Who Will You Be in the Apocalypse?
Reflections on "Station Eleven"
If you watch to the very, very end after the very last credit after each episode of Station Eleven on Max, you’ll be treated to insights and background from the creators and cast. In one of these re-caps and reflection pieces later in the series, Patrick Somerville, creator, writer, and executive producer of the show kind of sums up what I loved about the book:
“In Station Eleven, the apocalypse wasn’t good, but what people become in light of it or because of it or to survive it was good. It’s what helps them find a better version of themselves.”
I binged Station Eleven (the book by Emily St. John Mandel) early on in this book development process. Before I had really started my book proposal in earnest. Before the Substack was even a glimmer in my eye. Before I had really gotten into skill development. I wasn’t even a regular consumer of apocalypse fiction before this project. I wanted to read Station Eleven the book before we started watching the HBO show–I’m that person that must do that. What I didn’t expect was that it would help color my view of the future and what I wanted from it. And part of that was because of the takeaway that Somerville summed up in that interview statement.
But let’s back up before we get into the whys, let’s talk about the what. Meaning, what the hell is the book about anyway?
What the book is about is eerily familiar in a post-Covid world (and by “post” I don’t mean Covid and its horrible effects are completely behind us, they never will be, but the deep pandemic panic and lockdowns and over-taxed hospitals, etc. are more or less in the rear view). Station Eleven is about an exceptionally virulent flu that wiped out 99% of the human population on Earth in a matter of a few weeks. Beginning with the first day of the pandemic in North America, we are introduced to playboy actor Arthur Leander in his last moments as he dies of a heart attack onstage (not of the flu as one might expect) at age 51 as he is starring as King Lear. All of the main characters throughout the book are, somehow, if sometimes a bit loosely, connected to Arthur.
The plot moves back and forth in time between pre-pandemic giving us greater insight into Arthur and his loved ones and 20 years after when the surviving characters connected to Arthur are living in a post-pandemic world. A world where structures of modern society have been taken over by the Earth’s greenery and survivors began to make homes in seemingly unlikely places–old mini-malls and motels to name a couple. It’s a world where everything is once again localized and the broader world is disconnected from the complete and immediate loss of technology.
The main character, Kirsten, was eight-years-old when society collapsed and was connected to Arthur as the child actor playing King Lear’s daughter, Goneril. Before his and the majority of humanity’s death, Arthur gave Kirsten a copy of a graphic novel created by Arthur’s first wife, Miranda called “Station Eleven” about a stranded astronaut which becomes her only prized possession. The words of Dr. Eleven play a big part in the themes of the book.
Two decades after the collapse, Kirsten is still an actor as a part of a Traveling Symphony that moves from town-to-town in what is currently The Great Lakes region of the U.S. on what they call “the wheel.” They return each year to the towns along the way to perform Shakespeare. And then they move on to the next town. The Traveling Symphony is guided by the Star Trek slogan, “Survival is Insufficient.” Mandel brings to light not just the desperate need to survive amidst the apocalypse, but also the desire and need to thrive through art. In that, it’s romantic.
While I was captivated by the flashbacks in time, I was most into the depictions of how the characters had adapted over 20 years in a time when civilization-as-we-know-it collapsed. The book certainly has a more romantic depiction of the reverence for art. Its slow-moving pace casually paints a picture of life that is being re-envisioned which, even with its slow pace, drives the reader to just keep reading. It’s not a pace built on a deep, suspenseful tension–although there is a bit of that thanks to a man who calls himself “The Prophet” who shows up following the path of The Traveling Symphony–rather one of the even-keeled depictions of life beyond the one we know now.
“It’s not always easy to pinpoint what makes a book ‘unputdownable,’ what gives it the feverishly consuming quality that ‘Station Eleven’ has,” wrote Katy Waldman in The New Yorker. “But some of the book’s swiftness derives from its consistency—from a tone that never changes or breaks, slipping through your body like a pure, bright beam.”
It is that steadiness that kept me reading. The show’s tone is a bit different. Certainly, there are differences in how the creator, Patrick Somerville, moves through the plot, the greatest of which was the increased tension thanks to The Prophet and his followers. But what the show retained was how humans adapted in a period of time after civilization’s collapse. While some characters’ actions 20 years after are questionable, many of the people’s versions of themselves have, indeed, changed for the better.
It’s that question and the beautiful everyday feel of The After Times that leads a reader like myself to wonder “Who will I be in the apocalypse?” As a newcomer to apocalypse fiction, I’m realizing that’s probably one of the captivating aspects of this re-envisioning of the future. It offers the reader or viewer to put themselves in the place of that post-apocalyptic world for the moments they are reading or watching. Would I be in the Traveling Symphony? I wonder Or would I be a resident of one of the towns they visit? The likelihood is very much the latter. A life of constant movement is not my jam. But then, beginning with that question, it makes me wonder What will be my role? In each town the Symphony visits, people have taken up some sort of role, perhaps one they didn’t have before the collapse.
Jeevan, one of the characters we meet early on when the pandemic first began, discovered at the moment of attempting to save Arthur Leander that he wanted to become a paramedic. And then, the world collapsed. But in the brief moment, we meet him in year 20, he has taken on a role that maybe he had an inkling of while the world collapsed. (This isn’t too much of a spoiler–I’ll say I do appreciate the liberties the show took with Jeevan and Kirsten’s connection).
It’s these realizations that remind me that we all have our gifts now. I’m reminded of a joke my husband and I have had for years. A fan of zombie apocalypse movies, he’d always say to me “you’d probably be the first to die in the zombie apocalypse” observing my complete lack of survival skills and how I get fumbly with my keys when I’m trying to open the door. “But, I’m good with people,” I’d joke.
And while it is a joke and the zombie apocalypse is the least of our worries, the sentiment is serious. I am good with people. I’m the one who creates and starts a community and the one who will find the people who are searching for a place to be. I’m the one who needs connection with others in order to survive and it is, in fact, my superpower. And while it may not be a skill in gardening or hunting or home repair, it’s a skill nonetheless.
In Station Eleven, you see how the characters have taken their skills to serve a higher purpose in the After. The artists bring beauty and joy to people along “the wheel” which is desperately needed. And each person in the Traveling Symphony take on a certain role in their community: the nurturer, the fun-maker, the planner, whatever it may be. We all have a role to play in the future. What will yours be?