Station Eleven - Estimated Read Time = 6 hours
This Article - Estimated Read Time = 15 minutes
Time This Article Saves You = 5 hours and 45 minutes
*Most books need to be read twice before they can really be understood. This article saves you time & effort by helping you reach a solid understanding with just one read.
Station Eleven - Podcast Episode
If society collapsed overnight and life as you knew it was gone forever, what would you miss most?
For me, so many things I so easily take for granted.
Like the ability to drive a car. And the ease of traveling anywhere I’d like to on developed infrastructures of highways and roads.
I’d miss how the simple flick of a switch floods a room with light.
I’d miss the easy delights, like coffee with cream. Well-crafted bourbon. Or even the sweet, sugary taste of an Orange Julius.
I’d miss so many of the modern marvels we witness constantly but never think twice about—like planes approaching their landing on an overcast day, barreling through clouds like Leviathans in the sky.
Our world is filled with so many things that astound with their complexity. And yet, at times, life can still feel stale.
If that’s something you’ve felt, Station Eleven is the remedy, because it’s a novel that invites us to look afresh upon the wonders that surround us. And to see that if life feels stale, perhaps the origins of that staleness lie elsewhere.
It’s a gripping novel, beautiful, with rapid pacing, and haunting in its approximation of what might’ve been, or even what one day might still be, what the world lived through.
In the end, the question the novel surfaces more than any other rises on the heels of this refrain: “Survival is insufficient.”
If so, the question is what makes up the difference? Survival + What?
Story Recap . Spoiler Alert!
The book is organized into nine sections, with the opening section introducing the pandemic, and the following sections alternating with pre- and post-pandemic narration. Here’s a quick flyover.
1 The Theatre - Arthur Leander dies during the opening performance of King Lear. We’re introduced to each main character through his death, as each one of them is connected to him. Jeevan, an EMT in training, rushes the stage, trying to save his life. Kirsten is just a child acting in the same play. Clark, Arthur’s old friend, is notified of his death. And Clark then notifies Miranda and Elizabeth, two of Arthur’s ex-wives who play into the story.
As the reader meets these characters, the Georgia Flu runs rampant in Toronto and the world over, and society’s collapse has already begun.
2 A Midsummer Night’s Dream - Twenty years later, the narrative continues. The Traveling Symphony is introduced and explained. They enter St. Deborah by the Water and learn things have changed drastically in this formerly safe small town. A prophet has arrived, and nothing seems quite right. After their performance, they leave in a hurry.
3 I Prefer You With A Crown - Pre-pandemic, the story of Arthur Leander’s first marriage to Miranda is relayed. How they meet, how their romance develops, and how it falls apart. Also, we learn more about Miranda’s artistic project, a graphic novel titled, Station Eleven.
4 The Starship - The Traveling Symphony discovers a little girl from St. Deborah by the Water escaped the town by stowing away in one of their vehicles. Not long after, two members of the troupe who were assigned to guard duty go missing. Then, another disappears also. It seems they are being hunted. Then, while Kirsten and August are fishing, the entire troupe vanishes. They decide to make for the last agreed-upon destination, Severn City, home to the Museum of Civilization.
5 Toronto - More of Jeevan’s story is shared here, which primarily centers on his experience just after society’s collapse.
6 The Airplanes - This section presents more of Miranda’s story—in particular, her death in Malaysia from the very flu that causes society’s collapse.
7 The Terminal - Clark’s story is central here, as the narrative follows everything that unfolds at the Severn City airport following the pandemic’s arrival. Elizabeth and Tyler are present here too. This is where the identity of the prophet is first revealed with certainty—the prophet is Tyler, Arthur Leander’s very own son.
8 The Prophet - Finally, after three chapters of deeper exposition, the tension mounts to its highest heights. The fate of the vanished Symphony is revealed, and Kirsten comes face to the face with the prophet, in a completely powerless position. Yet still, she emerges victorious and survives.
Afterward, she reconnects with the Traveling Symphony at the Severn City airport, where she meets Clark.
9 Station Eleven - The novel closes with a few quick resolutions. One final dip is taken into Arthur’s life—his final hours, and the introspection that marked his thoughts as he, unknowingly, drew near to the end.
The Traveling Symphony, reunited and safe once more, leaves Severn City to continue its typical route. And Clark looks over the graphic novel, Station Eleven, and considers people he knew long ago.
An Interpretation . On Finding Sufficiency
Survival is insufficient—this mantra is painted on the side of one vehicle within the Traveling Symphony’s caravan of vehicles. And it’s the refrain the characters themselves, within the Symphony, cling to most.
It’s the conviction, the value, the belief that undergirds their entire commitment to their way of life—never settling anywhere, constantly traveling and performing, so they can practice and offer their art in this new and broken world.
The logic spells itself out pretty simply. The pandemic removed 99% of the world’s population, within the span of a few weeks. Therefore, society essentially collapsed overnight. After such a devastating occurrence, the first several years were marked purely by a struggle to survive.
