London: Windmill. In a way, Station Eleven is an interesting Rorschach test of apocalyptcisms appeal. Its one of the most profound meditations on love, loss, grief, and community Ive ever seen. On what she'd want to save in an apocalypse. The super flu it depicts may be deadly, but its also swift, running its course in a matter of days. I even caught myself asking a blasphemous question: If art were truly capable of saving us, wouldnt we already have been saved? Among the 1% left Himesh Patel and Matilda Lawler in Station Eleven. Station Eleven , the HBO Max show whose finale airs Thursday, is something else entirely. At first, Station Eleven is bewildering, all discombobulating cuts between the present and what seems to be a desolate, sparsely populated future. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. In this altered world, there is a traveling Shakespearean theater company and symphony orchestra touring the small and fairly isolated communities in the Midwest.". The primary example of this is Shakespeare, specifically King ), Station Eleven celebrates the beauty of the pre-apocalyptic world and mourns its loss. Goes Out newsletter, with the week's best events, to help you explore and experience our city. Previously she was assistant managing editor for arts and entertainment following a 12-year stint as television critic and senior culture editor. Tyler reunites with his mother. In: Derrida and Negative Theology, Coward, H and Foshay, T (Eds.). 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. Even the Georgia Flu, Jeevan notes, has a disarmingly pretty name (Mandel, 2014: 17). Even the moments of transcendent beauty and joy created by the Travelling Symphonys performances consist in conjuring, through Shakespeare, what was best about the [pre-apocalyptic] world (Mandel, 2014: 47, 38). Survival is never sufficient. Station Eleven and The Last of Us share one more very specific similarity: juxtaposing destruction with art. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. 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. Is a Disarmingly Hopeful Post-Apocalyptic Tale. WebIn this video we take a deep dive, review, recap and explain the ending to HBO's adaptation of Emily St. John Mandel's novel STATION ELEVEN. Miranda, Arthurs ex-wife, was unprepared for [the fleets] beauty. Read full review They discuss both shows and recap the events of Station Eleven, then halfway into the podcast, set the two shows against each other in a head-to-head battle. Secondly, the interruption of each story defers closure, and even the stories conclusions contain hints to the following narrative. 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. Clark speaks to himself in bed next to Miles. Station Eleven is a slow burn. Mandel, E S J 2014 Station Eleven. Since its debut last month, Station Eleven has drawn both acclaim (from critics including our own Robert Lloyd) and criticism (from fans of the novel on which its based, which it changes in key ways). How deeply strange it is, how deeply unsettling, to be able to compare and contrast a fictional pandemic with the real thing. 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. In her study of contemporary Canadian apocalyptic narratives, Marlene Goldman writes that: Canadian authors introduce particular twists to the familiar myth of the end by challenging rather than embracing apocalypses key features, specifically, the purgation of the non-elect and the violent destruction of the earthly world in preparation for the creation of a divine one (2005: 6). Watching it from the perspective of our own existential crisis a devastating pandemic and a climate apocalypse, each worsened by the twilight of democracy I was struck by the notion that only those who come of age in a time of optimism can draw the conclusion that progress is our natural state; for others (hello, fellow millennials! London: Continuum. McCarthy, C [2006] 2007 The Road. What the readers find in Mandels novel is not the destruction of the corrupt old world and subsequent ushering in of a utopian new world but, rather, a lament about the lost wonders of technology and the splendours of the former world (Mandel, 2014: 288, 231) which undermines apocalyptic sense-making. One of the prophets followers, who dies revelling in Revelations promise of a new heaven and a new earth (Rev. 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. Instead we got a department store turned into a maternity ward and an Oreo used to demonstrate a cervix dilated to five centimeters. In Player One, Bertis justifies his murders through a similar self-righteous moral dualism and teleology. Notice, in this sense, Clarks musings on the snow globe housed in the Museum. 