English language
One snowy night Arthur Leander, a famous actor, has a heart attack onstage during a production of "King Lear." Jeevan Chaudhary, a paparazzo-turned-EMT, is in the audience and leaps to his aid. A child actress named Kirsten Raymonde watches in horror as Jeevan performs CPR, pumping Arthur's chest as the curtain drops, but Arthur is dead. That same night, as Jeevan walks home from the theater, a terrible flu begins to spread. Hospitals are flooded and Jeevan and his brother barricade themselves inside an apartment, watching out the window as cars clog the highways, gunshots ring out, and life disintegrates around them. Fifteen years later, Kirsten is an actress with the Traveling Symphony. Together, this small troupe moves between the settlements of an altered world, performing Shakespeare and music for scattered communities of survivors. Written on their caravan, and tattooed on Kirsten's arm is a line from Star Trek: "Because âŠ
One snowy night Arthur Leander, a famous actor, has a heart attack onstage during a production of "King Lear." Jeevan Chaudhary, a paparazzo-turned-EMT, is in the audience and leaps to his aid. A child actress named Kirsten Raymonde watches in horror as Jeevan performs CPR, pumping Arthur's chest as the curtain drops, but Arthur is dead. That same night, as Jeevan walks home from the theater, a terrible flu begins to spread. Hospitals are flooded and Jeevan and his brother barricade themselves inside an apartment, watching out the window as cars clog the highways, gunshots ring out, and life disintegrates around them. Fifteen years later, Kirsten is an actress with the Traveling Symphony. Together, this small troupe moves between the settlements of an altered world, performing Shakespeare and music for scattered communities of survivors. Written on their caravan, and tattooed on Kirsten's arm is a line from Star Trek: "Because survival is insufficient." But when they arrive in St. Deborah by the Water, they encounter a violent prophet who digs graves for anyone who dares to leave.
In a future in which a pandemic has left few survivors, actress Kirsten Raymonde travels with a troupe performing Shakespeare and finds herself in a community run by a deranged prophet. The plot contains mild profanity and violence.
A book I have kept thinking of years after reading it. Great prose, plot, characters, universe - it has it all.
My favorite scenes are of Jeevan and Frank in Toronto as the pandemic is unfolding.
A surprisingly "civil" story about believable characters trying to eke it out in the aftermath of a grand fall.
Made me think of Covid and The Last of us.
This was recommended to me and I went in knowing very little about it.
I found it to be a really gripping novel; hard to put down. I was really excited to see how the characters lives intersected and how they handled the trauma of the devastating pandemic.
The book tells the story of the characters at various stages of their lives ranging from many years before the pandemic, to around 20 years after. This gives a really interesting perspective on the characters, and keeps the pace of the book fast and interesting.
Highly recommended!
This was recommended to me and I went in knowing very little about it.
I found it to be a really gripping novel; hard to put down. I was really excited to see how the characters lives intersected and how they handled the trauma of the devastating pandemic.
The book tells the story of the characters at various stages of their lives ranging from many years before the pandemic, to around 20 years after. This gives a really interesting perspective on the characters, and keeps the pace of the book fast and interesting.
Highly recommended!
There was a lot in this I really enjoyed. Interesting characters and a fascinating set of situations, all very tightly plotted and woven together in a system that slowly became visible throughout the novel. The structure and style of it has a lot of similarities to The Passage - something the book slyly acknowledges at one point.
However, I can only give this four and not five stars because the ending - or, more accurately, the climactic point of the narrative - feels too short and brief, almost perfunctory in the way it happens. When I was getting towards the end, I was thinking that I'd missed something in the blurb and this was just the first book of a pair or a series. There was enough going on and being built up I couldn't see how it could be resolved in that space - and I'm not sure it âŠ
There was a lot in this I really enjoyed. Interesting characters and a fascinating set of situations, all very tightly plotted and woven together in a system that slowly became visible throughout the novel. The structure and style of it has a lot of similarities to The Passage - something the book slyly acknowledges at one point.
However, I can only give this four and not five stars because the ending - or, more accurately, the climactic point of the narrative - feels too short and brief, almost perfunctory in the way it happens. When I was getting towards the end, I was thinking that I'd missed something in the blurb and this was just the first book of a pair or a series. There was enough going on and being built up I couldn't see how it could be resolved in that space - and I'm not sure it was, leaving me a bit empty when it finished.
Ce roman est assez complexe à décrire ...
On y assiste à une représentation du roi Lear.
On y voit la vie de l'acteur principal y défiler.
On y voit la vie d'une troupe musicale et théatrale ambulante s'y dérouler vingt aprÚs la fin du monde.
On y comprend, peut-ĂȘtre, le sens que peut avoir l'art dans un monde ayant quasiment disparu.
J'y ai Ă©galement lu, malgrĂ© tout, la fragilitĂ© de notre mode de vie technologique, rendue justement par son impossible survie Ă la fin du monde. Une fragilitĂ© qui est peut-ĂȘtre le coeur de cette oeuvre.
