GDT Book Club: Station Eleven

[bumblebuzz21]

Day one

Let's start with your general thoughts and feelings.

[bumblebuzz21]

I really enjoyed the book. My favorite thing about the book was even though is was dystopian, it didn't give me any of the anxiety that a lot of that genre does. There was a little bit with the prophet, but not too much. To me, the book was more about the characters than the pandemic and the fall of civilization.

[moosishun]

I liked it a lot. I have read The Stand, and in ways this reminded me of it except of course, Stephen King. I was afraid that Arthur had it, too, and he "just" had a heart attack. I guess almost everybody got it, so it made it really strange that that airline carrying Clark and Tyler and Elizabeth was absolutely pestilence-free. That seemed very bizarre to me.

With all these coincidences, I absolutely started singing "It's a Small World After All" near the end.

I wish they had panned over to that British Columbian island - I wonder if everybody there would have been just fine. Boy howdy, 99% fatality rate is a tough pill to swallow, ain't it?

[moosishun]

The prophet - even though he was awful, did not have that super human strength that the Stephen King novel had. Also, Tyler actually thought he was the answer and was called by God. I thought the thought about cults and cult leaders was absolutely right on target - they are the most dangerous group of all because they justify everything by saying it's part of the higher plan.

The tea set thing set my teeth on edge, though.

[bernelli]

I really liked this! Sci-Fi and dystopian aren't my favorite genre's, so I went in feeling skeptical, but ended up loving it. I agree with bumblebuzz21, that the reason the book didn't feel so deep into the sci-fi/dystopia world was because the characterization was really good, we knew how they felt and what they thought and it was the characters that moved the plot along.

I loved how the people and the objects tied back together throughout the story...I was so sure that the cloud-paperweight was going to be used to throw at someone's head, though. ha!

Along with really enjoying the story, I found the fall-of-civilization situation to be real interesting. I felt that the author covered quite a lot (but not the restroom issues we'd have... I kept wondering about that but I'm probably glad not to have to have read about it in the story!)

[ccToast]

I hope to finish reading tonight. (I know, I know!)

I'll be back!

[honeybzzzs]

I didn’t love it, but to my surprise, I didn’t hate it either.
I don’t care for books that repeat themselves. Gives you a clear picture of what happened at the moment, and then repeat that scene again almost verbatim. Such as the ‘Arthur dying on stage’ scene, and then later redescribed almost exactly. My mind always thinks “I know that already. Move on already”

And moving on would have involved more information on the tea set (mental illness?) the paperweight, the lack of information as to how quickly the earth changes when left undisturbed by man, re-inventing inventions, obtaining knowledge (the printing press that printed the newspaper and how was it distributed). I just wanted more detail then was given.

[roundtoit]

I remember really liking it, but I think it was the first thing I read (listened to) when the book list was printed. I've learned to go ahead and get on board with the books because my turn may not come quickly enough if I wait.

So, we were back in the fairly early stages of our pandemic and I kept wondering how close we could really be to that situation. It hit too close to home. I also felt the same when I read The Stand, but we weren't in a pandemic at that point. I agree with honeybzzzs, that it was amazing how quickly it happened that the characters had to relearn how to do things and reinvent things.

[sal]

I liked it (and I liked it more than I did The Glass Hotel, also by her, which I did still like). I agree that it was less anxiety producing than say, The Stand or The Road or anything like that.

[suby]

I liked that it started in the theatre and they continued with a traveling troupe throughout. It shows the importance of art rises to the top even in the bleakest of circumstances.

I was kind of overwhelmed at the thought of things like air travel and electricity being something that had to be taught to a whole new generation. It must have seemed like such a fantasy.

It was so strange that killing to defend yourself was just a given.

[gemster]

I didn’t enjoy it at first as found it frightening/anxiety inducing given the topic but once I got to know the characters that went away and I started to enjoy it. I loved the way everything/everyone was interlinked and the repetition didn’t bother me at all. In fact due to my habit of skim reading it probably did me good

Has there ever been a movie or TV series made based on this? I feel like I’ve watched something with a band of actors and musicians traveling round a post apocalyptic world and there was a creepy evil prophet in it too.

ETA this is what I’m thinking of, so very similar setting but different reason and characters. 
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolution_(TV_series)

[moosishun]

How sly was that interviewer when he asked about the knives and Kirsten said "You know exactly what that means and I am not going to talk about that."

Period.

I was really scared for the Symphony when Kirsten and August could not find them. And I was so sorry about Dieter.

What a thing for the airport people to look at that big airplane cemetery. I am truly amazed that nobody from that airplane got out. I would have figured that some would have.

[moosishun]

It was written in 2014!

