Station Eleven (2014)
557, pagine
lingua English
Pubblicato il 25 Dicembre 2014
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 …
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.
If not for food-, sleep- and toilet breaks I almost read this in one go. Harrowing and layered story that gives a surprising entanglement of characters.
Even days after finishing I still had ah-ha moments when I suddenly understood how and why some things happened and who was connected to whom.
Wish there was a sequel where you learn more about the characters. Some parts are eerily recognizable now we had a real pandemic.
Mind you; the book is not sci-fi! It is our world after a pandemic; no fancy, crazy tech is used or invented in the book.
Puoi trovare questa recensione anche sul mio blog, La siepe di more
Inizio con due informazioni di servizio: con la prima vi ricordo che questo libro è disponibile anche in italiano, edito da Bompiani con il titolo Stazione Undici; con la seconda confesso di aver involontariamente un po’ barato per questa task perché solo una parte del libro è ambientata nel Midwest. Eh va be’.
Cosa scrivere di Station Eleven? È uno strano libro: tra le sue pagine non ho trovato niente di nuovo, niente che non avesse già letto in altri romanzi. Compare un nuovo virus influenzale e la malattia che si diffonde rapidamente e altrettanto rapidamente uccide, senza dare tempo al personale sanitario o a chicchessia di prendere le giuste precauzioni o organizzare un lockdown. Insomma, SARS-CoV-2 e COVID-19 scansatevi. Finisce la civiltà per come la conosciamo e seguiamo un gruppo di persone in questa nuova …
Puoi trovare questa recensione anche sul mio blog, La siepe di more
Inizio con due informazioni di servizio: con la prima vi ricordo che questo libro è disponibile anche in italiano, edito da Bompiani con il titolo Stazione Undici; con la seconda confesso di aver involontariamente un po’ barato per questa task perché solo una parte del libro è ambientata nel Midwest. Eh va be’.
Cosa scrivere di Station Eleven? È uno strano libro: tra le sue pagine non ho trovato niente di nuovo, niente che non avesse già letto in altri romanzi. Compare un nuovo virus influenzale e la malattia che si diffonde rapidamente e altrettanto rapidamente uccide, senza dare tempo al personale sanitario o a chicchessia di prendere le giuste precauzioni o organizzare un lockdown. Insomma, SARS-CoV-2 e COVID-19 scansatevi. Finisce la civiltà per come la conosciamo e seguiamo un gruppo di persone in questa nuova realtà post-apocalittica.
Però.
Però questo romanzo mi è ronzato in testa per giorni e ci sono diversi passaggi nei quali ha toccato i miei punti deboli: è una storia sulle reazioni umane a un evento così catastrofico e poche cose mi commuovono come la messa a nudo della fragilità umana. St. John Mandel è stata molto abile nel mantenere l’equilibrio tra gli estremi che spesso caratterizzano questo tipo di storie, cioè non è mai troppo catastrofista e non è mai troppo ottimista: i suoi personaggi si muovono in un mondo abitato da persone traumatizzate e da giovani che non hanno mai conosciuto altro che quella civiltà disfatta.
Il prima diventa un ricordo, un rimpianto o un racconto meraviglioso. Un tempo c’era energia elettrica a illuminare le notti. Perché non ho imparato com’è fatto e come funzionava un computer per poterlo spiegare? Davvero si poteva volare con gli aerei? Il dopo, di conseguenza, viene plasmato dalla reazione al trauma, che varia da persona a persona, perché diverse sono le loro idee, le loro storie, i loro caratteri. Non è detto che sia una reazione positiva; a volte è solo la presa di coscienza di non poter vivere dopo il collasso della tua civiltà. Magari perché l’antidepressivo che prendevi non esiste più.
Penso che Station Eleven mi sia rimasto così tanto in testa semplicemente perché, senza sentimentalismi, racconta delle piccole grandi cose che rendono piacevole (e a volte possibile) la nostra esistenza. È vero che la nostra società ha dei problemi macroscopici – anzi, direi che alcuni sono proprio giganteschi – ma abbiamo anche inventato un sacco di cose belle. Dobbiamo “solo” diventare più bravз a difenderle e condividerle. “Solo”.
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 …
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.
The plot of this book is not only interesting but one that lets you think. The writing is superb and it is an overall beautiful book.
A really great imagining of sweeping pandemic and complete societal collapse bogged down by too many side stories of half-formed characters and convenient contrived coincidences that detract from what could have been a fantastic piece of post-apocalyptic fiction.
