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. They angered Him (Coupland, [2010] 2011: 134) although, it turns out, he is also motivated by a much more mundane reason: he wants to kill his father, who ran off with his wife. NATIONAL BESTSELLER NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST A PEN/FAULKNER AWARD FINALIST Set in the eerie days of civilizations collapse - the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking The novels final paragraph consists mostly of questions, while the hypothetical ships move towards another world just out of sight (Mandel, 2014: 333; emphasis mine), that is, towards a future that, contrary to the normative and prescriptive utopian visions of apocalyptic logic, remains undefined. 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. While it is my argument that this challenge to traditional apocalyptic discourse and its model of history is key to contemporary post-apocalyptic fiction, in this section I focus on Mandels novel in conjunction with another Canadian text, Couplands Player One, which takes place in a Toronto cocktail lounge over five hours while the price of oil quickly escalates and a violent post-apocalyptic scenario ensues.5 Both novels subvert the distinction between the elect and the non-elect, bringing to the fore the self-righteous violence of apocalyptic discourse and how this distinction, as well as the apocalyptic historical teleology it founds, are narrative constructs which serve the interests of those who articulate them. 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. Hardly by chance, schooling in the post-apocalypse insists on transports and communications that create a hyper-connected world in which borders are meaningless: Satellites beamed information down to Earth. Finally, when the prophet is killed towards the end of the novel, people find in his bag A copy of the New Testament, held together with tape nearly illegible, a thicket of margin notes and exclamation points and underlining (Mandel, 2014: 303), which further confirms the profound influence of biblical apocalypses, and of Revelation in particular, on the prophets worldview. This is the half of Station Eleven that persuades me, the half set in the realm of its Hamlet, its Lear: the half about human connection and isolation, about love, betrayal and, unavoidably, collapse. Cameron, C 2014 Station Eleven Offers Suspense and Science Fiction, but It Is Undoubtedly a Literary Work. If there are again towns with streetlights, if there are symphonies and newspapers, then what else might this awakening world contain? The dazzling power of electricity floodlights, porch lights, candy-coloured halogens, screens shining, the points of glimmering light that are towns glimpsed from the sky through airplane windows populates Mandels incomplete list of what is lost in the catastrophe (Mandel, 2014: 312). Or more nuancedly, as Clark, a good friend of Arthurs, comments to Tyler: its not a question of having been bad or the people [who died] were just in the wrong place at the wrong time (Mandel, 2014: 260; ellipsis in original). 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. And, as a sniper, he believes he is clearing the way for gods new utopian order, for [T]he people [he] shot bothered God. Griffith, C 2015 When the Dust Settles: An Interview with Emily St. John Mandel, April. [18] Because in stretches the first comes achingly close to being a masterpiece. In particular, progress, the modern metanarrative par excellence, represents the main example of the secularization of apocalypse and of its utopian telos (Keller, 1996: 6). Toronto: Anansi. The super flu it depicts may be deadly, but its also swift, running its course in a matter of days. 1. Stepping over corpses (Mandel, 2014: 193) a description that echoes the snowy wasteland of The Road, barren, silent, godless, strewn with cars in which people were burnt alive (McCarthy, [2006] 2007: 4, 273). I loved Station Eleven because it is the first post-apocalyptic show that revolves around its own holy text, in this case the hypnotic, possibly prophetic, graphic novel Station Eleven. We see its origins as, in flashback, Miranda (with Deadwyler in an equally devastating performance), turns her own experience with trauma and loss into a sort of universal language that connects the past with the future and literally helps save civilization. How does this style of storytelling affect the emotional impact of the narrative? This biblical passage contains a prophecy about the city of Babylon, symbol of the sinful Roman empire, being destroyed by plagues for mighty is the Lord God who judges her (Mandel, 2014: 259) an obvious parallel with the Georgia Flu and with the prophets argument that the pandemic targeted those who were found lacking by god. Id long since grown skeptical of most topical art, often so calculated in its conclusions, but as Omicron surged and 2022 plans were suddenly canceled, Station Eleven began to feel like the first great screen fiction about the pandemic. The Swiss Family Robinson managed, and they were mostly kids! Basingstoke: Palgrave. 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). 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). Writing with Intent 19822004, pp. Now that that's all mapped and charted out and there are no more frontiers that's left us with a certain restlessness, that I suppose gets channeled into our interest in this futuristic, speculative fiction. Derrida, J 1992 Of an Apocalyptic Tone Newly Adopted in Philosophy. In this section, I compare Station Elevens narrative structure with that of Mitchells Cloud Atlas.10 Both texts complicate the teleological linearity of apocalyptic narratives to make space for unwritten futures which are key to agency. Cultural Dominant. There are any number of access points for a comparison of these two shows. For her, the important thing is the work itself, not whether or not it's ever published. But book awards and paperback releases are a thing of the past in the world Mandel has created. Yes, an episode that aired in 1999. WebA pandemic show based on a pandemic novel airing two years into a global pandemic, "Station Eleven" may seem fatigue-inducing. 