[moosishun]

I found it very interesting that my first whiff that this was going to be virus related was when it was mentioned that one of the arts people lasted longer than anyone else by living 2 weeks (or 1 week).  I had forgotten what this book was about - and perhaps I think I would like to be blissfully ignorant about all of them!!  Ha!

I guess some people just had a natural immunity - of the 3 girls in the play, only Kirsten lived. And poor Tanya - although she wouldn't have lived to have cashed in that check - I thought it was so sweet that she was weeping and sobbing and carrying on about Arthur when perhaps a few (or more) of those tears had to do with the fact that there was no check in his room for her.

Or do you think he wrote it and she was weeping and sobbing because she was so truly touched and in love with him?

My cynical side creeps in here.

[mzholly]

I loved it. I read it 18 months ago, thank goodness. Not sure I could have read it over the=last year. That it skipped past the first few dreadful post-pandemic years to focus on the “new normal” contributed to the lack of anxiety, and I was glad for that.

I have a fondness for books that don’t leave me wondering what happened next, so the interwoven story lines over many years was a big plus for me. Though I do wonder if the Prophet would have turned into such a terrible person had things stayed ‘normal.”

I do think of this book (and particularly the woman who created Station Eleven) every time I see a news report about the cargo and fishing ships that have stayed out to see for a year now.

[moosishun]

I wish Frank could have survived. What a daunting task that would have been.

[mare]

Add me to people that loved this book. It's very much outside my normal reading taste so I was surprised by how quickly I got into it. For me it made me feel so much better about the current health pandemic.

[peacemama]

Overall I enjoyed it. Definitely couldn't keep Covid connections from cropping into my thoughts as I worked my way through it. Bits of it also reminded me of The Walking Dead.

[corgi]

I just started listening to this book Friday but finished it yesterday. It was definitely a couldn't put down book for me. I'm a fan of this post-apocalypse genre, not the Mad Max brutal stuff, but things that make you wonder how you would act in this situation. How would things really go? I very much enjoyed it.

[bumblebuzz21]

Day 2

Certain items turn up again and again, for instance the comic books and the
paperweight—things Arthur gave away before he died, because he didn’t want
any more possessions. And Clark’s Museum of Civilization turns what we think of
as mundane belongings into totems worthy of study. What point is Mandel
making?

On a related note, some characters—like Clark—believe in preserving and
teaching about the time before the flu. But in Kirsten’s interview with François
Diallo, we learn that there are entire towns that prefer not to: “We went to a
place once where the children didn’t know the world had ever been different . . . ”.
What are the benefits of remembering, and of not remembering?

[bumblebuzz21]

I think there is a benefit of remembering so that things can progress and those kids will probably be the ones that make it happen.

Did anyone read The Passage trilogy?

[bernelli]

I loved how the people and the objects tied together the way they did. The objects ended up being something the characters recognized and brought about conversation -- I also think it was an ingenious tool for the author to use to pull the reader along. I absolutely loved that about this story.

Regarding history, I think it's extremely important to understand the facts -- the good, the bad, the horrifyingly ugly. Not glorify it, but teach it and understand it. It was so very interesting that the conversation teach history vs start fresh was brought up. I stopped reading to consider how I feel about it -- again, another great thing this author snuck into this story. I didn't know how I felt about it prior... but I really do think it's important to understand the facts of how things unfolded. Hopefully we will opt to not repeat the horrifyingly ugly events, and improve our responses to negative/sad events by understanding how things previously unfolded.

[moosishun]

This is a really good question about "things".

I usually don't put a lot of importance in them because mainly we have too many and it has cluttered up my life, but I can see how having them helps remind you of things in the past and doesn't allow you to forget. The significance of the memories is more valuable than the thing itself. I wonder if having a few well placed things helps Alzheimer's/dementia patients.

[moosishun]

I'm thinking of some objects that show up time and time again and stood out to me -

The graphic novels and the paperweight and the articles about Arthur. I was amazed at how Miranda's books took on an entirely different shade of interpretation between Tyler and Kirsten and how expertly it showed up again when they met up for that final time.

I also think that the most nut-jobbiest of Christian-based denominations and cults revolve around the book of Revelation, since there are 5 billion and one ways to interpret it.

[roundtoit]

I thought it interesting the things that made it into the museum.

It is so important to keep the past in our memory so we try not to repeat past mistakes. We must honor the good but not excuse the bad. If we hide it, we may repeat. I think of the way our presidents' memories and our founding fathers' memories have been "whitewashed" so they look like saints in our history books. They were fallible men, too, just like all of us. Some owned slaves, some were reviled for their radical ideas, some weren't so nice but we were taught they were such wonderful people. There's danger when we do that to our "heroes".