(no subject)

[skygiants]

I really liked Station Eleven, though if I wrote it -- and, let's be real, 'post-apocalyptic traveling orchestra and Shakespeare troupe!' is a book I would have loved to write -- I would probably have just spent the whole book on post-apocalyptic performing troupe hijinks and skipped the thematically significant but somewhat less fun digressions back to the pre-apocalypse.

Station Eleven starts off with a famous actor dying of a heart attack onstage, and then verges straight into scary-flu pandemic apocalypse with all the fairly standard hallmarks of a scary-flu pandemic apocalypse: massive death tolls! society disintegrating! terrified people trapped in apartments! Then there's a twenty-year timeskip and everyone is very elegaic because life is hard and the next generation can barely recall all the wonders of the pre-pandemic world and nobody remembers how science works. ((A little suspension of disbelief required for me at how very much nobody remembers how to make science work.) Meanwhile we occasionally jump back in time to the famous actor and various persons entwined with his life, including an ex-wife who is immersed in creating a graphic novel that becomes personally significant to several people in the post-apocalypse.

But in the middle of all this, as I mentioned, is a traveling orchestra and Shakespeare troupe, jaunting around under the motto -- taken from an episode of Star Trek: Voyager -- that "Survival is insufficient."

What made it bearable were the friendships, of course, the camaraderie and the music and the Shakespeare, the moments of transcendent beauty and joy when it didn't matter who'd used the last of the rosin on their bow or who anyone had slept with, althogh someone -- probably Sayid -- had written "Satre: Hell is other people" in pen inside one of the caravans, and someone else had scratched out "other people" and substituted "flutes."

This, that paragraph right there, is basically everything I want in a post-apocalyptic novel. Hope! Optimism! Despair! The power of friendship! Petty whining and bad orchestra jokes! (To be fair, the petty jokes do not have to specifically be orchestra jokes, but I used to play viola once upon a time so I am ALL ON BOARD with orchestra jokes being what they are.) Much of Station Eleven of course is not that, but enough of it is that I found the book very satisfying anyway.

Comments

[musesfool]

I really liked Station Eleven, though I thought way too much time was spent on Arthur when we could have spent it with the traveling symphony instead.

[skygiants]

Yeah, like, I get the Significance of all the Arthur stuff (and I did like Miranda quite a lot) but honestly I think what I wanted most of all was just a collection of linked short stories about the Adventures of the Traveling Symphony. Overarching plot/meaning/morals, who needs 'em? That said, I devoured the book compulsively nonetheless.

[kore]

what I wanted most of all was just a collection of linked short stories about the Adventures of the Traveling Symphony

YES

Yeah, it wasn't quite what I wanted, but the book was so well-written I really liked it anyway. It felt very willed-optimism in a non-soppy way, kind of like Steve Rogers or something.

[skygiants]

Yeah, agreed! The prose was gorgeous, and very compelling. (And I would love to read the Station Eleven comics!)

[kore]

YES
YES I WANTED THE COMICS

I WOULD SNAP UP AN ILLUSTRATED VERSION OR SPINOFF IN A HEARTBEAT

[kore]

I liked that book a lot! altho a lot of people I know who read sf seemed to look down on it. It reminded me of Vonnegut, oddly enough -- it seemed v similar in parts to Slapstick. I loved all the orchestra and music and theatre jokes and the hinted traumatic backstories which at the same time did not sideline people. I did get a bit sick of Arthur. It was kind of like the Goblin Emperor -- not at all in plot, but kind of the theme of good people doing their best, and the way the author felt determinedly non-grimdark, if that makes sense. It also, to a tiny extent, seemed inspired by Riddley Walker, only in reverse.

[skygiants]

Of the three books you're comparing it too, I've only read Goblin Emperor! It's not the first thing I would've thought of, but I can see the comparison. I very much liked how the traumatic backstories were really only ever hinted -- like, they happened, and then people went on and lived their lives and focused on the next thing, 'ugh, I have to act Titania opposite my ex's Oberon!' Nobody's tragic backstories define them. It's not the least grimdark apocalypse story I've read (7 Seeds, forever my favorite!) but it does a pretty good job of it nonetheless.

[kore]

I very much liked how the traumatic backstories were really only ever hinted -- like, they happened, and then people went on and lived their lives and focused on the next thing

Yeah, that was the emotional similarity for me, I think -- the determination not to let the trauma be the most singular thing which had happened to them, which often can annoy me as a kind of bootstrapping bullshit, but both S11 and GE really pulled it off, probably because the authors convinced me in both cases the characters had really lived through harrowing things and were Dealing With It, not just repressing.

[sovay]

Meanwhile we occasionally jump back in time to the famous actor and various persons entwined with his life, including an ex-wife who is immersed in creating a graphic novel that becomes personally significant to several people in the post-apocalypse.

What is the significance of the famous actor? Like, is there a reason he is the center of the pre-apocalypse scenes, rather than his ex-wife who creates the significant graphic novel?

[skygiants]

Much more time is actually spent in Miranda his ex-wife's head than in his, but he's the symbolic link -- the book's post-apocalyptic protagonist (an actress in the Traveling Symphony) is a child actress in the production where he dies onstage, and his relationship to acting and to his career and the people around him serves as a sort of foil to hers.

[obopolsk]

I'd been debating whether to read this because I have so much dystopia fatigue! But your review makes me think I will like it, so I'm going to add it to the list.

[skygiants]

I mean, it's very dystopia, but it hits the stuff I like about dystopia rather than the stuff I am fatigued by! I do think you would like it. (Oh, blessed absence of love triangles.)

[obopolsk]

At this point I'll read anything without a love triangle just to communicate to publishing that I want fewer books with love triangles.

[aella_irene]

I read this off your rec!

I enjoyed it, though, like you, I enjoyed the Travelling Orchestra bits more. The pre and during apocalypse bits left me really sad. I wanted to read about Miranda's Amazing Adventures, not...well.

[skygiants]

I'm glad you enjoyed it! Yes, I really wish Miranda had gotten more amazing adventures. :( Her work survives, which is something, but it was always more about the creation for her than the reception anyway.

[aella_irene]

It also strikes me, thinking about it, that we never see Miranda happy, except for the Malaysia section. We never get an idea of how she and Arthur worked together, or points at which she was happy and satisfied and not about to die.