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. Are you ever surprised? (2018) Critical Temporalities: Station Eleven and the Contemporary Post-Apocalyptic Novel, Station Eleven has been a best seller. Confused? Backstories are filled in notably of Miranda (Danielle Deadwyler), Arthurs lover and the author of the graphic novel (called Station Eleven, but dont let the meta-ness put you off) that has been Kirstens lifeline over her 20 years of post-apocalyptic wandering. Is a Disarmingly Hopeful Post-Apocalyptic Tale. This is, of course, how apocalyptic logic works, with the end ushering in a perfect new world which makes sense of everything that happened before. Instead we got a department store turned into a maternity ward and an Oreo used to demonstrate a cervix dilated to five centimeters. Station Eleven. You are right about how the timeframe jumps from immediate crisis to a relatively established recovery. 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. Obviously, it is a narrative cheat to just slide on by all the work and infighting that went into creating those communities, but that isnt what Station Eleven is about. Station Eleven features explicit intertextual references to biblical apocalyptic narratives, from the Flood, in Genesis, to Revelation. If you can stick with it, you will be rewarded. These fictions also target the nexus between narrativity and apocalyptic logic captured by Kermode through the notion of the sense of an ending. A finalist for both the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner, Emily St. John Mandels best-selling Station Eleven is set in the eerie days of civilizations collapse. Available at: http://www.publicbooks.org/the-post-apocalyptic-present/ [Last accessed 24 October 2018]. But book awards and Are you supposed to be? Coupland, D (2010) 2011 Player One. "don't have any 7-eleven stores where I live so when I seen that there 7-eleven's my one" Convenience Store in By the same token, Kirsten collect[s] fragments of Arthurs life as told in gossip magazines because they are signifiers of her past, of which she has few and disconnected memories (Mandel, 2014: 40). NATIONAL BESTSELLER NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST A PEN/FAULKNER AWARD FINALIST Set in the eerie days of civilizations collapse - the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking People with chaos in their hearts cannot abide here (Mandel, 2014: 61). Ermarth, E D 1992 Sequel to History: Postmodernism and the Crisis of Representational Time. American Literary History, 23(3): 48399. This dynamic is what Frank Kermode terms the sense of an ending: We project ourselves a small, humble elect perhaps past the end, so as to see the structure whole, a thing we cannot do from our spot of time in the middle ([1966] 2000: 8). De Cristofaro, D 2013 The Representational Impasse of Post-Apocalyptic Fiction: The Pesthouse by Jim Crace. The Flash-forward Glimpses With the grown Kirsten serving, when necessary, as something like a one-woman militia, Station Eleven is not without its effective, if sometimes tonally jarring, genre thrills. The final season of Game of Thrones notwithstanding, I remain a big fan of the epic quest, so I chose surrender. You know, it's interesting. As Lee Quinby sums up, the apocalyptic metanarrative is a quintessential technology of power/knowledge, since its tenet of preordained history disavows questionings of received truth, discredits skepticism, and disarms challengers of the status quo (1994: xiii). As for the issue of whether or not art has saved us, there is no way of knowing, though it certainly has functioned, at the very least, like the COVID-19 vaccinations incapable of eradicating evil but allowing more people to survive it. Chute, H L 2016 Disaster Drawn: Visual Witness, Comics, and Documentary Form. But Station Elevens apocalypse does not bring any sense-making order. Station Eleven replicates what Gomel identifies as the plague pattern, where there is no place for millenarian rebirth. Modernism, Postmodernism, and the Twentieth-Century Novel. WebFull Review | Jan 12, 2022. In the very early days, for example, Jeevan and Kirsten go round a supermarket that is full of produce but empty of people. Gomel, E 2010 Postmodern Science Fiction and Temporal Imagination. Notice the singular civilization of the Museums name: it encapsulates the neoliberal dream of a unified globalised world in which all difference is erased under the global free market. Station Eleven is so good, you can buy it outright on Amazon, which sells it for between $28 (DVD) (opens in new tab) and $40 (4K Blu-ray) (opens in new tab). Yet, just like The Road, Station Eleven articulates a critical temporality that subverts the utopian teleology of apocalyptic logic. Available at: https://tetheredbyletters.com/when-the-dust-settles-an-interview-with-emily-st-john-mandel/ [Last accessed 24 October 2018]. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Available at: https://www.booklistonline.com/Station-Eleven-Emily-St-John-Mandel/pid=6862248 [Last accessed 24 October 2018]. 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. Cloud Atlas consists of six narratives set between the nineteenth century and a distant post-apocalyptic future. 