This is my quarter Cannonball – I have reached my goal by mid-year. Dare I now try and complete a half Cannonball, after the failure of 2014?
My quarter is going to end on a high note – the remarkable Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. This has of course been reviewed to death already this year, so what more can I add? For those few people who are not aware, this book centres on the survivors of a world wide flu epidemic, which is estimated to have killed 99.9% of the world’s population. The story goes back and forth, with an ensemble cast of characters each loosely linked to a Canadian actor. The tenet the characters tend to embody is that “survival is insufficient,” taken from a Star Trek episode. It is both dark and hopeful, an excellent entry into the field of post-apocolyptic fiction.
I finished this not long before I saw Mad Max: Fury Road, and I was actually struck by how different the worlds depicted are, particularly in terms of a joky conversation the delightful Mallory Ortberg had with Shrill on The Toast. She talks about how she would become a despot in that particular post-apocolyptic world, and it was about control of resources, in the end. In Mad Max, the resources are unimaginably scarce, and there is a tangible sense of suffering throughout the film. In Station Eleven, the world is still largely resource rich, except for such modern luxuries like electricity and the internet, and the suffering is less. Station Eleven’s people are focused on developing or retaining the something more over and above basic survival, while Furiosa and her allies are fighting to live at all, with some dignity. It was just an interesting juxtaposition, for me at least.
I have been thinking a lot this year about female characters in general. Furiosa is obviously an excellent character, and I think there are interesting female characters in Station Eleven as well. While I think that Kristen is the main protagonist, and she certainly has a lot of agency, I think that Miranda was on the whole more interesting. She is driven to create and forge her own future, and is enormously self-reliant. She is still sympathetic though, and in some ways reminds me of Furiosa.
In any case, the book was great, and I have recommended it to many people.
Beautiful review. Happy quarter cannonball!
Thank you!
You dare to reach 26! Great review. I’m one of the few who hasn’t read Station 11. It’s on my list, but it may have moved up the list because of your Furiosa connection.
Well, it’s part of my musing on the agency of women in media. Miranda isn’t a badass survivor, but she takes back control of her life, certainly.
And so does Keisten, as well. The women certainly on reliant on their relationship with men to move their narrative forward.
Happy quarter Cannonball! I think you should absolutely go for a half. Even if you don’t make it, you should never not try.
I have two more in the review queue, so I might as well try and make a go of it.
Happy quarter cannonball!
Thank you!
Happy Quarter! Please keep reviewing, even if you don’t make it to 26, you never know what fun conversations will be had in the comments of your reviews. :)
In the book club post one of the questions I suggested, and which got a bunch of feedback, was about who was the protagonist and in many ways I felt Mandel was attempting to push Kirsten as the main character, when really Miranda is perhaps the character most connected to the various characters we meet, and there is so much meaning in her life and interactions.
I really do have to get around to seeing Mad Max…
I really loved Mad Max, I went to see it twice.
It’s interesting that Kirsten is pushed as the main character – maybe because of where she is in time, and the longer timelines. Miranda was certainly who I identified with most. Kirsten and her lethal knives is probably a more viable movie character though – with the recent success of female action heroes (Katniss, Furiosa), in a dystopian/post-apocalyptic world, I wonder if Mandel was writing with an eye on format crossover.
While Mandel could absolutely be placing Kirsten as her format crossover, I always thought it had more to do with Kirsten physically interacting with more characters in the post-Flu world while Miranda is the emotional/intellectual connection.