Survival alone was everything.
But as the years continued to pass, and circumstances stabilized, life began to feel stiff and stale once more. So, the conviction was born that a life oriented entirely around survival isn’t a life worth living. “Survival is insufficient.”
For life to matter, there must be more.
The novel centers directly on that pursuit of more. For many of the characters, it’s found in their art.
That’s the whole ethos of the Traveling Symphony—they travel constantly, living this nomadic life, so they can practice their art. That, in connection with the community of people who are committed to the very same thing, is what makes up the difference for them.
During other sections, the narrator draws back the curtain on the lives of characters before the pandemic. People who, in the eyes of many, seem to be successful, and yet could be described as “sleepwalking.” Their lives aren’t oriented around survival in the slightest. It’s not even a thought that occurs. Yet their lives are anything but sufficient. For example…
Arthur, as a famous actor, is a successful artist. Yet, he seems unhappy, and his personal life is a mess.
As a “CEO Whisperer,” Clark’s career is also in great shape. But he seems to be asleep at the wheel. In fact, he finds far more satisfaction from curating the museum post-pandemic than he ever does from his high-status, well-paying career before.
Before the pandemic, Jeevan seems entirely unable to locate a purpose or direction for his life. He just seems lost.
Miranda is the only one who seems satisfied with life, primarily because of her graphic novel project—Station Eleven. But her life also strays far from perfect.
The emptiness and dissatisfaction that marks so many of their pre-pandemic lives poses the question to us—is your life sufficient? If not, what would make it so?
At first glance, art seems to be the novel’s answer. However, a closer delve into the narratives of characters on both sides seems to express something else. Art can be that which adds meaning to life, but it doesn’t have to be. For example…
Pre-pandemic, Jeevan is lost, but post-pandemic, his life actually improves. He marries, starts a family, and finds purpose in becoming a healer—a doctor, within his local community.
The primary difference between Clark and Jeevan is that pre-pandemic, Clark seems successful. Yet his life was really and truly empty. Post-pandemic, he finds community at the Severn City airport, and purpose in his curation of the Museum of Civilization.
Kirsten finds these same elements with the Traveling Symphony—relationships and work that infuse life with meaning. Her work as an actress just happens to align with the more narrow understanding of what constitutes art.
Post-pandemic, survival becomes more difficult, for sure. But their lives are still full and enriching as they locate these elements—relationships and work.
Survival is insufficient. However, if the novel offers an answer as to what makes up the difference, it seems to have less to do with art, and more with cultivating meaningful relationships and work—a sense of both belonging and purpose that are wrapped within each other.
Or, to put it in mathematical terms…
Survival = Insufficent
Survival + x = Sufficient
x = Belonging + Purpose
Survival + Belonging + Purpose = A Meaningful, Sufficient Life
Closing Thoughts . The Temptation of Christ
An interesting story about Jesus is recorded in three of the four gospels—Matthew, Mark, and Luke. The story of Jesus’ Temptation.
The Temptation of Christ in the Wilderness by Juan de Flandes; early 16th century
The story follows immediately after his baptism in the Jordan River, after which he’s led out into the surrounding desert wilderness to fast for 40 days. Throughout this period, he’s tempted by the devil.
Now, surely, there are some knots to untangle when it comes to discussing the plausibility of the devil’s existence. For our sake, I’d like to focus on the exchange itself.
In the narrative, the devil tempts Jesus three times, attempting to persuade him into doing something that would render his death on a cross meaningless. Something that would strip him of his ability to save humanity.
In the first test, as recorded in Luke’s Gospel, the devil says the following:
“If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.” -Luke 4:3
Remember, Jesus hadn’t eaten in 40 days—the man was hungry.
More than that, his body needed sustenance. And if he was the Son of God, this was well within his ability to do, to turn a stone into bread. Yet he responds, saying the following:
Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone.’” -Luke 4:4
Paraphrase: survival is insufficient.
Jesus is quoting from the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy. The passage he’s quoting refers to the 40 years the Israelites spent wandering in the wilderness. Throughout those 40 years in the desert, God provided their food, in an especially miraculous manner—through manna.
These 40 years served a purpose—to teach the Israelites, to shape an understanding, to form the conviction within the fibers of their being that survival is insufficient.
Bread alone is not enough, because survival alone isn’t either.
Jesus’ quote, therefore, says more than what’s obvious at first. The fullness of life that is sufficiency, felt in the marrow of our bones, can only be located in a relationship with God.
So often, when facing the novel’s question, we turn to so many answers—career, passion, art, marriage, family, community. So many answers that are so good. Yet still, they are insufficient.
If Jesus’ understanding of human nature is correct, this will always be so. Because even if we attain all of them, we’re still falling short of what we were truly made for.
“Survival is insufficient” because…
“…man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.” - Deuteronomy 8:3
Because we are made for Him.