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 The author has no competing interests to declare. Time, Paul Ricoeur contends, becomes human time to the extent that it is organized after the manner of a narrative (1984: 3). DOI: http://doi.org/10.1080/00111619.2017.1369386. That episode, which straddles the before and the after, was totally crazy and completely glorious; of course some female doctor would create a maternity ward in a place that once sold beds. [L]ife on earth is just a bus stop on the way to greater glory or greater suffering (Coupland, [2010] 2011: 152) and Bertis understands his murders as partaking in a divinely-sanctioned separation between the elect and the non-elect. But both in terms of content and, as we shall see in this articles fourth section, narrative structure, Station Elevens critical temporality questions the idea of a historical pre-determined pattern, emphasising its constructedness. Yet contemporary post-apocalyptic scenarios are predominantly dystopian. Even the Georgia Flu, Jeevan notes, has a disarmingly pretty name (Mandel, 2014: 17). Even in 2014, I was sceptical that there would be such an appetite. There are as is starting to feel mandatory with small-screen dramas two timelines. Station Eleven, by contrast, is postapocalyptic in the truest sense of the term. Gomel, E 2000 The Plague of Utopias: Pestilence and the Apocalyptic Body. 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. His co-stars can't remember if he had a family to notify. 2010 Future Ethics: Climate Change and Apocalyptic Imagination. But the recent surge of post-apocalyptic novels brings to the fore this critical tension between the contemporary and the traditional understanding of apocalypse by appropriating apocalyptic tropes to subvert them from within and, more fundamentally, by being essentially concerned with time and history, a concern that is often embodied within their structural narrative features. We start to plumb the depths of Kirstens soul, forged by suffering, saved by the Symphony and ready to save it, too, by any means necessary. In both traditional fictional plots and apocalyptic history, Kermode writes, the end confer[s] organization and form on the temporal structure ([1966] 2000: 45), transforming the mere succession of events into a meaningful sequence. The apocalyptic distinction between the elect and the non-elect fuels the ruthless actions of the prophet and his followers from killing to raping and enslaving which they commit [A]ll the time smiling, so peaceful, like theyve done nothing wrong (Mandel, 2014: 273), because they see themselves as the only rightful interpreters and agents of the apocalyptic goal of history, the utopian renewal of the new world. What if it's also a self-published comic book? The peculiarity of the novel is that all the stories with the exception of the sixth, the post-apocalyptic one, situated in the middle are interrupted in order to give way to the following one in a chronological order, and are then resumed in reverse order in the second half of the book. the Prophet, reconciles with his mother (Caitlin FitzGerald); graphic novelist Miranda Carroll (Danielle Deadwyler) meets her fate; Sarah (Lori Petty) shuffles off this mortal coil; and, most importantly, Kirsten (Mackenzie Davis as a adult, Matilda Lawler as a child) reunites with Jeevan (Himesh Patel), capping off one of the most finely wrought love stories in recent TV history. The question of class distinctions (resource hoarding) is left mostly to an episodes worth of country-club symbolism and a ruinously miscast David Cross. Does Station Eleven depict an unrealistic social regeneration? Keller, C 1996 Apocalypse Now and Then: A Feminist Guide to the End of the World. The website's critics consensus reads, " Station Eleven rewards patient viewers with an insightful and thematically rich assertion thateven in the post-apocalypsethe show must go on." A scene depicts Tyler as a child reading Revelation 18 to the victims of the Flu sealed forever in a quarantined plane (Mandel, 2014: 259). Open Library of Humanities Mary McNamara is a culture columnist and critic for the Los Angeles Times. And escape, I am tempted to tell you that whatever imperfections you felt you experienced in Station Eleven were deliberate, a kind of cinematic wabi-sabi to remind us that the quest for perfection is not only impossible it is the wrong quest. Clark lashes out at Arthur after a bender; the music scores the end of the episode at 00:56. In Player One, Bertis justifies his murders through a similar self-righteous moral dualism and teleology. It won several major awards, was an NPR Books Concierge pick, and it's just come out in paperback. Station Elevens plot itself consists of fragments from before and after the apocalypse, which challenges the teleological linearity of apocalyptic temporality. Tom's Guide's latest streaming news. By opening with the apocalyptic end that is foreshadowed by these sentences, Station Eleven highlights not only how the temporal order of the sense of an ending can be imposed on the randomness of time solely retrospectively, but also how this order ultimately implies a future that is already written. As she puts it, I assume that there would be a period of utter chaos immediately after an apocalyptic event, but I dont find it credible that that period would last forever (Griffith, 2015: n.pag.). The prophet believes that everything that has ever happened on this earth has happened for a reason (Mandel, 2014: 59), including the Georgia Flu, which he sees as a perfect agent of death [that] could only be divine (Mandel, 2014: 60). Montral: McGill-Queens University Press. There are holes in the story, but that didnt bother me because Station Eleven felt almost immediately like an antidote to every other post-apocalyptic tale I have ever seen. From Station Eleven to Atlanta, GLOW and more, Christian Sprenger has shot some of TVs most beautiful images. Zamora, L P 1989 Writing the Apocalypse: Historical Vision in Contemporary U.S. and Latin American Fiction. 