Pas parce que ces objets y sont importants. Au contraire, les personnages n'ont, globalement, que peu d'attrait pour ces objets. C'est - peut-ĂȘtre - ce qui facilite la survie des trop rares survivants. Par contre, la capacitĂ© Ă vouloir faire plus que survivre, comme le dĂ©crit particuliĂšrement bien la troupe ambulante, est aussi âŠ
Ce roman est assez complexe à décrire ...
On y assiste à une représentation du roi Lear.
On y voit la vie de l'acteur principal y défiler.
On y voit la vie d'une troupe musicale et théatrale ambulante s'y dérouler vingt aprÚs la fin du monde.
On y comprend, peut-ĂȘtre, le sens que peut avoir l'art dans un monde ayant quasiment disparu.
J'y ai Ă©galement lu, malgrĂ© tout, la fragilitĂ© de notre mode de vie technologique, rendue justement par son impossible survie Ă la fin du monde. Une fragilitĂ© qui est peut-ĂȘtre le coeur de cette oeuvre.
Pas parce que ces objets y sont importants. Au contraire, les personnages n'ont, globalement, que peu d'attrait pour ces objets. C'est - peut-ĂȘtre - ce qui facilite la survie des trop rares survivants. Par contre, la capacitĂ© Ă vouloir faire plus que survivre, comme le dĂ©crit particuliĂšrement bien la troupe ambulante, est aussi un des Ă©lĂ©ments clĂ©s de cette histoire : chaque humain semble avoir des aspirations plus grande que d'aller jusqu'au lendemain, des aspirations qui peuvent certes le tuer, mais qui sont de formidables ressorts de motivation. Ca rend d'ailleurs les personnages principaux vivants, rĂ©els.
De ce point de vue, j'ai trouvĂ© lâĂ©criture d'une lĂ©gĂšretĂ©, d'une subtilitĂ© que j'avais rarement vue, sauf peut-ĂȘtre dans [b:Cloud Atlas : cartographie des nuages]. Ouvrage avec lequel il partage d'ailleurs un attachement Ă l'Ă©crit : il s'agit ici d'une oeuvre auto-rĂ©fĂ©rente, puisque Station Eleven est, dans station Eleven, le titre d'une oeuvre fictionnelle ... qui rattache encore plus ce roman aux genres de l'imaginaire.
Il y a bien d'autres choses à dire de ce roman, sur ce qu'il dit de la fragilité de nos existences - ou plutÎt de notre mode de vie, sur l'insignifiance de l'existence.
Mais tout cela est dit d'une façon tellement délicate, tellement légÚre, que j'ai du mal à en rendre compte.
Alors que pourtant, j'ai apprĂ©ciĂ© ce rĂ©cit, Ă©normĂ©ment mĂȘme. Et franchement, vous apprĂ©cierez Ă©galement, Ă moins que la fin du monde ne vous terrifie.
I am going to relisten asap
Beautiful book. In an interview, the author states that the first post-apocalyptic book she read in her youth was A Canticle for Leibowitz. Iâm glad she said this, because that is the book (of my admittedly limited reading experience) that I thought of most often while reading Station Eleven. Both books do a nice job of playing with time and the strange and unexpected ways that events before the disaster affect life afterwardsâthe older book on a grand scale and the newer book in a more personal and relatable way. Itâs also interesting to note the contrast in the roles of the two most notable religious institutions in each book: the Catholic Church in one and the Prophetâs group in the other. (One advantage Station Eleven has is its diversity, which includes actual female characters ... but maybe Canticle for Leibowitz would have done a better job in this regard âŠ
Beautiful book. In an interview, the author states that the first post-apocalyptic book she read in her youth was A Canticle for Leibowitz. Iâm glad she said this, because that is the book (of my admittedly limited reading experience) that I thought of most often while reading Station Eleven. Both books do a nice job of playing with time and the strange and unexpected ways that events before the disaster affect life afterwardsâthe older book on a grand scale and the newer book in a more personal and relatable way. Itâs also interesting to note the contrast in the roles of the two most notable religious institutions in each book: the Catholic Church in one and the Prophetâs group in the other. (One advantage Station Eleven has is its diversity, which includes actual female characters ... but maybe Canticle for Leibowitz would have done a better job in this regard if it had been written today.)
Really the only downside for me was how the bulk of the main characters comprises actors and paparazzi and members of the jet set. Although the inclusion of modern conveniences like cell phones and the Internet and 24-hour news stations made the story hit close to home, the characters largely felt like they came from another world to start with. Still, for me it was an exciting book that I couldnât wait to return to every day.
And, as others have noted, there was a hopefulness to the book, which I appreciated. While Arthur's story is a bit of a tragedy (especially for those associated with his son) and some characters do die, I am glad the book didn't feel the need to go into gruesome or lurid territory. I'm kinda hoping the filmmakers exercise the same restraint when this is adapted for the movies.
One of those books you can't put down.
