. America is so desperate it’s frightening. We’re either working or getting high, believing if we sleep we’ll get left behind and never be able to catch up. There’s no time for reflection, no time to do anything that doesn’t pay.
Because life is hard.
And it’s certainly hard after the apocalypse, after the defining event that changes everything. When mere survival is in question. And when that’s gone, what do you do…stage plays and perform music.
But I’m not gonna give anything away. I don’t want to ruin it.
And there’s no sense ruining a book, something that takes hours to complete. A book is no movie, no sporting event, not something neat and consumable before dinner. A book stretches out, it requires commitment, but with commitment comes reward, at least in the case of “Station Eleven.”
What happens when everything we know disappears. Everything we depend upon. Not only our friends and family, but electricity and phone calls and air travel and…
We revert to what once was, aware of what is gone and will never come back.
And it takes a while to compute. That’s another flaw in the modern game, everybody is supposed to be sans emotions, supposed to snap out of it and get over it instantly. But the truth is changes take time to digest, and when you come out the other side, you’re different. You’re capable of doing things you never contemplated.
Like kill.
Emily St. John Mandel is 35. Because you can’t write a worthwhile book if you’re a pre-teen.
And this is not her first book, because getting it right the first time is as impossible as winning the Olympic Gold on your very first try, the very first time you strap on skis.
You’ve got to experience not only victories, but losses in order to comment on the human condition. But south of the border our art is laden with testifying winners and petty feuds. Introspection is for losers.
The twist is not fully believable.
The denouement is disappointing.
But if you don’t get hooked by this book, if you don’t become intrigued and enraptured by some of the characters, you’re just another south of the border always wake zombie looking to get rich.
And your money will never keep you warm at night.