21:1), frames the apocalyptic origin of the distinction between the elect and the non-elect at the core of the cults credo when fervently claiming that the survivors names are recorded in the book of life (Mandel, 2014: 286). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Frankly I was grateful to skip all the store-looting and scavenging we are inevitably treated to in these kinds of tales. 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. WebStation Eleven contains many explicit references to other works of art, and relies on them heavily for source material. There is no emotion and it is not greatly Feb. 26A BIG QUESTION keeps popping up on Manchester community groups on Facebook: What happened to the 7-Eleven gas stations on South Main and Maple streets? Even the guy who auditions by reciting Bill Pullmans speech from Independence Day believes. I dont [sic] think so. Heres what to know, From Chris Rock to the SAG Awards. Confronted with Bertis preaching, the other characters of Couplands novel notice that the way Bertis talks is weird (Coupland, [2010] 2011: 187). You know, it's interesting to think about what survives. Notice, in this sense, Clarks musings on the snow globe housed in the Museum. Firstly, Times Arrow bec[o]me[s] Times Boomerang (Mitchell, 2004: 149), that is, the linear and teleological development of traditional plots and apocalyptic history the arrow of the novels first half is complicated by the boomerang of the second half. 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. Station Elevens structure similarly articulates a critical temporality that complicates the sense of an ending. Station Eleven and The Last of Us share one more very specific similarity: juxtaposing destruction with art. Los Angeles, Whats on Khlo Kardashians face? I did find it hilarious that, during the winter flashback, the roads were plowed, a sleight of hand Somerville admits was necessary for production to continue. So yeah, there is a comic book that's drawn by a character in the present day. The series creator explains why. Every individual experiences what she or he experiences and deals with it in a different way. Modern metanarratives are apocalyptic, in that they are totalising explanations of history based on utopian teleology. Get our L.A. I found it hopeful. 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). The generation gap between those born before and after is gestured at but scarcely plumbed. Skrimshire, S (Eds.) WebThe most problematic texts involve passages that are not directly from the Koran but rather contain the Saudi government’s particular interpretation of Koranic and other One Fine Morning by Bill Callahan (00:51): Tyler concludes a conversation with Kirsten. WebStation Eleven is an American post-apocalyptic dystopian fiction miniseries created by Patrick Somerville based on the 2014 novel of the same name by Emily St. John Mandel.The miniseries premiered on HBO Max on December 16, 2021, and ran for ten episodes until January 13, 2022.. Thus, one might suggest that Mandels book describes an apocalypse that already happened in 20082009: it is a novel not about a post-apocalyptic future but a post-apocalyptic present, for the ships embody the breakdown of capitalisms fundamental premise of eternal growth (Hoberek, 2015: n.pag.). Goods travelled in ships and airplanes across the world. Albany: State University of New York Press. In the new HBO Max series Station Eleven, Davis plays the lead as a tough but vulnerable survivor of a pandemic. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. We tend to think about the apocalypse as a catastrophe of enormous proportions and overwhelming consequences, something which, then, brings about a dystopian post-apocalyptic scenario. The things Jeevan sees vividly recall The Road. Heffernan, T 2008 Post-Apocalyptic Culture. We put on plays in warzones. London: Continuum. Perhaps it's wishful thinking on my part, but I did like the idea that a Shakespearean company might be able to make it. But I also know that if any survivor owned a snowplow, he or she would use it because snowplowing is a calling and an art form in itself. Hoberek, A 2015 The Post-Apocalyptic Present. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Now I am more so, but beyond the practical, the questions posed by the book and the show about how much of a refuge art can provide, what we should work to preserve, what makes a civilisation and what, ultimately, makes life worth living, remain interesting ones. Overall, Station Eleven can be initially read and understood as a very symbolic piece of literature, by emphasizing the meaning in objects from the past as a reminder and memory of life before the epidemic. West, M 2018 Apocalypse Without Revelation? Apocalyptic writings, ever since their religious origins, have flourished at times of crisis and [I]t is to this disquieting sense of disorder that the apocalyptic myth speaks, reasserting teleological design and cosmic meaning (Rosen, 2008: xviii). By Richard Art and literature can, the series argues, offer some safety rails, some moments of connection. We are the pure, working towards the advent of a new world, the divine plans for which were revealed to him in dreams (Mandel, 2014: 60; emphases in original). As children learn in, The critical appropriation of apocalyptic tropes to foreground their complicity with oppressive power dynamics is typical of contemporary post-apocalyptic novels.
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