This passage is a clear intertextual reference to McCarthys The Road, whose world is complete with travellers with shell-shocked expressions, children walking covered in blankets, people being killed for their backpacks contents, and a hungry dog. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Importantly, these hours of miracles [are] visible as such only in hindsight (Mandel, 2014: 223), that is, the deterministic teleological pattern of apocalyptic logic, with its distinction between the elect and the non-elect, is always constructed retrospectively, after the end, be this a future projection or a past event that is perceived as an end of something, as is the case of the Flu with the survivors. Yes, Station Eleven is wildly optimistic and unapologetically sentimental, but I appreciated the problem-solving we did see the airport community, as you mentioned, and the golf resort, even the Symphonys decision to stay within the Wheel for safety reasons. Now, as HBO Maxs tale of a pre-, post- and post-post-apocalyptic society much like our own concludes, senior editor Matt Brennan and columnist and culture critic Mary McNamara have it out about whether the series was truly great or something less. Miranda, Arthurs ex-wife, was unprepared for [the fleets] beauty. Thus, while the traditional apocalyptic narrative makes the conjunction of meaning and ending its theme, both in its expressed understanding of history and in its own narrative procedures (Zamora, 1989: 14), Station Eleven, as discussed, leaves readers with the sense of possibility, an open and unwritten future that challenges the closure and determinism of the sense of an ending and that, like the gaps in the fictional history of Cloud Atlas, allows space for human agency.13. Just like the parallels between the stories, the conclusion emphasises the individuals agency to shape the future and the openness of actual time, as opposed to the closure of time in traditional plots. Read full review The question of class distinctions (resource hoarding) is left mostly to an episodes worth of country-club symbolism and a ruinously miscast David Cross. The following is from Emily St. John Mandels novel Station Eleven which was a finalist for a 2014 National Book Award. Station Eleven is a slow burn. Similarly to Player One, which features sections foreshadowing what happens in the next hour of the story narrated by the post-human Player One (the implication being that, when it comes to history, the apocalyptic perspective from after the end of time is manifestly impossible in human terms), sentences like The Georgia Flu would arrive in a year, Civilization wont collapse for another fourteen years, A year before the Georgia Flu, Two weeks till the apocalypse, just before the old world ended, the Georgia Flu so close now (Mandel, 2014: 40, 71, 110, 201, 217, 328) punctuate Mandels narrative. Station Elevens appropriation of biblical apocalyptic serves to foreground the violence inherent in apocalyptic logic.7 As Kirsten, a child actor with Arthur in the pre-apocalypse and a member of the Travelling Symphony in the post-apocalypse, muses, [I]f you are the light, if your enemies are darkness, then theres nothing that you cannot justify. She has no expectation that anybody else will ever see her work. 1. Or, more precisely, it is half masterpiece, half not. How Station Eleven pulled off the impossible, ALeague of Their Own review feelgood baseball drama still knocks it out the park, Point Break: Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze face off in surf-crime bromance, Orange is the New Black: season four will take over your life, without parole, ThePoint Break remake: Five rules to keep it young, dumb and you know, Emily St John Mandels bestselling Station Eleven. The first few episodes look beautiful but move at a stately pace. It could remind us of our civilization. McNamara: As a nonmillennial Im not going to dive into those murky generation-defined existential waters, debate the historical nature of progress or try to predict the fate of democracy, though I think we can agree any television show that sparks debate about those things is a damn good television show. A life, and therefore actual, rather than fictional time, is made up of a number of loose ends (Mandel, 2014: 27) that resist the retrospective patterning of the sense of an ending. Having established its The Road is a recurrent point of comparison for Station Eleven in academic analyses and reviews alike (Tate, 2017: 13233; Alter, 2014; Huntley, 2014). The narrative continuously moves between the pre- and the post-apocalypse without any regular pattern, and, what is more, even in these two distinct periods, the narrative keeps shifting between different times, from the night Arthur dies and the pandemic begins, to various moments in his life and that of people that are connected to him, from the catastrophes immediate aftermath, to fifteen and twenty years after it.12 Just as in Cloud Atlas, Station Elevens structure encourages us to read for connections between pre- and post- apocalyptic fragments, rather than for an end that integrates the various moments. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Art and literature can, the series argues, offer some safety rails, some moments of connection. ), entropy reigns. Gomel, E 2010 Postmodern Science Fiction and Temporal Imagination. From Station Eleven to Atlanta, GLOW and more, Christian Sprenger has shot some of TVs most beautiful images. Just like Bertis, Tyler uses contrived rhythms and repetition in his speeches, so much so that Kirsten notes a suggestion of a trapdoor waiting under every word [of his] (Mandel, 2014: 59). The postmodern subversion of a realistic epistemology leads to the idea that there is no ultimate knowable historical truth, that our knowledge of the past is social and perspectival, and that written history exists within culturally determined power structures (Munslow, 2006: 27). The Book of Revelation, the final book of the New Testament and the central text of religious apocalypticism, is ultimately not about the catastrophic end of the material world, but rather the revelation of a utopian new world, the New Jerusalem, the divine kingdom which awaits the faithful at the end of history.3 This utopian teleology is central to the Western understanding of time, indeed, [the apocalyptic] vision of history gives rise to history as a theoretical production (Keller, 1996: 89) and the traditional apocalyptic paradigm lies at the very core of secular Western modernity.4 The age of discovery and colonialism is informed by apocalyptic beliefs, as suggested by the trope of the new world (Keller, 1996). Unlike with The Leftovers, Station Eleven was billed as a mini-series from the beginning, and Somerville doesn't seem interested in continuing the story. Berger, J 1999 After the End: Representations of Post-Apocalypse. McCarthy, C [2006] 2007 The Road. American Literary History, 23(3): 48399. Somewhere around the time Jeevan, her accidental savior, managed to purchase and then bungie-cord together a train of loaded shopping carts and navigate them through many city blocks to his brothers apartment building, I realized I would either have to surrender to an epic quest and all its potential pitfalls, or not. Just like McCarthys father and son, Jeevan and [A]lmost everyone was moving south in a silent landscape. Something that came up for me as I was writing this book was how incredibly local your world would become. Season 1 Review: Station Eleven takes Mandels book and amps up its sense of a cozy post-apocalypse, where humanity comes together, rather than drifting I in fact stole it shamelessly from Star Trek: Voyager. This is a reference to Revelation 20:1115: during the Last Judgment, people are judged according to their deeds, which are written in books, and only those whose name is in the book of life will be allowed to dwell with god in the new heaven and earth of the New Jerusalem. However, on the one hand, the novel is far from adhering to the radical utopian renewal of traditional apocalyptic discourse. She was the leader of a band of survivors not because she was a ruthless martial arts expert but because she continued to write symphonies, and understood that music and theater fulfill a deep-seated need. I focus on three elements, which reflect central features of this body of writings the critical appropriation of religious apocalyptic logic, the critique of utopian teleology, and non-linear narrative structures and parallel Mandels novel with three other key texts of the genre, Douglas Couplands Player One (2010), Cormac McCarthys The Road (2006) and David Mitchells Cloud Atlas (2004). Cultural Dominant. The super flu it depicts may be deadly, but its also swift, running its course in a matter of days. Among the 1% left Himesh Patel and Matilda Lawler in Station Eleven. The concluding discovery of a town with a functioning electrical grid (Mandel, 2014: 311) suggests not the advent of a radical new world and the revelation of a sense-making pattern to history, but, rather, that civilisation might slowly revert to its pre-apocalyptic state and given the positive and optimistic tone of the conclusion, reinforced by the way in which electricity and lights are repeatedly described as beautiful, this, too, indicates the novels problematic celebration of the current system. These are elevated by the catastrophe to the status of artworks, beautiful objects which move Clark because of the human enterprise each object had required (Mandel, 2014: 255). Altre Modernit, 9: 6680. WebIn this video we take a deep dive, review, recap and explain the ending to HBO's adaptation of Emily St. John Mandel's novel STATION ELEVEN. Download PDF. Drawn from Emily St. John Mandels novel, the seriess speculative future edges up, in its most ill-conceived moments, to a kind of Walking Dead-meets-Terrence Malick self-indulgence, and it rarely convinced me, or held me by the throat, the way its speculative present did; I even weighed whether to skip the episodes set along the Wheel, the Great Lakes circle the Symphony traced. Even the guy who auditions by reciting Bill Pullmans speech from Independence Day believes. In a way, Station Eleven is an interesting Rorschach test of apocalyptcisms appeal. Boston: Beacon. London: Continuum. This deliberate timing allows Mandel not to dwell on the horror and mayhem brought about by the Georgia Flu, horror and mayhem which are instead at the core of The Roads borrowed world (McCarthy, [2006] 2007: 130). We try to make the world make sense for a minute, she explains to young Kirsten. The concluding chapter seemingly adheres to the apocalyptic pattern of end and rebirth, for the depiction of Arthurs and Mirandas last hours is followed by Clarks musings on another world just out of sight (Mandel, 2014: 333). The improbability of it, muses Clark, who is echoed by Kirsten reminiscing about the urban landscape seen from a plane at night: clusters and pinpoints of light in the darkness, scattered constellations linked by roads or alone. This article examines Emily St. John Mandels Station Eleven (2014) in the context of the growing body of contemporary post-apocalyptic fictions and what I argue is their critique of the apocalyptic tradition. This critique of teleology is reflected in Station Elevens narrative structure. Born in the Boston area, educated at USC and an adoptive New Orleanian for nearly 10 years, he returned to Los Angeles in 2019 as the newsrooms television editor. [Children] were told about the Internet, how it was everywhere and connected everything, how it was us. Goes Out newsletter, with the week's best events, to help you explore and experience our city. Zombies show no talent for climbing; is there no engineer or architect among them who could construct an elevated village? 2nd ed. The silence (McCarthy, [2006] 2007: 274), an irrecoverable ecosystem that indicates the lack of a utopian renewal after the end indeed, the lack of post-apocalyptic futurity tout court and the collapsing of the sense-making order the traditional apocalyptic paradigm projects onto history through teleology. London: Continuum. Station Eleven has been a best seller. WebStation Eleven Questions and Answers - Discover the eNotes.com community of teachers, mentors and students just like you that can answer any question you might have on Station Eleven Search this site I admit that it probably says something about where I am at right now that I wanted more of the disaster and less of the hope. Beauty features far more prominently in descriptions and memories of the pre-apocalypse. Clarks optimistic musings on the possibility of ships and life in the countries on the other side of the ocean stand in stark contrast to the fathers answers to his son: Do you think there could be ships out there? Buell, F 2013 Post-Apocalypse: A New U.S. 2010 Future Ethics: Climate Change and Apocalyptic Imagination. As the season unfurled, though, I found myself frustrated by a structure that, roughly speaking, toggled between the pandemics onset and a time, 20 years on, in which Kirsten and her Traveling Symphony have forged a new society through the cyclical performance of plays. Cameron, C 2014 Station Eleven Offers Suspense and Science Fiction, but It Is Undoubtedly a Literary Work. Station Elevens plot itself consists of fragments from before and after the apocalypse, which challenges the teleological linearity of apocalyptic temporality. Convenience Store in Sterling, VA. While the novels prophet holds on to a religious understanding of apocalypse in which the end is followed by utopian rebirth, the Georgia Flu, the pandemic that kills 99% of the worlds population, is termed apocalypse by the television newscasters in the sense of dystopian catastrophe rather than utopian revelation, and the apocalyptic narratives referred to in the text are disaster movies, with the dangerous stragglers fighting out for the last few scraps (Mandel, 2014: 243, 256). The full Long Island Rail Road terminal in Grand Central Station opened Monday. For her, the important thing is the work itself, not whether or not it's ever published. Montral: McGill-Queens University Press. (Sorry, it all always comes back to Lord of the Rings.) Because this is an epic quest and those kinds of stories make certain demands. This [the cults community at St. Deborah by the Water] is a place of order. It received critical acclaim and was nominated for seven Primetime Quinby, L 1994 Anti-Apocalypse: Exercises in Genealogical Criticism. Goldman, M 2005 Rewriting Apocalypse in Contemporary Canadian Fiction. Traditional apocalyptic narratives are fictions of historical order (Zamora, 1989: 4) that flourish in times of crisis and, through his apocalyptic narrative, the prophet seeks to restore order in the chaotic post-pandemic world. Station Eleven happened to be on a break in March 2020 when COVID hit, and by the time production started up again in February 2021, the world had changed. The red bandanas turn up and disappear in one fell swoop to provide a cliffhanger between episodes; ditto the strained mystery of the the Prophet. It seemed at least plausible to me that there would eventually be some kind of hope. What if it's also a self-published comic book? Station Eleven, a ten-part limited series from HBO, is adapted from Emily St. John Mandels bestselling 2014 novel of the same name, which won the Arthur C. Clarke award and has sold more than 1.5 million copies. The things Jeevan sees vividly recall The Road. Mandel, E S J 2015 Ask Me Anything. As one of the survivors puts it, Elizabeths [the prophets mother] a fucking lunatic (Mandel, 2014: 253). Even in rural Pennsylvania, let alone Asia, you know your world becomes so small so quickly. Available at: https://www.booklistonline.com/Station-Eleven-Emily-St-John-Mandel/pid=6862248 [Last accessed 24 October 2018]. But soon, within minutes, the death of one man playing Lear disappears into the vast, mass death of a worldwide plague called the Georgia Flu. Thus, after a paragraph foreshadowing Mirandas divorce from Arthur and ensuing life a future that in Station Eleven is, literally, already written at the start of the novel, when we are informed of Arthurs many ex-wives (Mandel, 2014: 134) Mandel pauses to remind the readers that first theres this moment (Mandel, 2014: 107), a moment in which, in life unlike narratives, we take decisions that shape an unwritten future. "Virginia Lottery tickets are available for purchase here!" Different episodes concentrate on the experiences of different characters, but the through line is young Kirsten (an absolutely extraordinary performance from 13-year-old Matilda Lawler in her first substantial role), a child actor who is abandoned by her chaperone when a stage performance of King Lear is chaotically truncated by the death of the lead, Arthur (Gael Garca Bernal). The contemporary post-apocalyptic novel, instead, is not only predominantly dystopian but articulates temporalities critical of the apocalyptic model of history to make space for unwritten futures which are key to agency. I mean, extra points for level of difficulty, no? The sweeping waste, hydroptic and coldly secular. Cloud Atlas consists of six narratives set between the nineteenth century and a distant post-apocalyptic future. Even the moments of transcendent beauty and joy created by the Travelling Symphonys performances consist in conjuring, through Shakespeare, what was best about the [pre-apocalyptic] world (Mandel, 2014: 47, 38). If you can stick with it, you will be rewarded. WebThe book Station Eleven, by Emily Mandel, started when a famous actor dies on stage while performing the play King Lear. 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