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. In this sense, it is interesting to note that, just like another winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award for science fiction, Margaret Atwood (, On the essentially temporal nature of traditional apocalyptic logic see also Kermode (, See also the prototype of the Western concept that history has an intelligible and end-determined order, whether fideistic or naturalistic, is the scheme of the course of earthly affairs from genesis to apocalypse which is underwritten by a sacred text (, Indeed, it is my contention that, in its critique of the apocalyptic understanding of history, the contemporary post-apocalyptic novel addresses aspects of Western modernity that transcend national borders, which in any case become irrelevant after the catastrophes depicted by the texts. Now the television adaptation by Patrick Somerville (known for Maniac and The Leftovers) for HBO, streaming in the UK on Starzplay, is here and resonating. In this podcast, PSR Versus podcast hosts Josh Wigler ( @roundhoward) and LaTonya Starks ( @lkstarks) compare episode 7 of The Last of Us and Station Eleven. 2010 Future Ethics: Climate Change and Apocalyptic Imagination. Boston: Beacon. Station Eleven, the HBO Max show whose finale airs Thursday, is something else entirely. And the reason for that is that I feel that most dystopian fiction tends to dwell on that immediate aftermath of horror and mayhem. On the recent popularity of post-apocalyptic fictionA suggestion that I hear quite often is that our interest in post-apocalyptic fiction is a natural expression of the anxiety we feel. Lighter moments leaven the darkness, particularly when the irreducibly charismatic and off-kilter Lori Petty, as the troupes composer Sarah, is on screen, or when we flash back to pre-pandemic times. The novel begins with the apocalyptic end, Arthurs death on Night One (Mandel 2014: 180) of the pandemic. Heres what to know, From Chris Rock to the SAG Awards. Buell, F 2013 Post-Apocalypse: A New U.S. New York: Vintage. For the thing with the new world is its just horrifically short on elegance (Mandel, 2014: 151). While the novels prophet holds on to a religious understanding of apocalypse in which the end is followed by utopian rebirth, the Georgia Flu, the pandemic that kills 99% of the worlds population, is termed apocalypse by the television newscasters in the sense of dystopian catastrophe rather than utopian revelation, and the apocalyptic narratives referred to in the text are disaster movies, with the dangerous stragglers fighting out for the last few scraps (Mandel, 2014: 243, 256). Charles, R 2014 Sorry, Emily St. John Mandel: Resistance is Futile. Cultural Dominant. Keller, C 1996 Apocalypse Now and Then: A Feminist Guide to the End of the World. Jeevan avoided it, stayed mostly in the woods. Montral: McGill-Queens University Press. Both Tyler and Bertis exhibit traits of what Catherine Keller identifies as the apocalypse pattern (1996: 11): the faith in historical determinism, the inclination to think in terms of clear-cut polarities of good versus evil and the identification with the good that purges the evil from the old world and is worthy of the imminent utopian renewal of the new world. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. She was the leader of a band of survivors not because she was a ruthless martial arts expert but because she continued to write symphonies, and understood that music and theater fulfill a deep-seated need. It received critical acclaim and was nominated for seven Primetime Learn exactly what happened in this chapter, scene, or section of Station Eleven and what it means. ", On what survives including a comic book treasured by several characters. There are any number of access points for a comparison of these two shows. WebA summary of Part 7 in Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven. American Literary History, 23(3): 48399. Yes, an episode that aired in 1999. Mousoutzanis, A 2014 Fin-de-Sicle Fictions, 1890s1990s: Apocalypse, Technoscience, Empire. DOI: http://doi.org/10.2307/827840. The bulk of the series is set twenty years after a flu pandemic brought human civilization as we know it to an end. [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. Why Netflix is dabbling in livestreaming, Stranger Things play that may hold key to the end taking 1959 Hawkins to West End, NBCs Chicago series have strong showings but CBS wins weekly TV ratings race, Before and after photos from space show storms effect on California reservoirs, Dramatic before and after photos from space show epic snow blanketing SoCal mountains, The chance of a lifetime: Five friends ski the tallest mountain in Los Angeles, Best coffee city in the world? Post-apocalyptic ravaged aftermaths implicitly subvert the central element of apocalyptic discourse, that is, a sense-making utopian historical teleology. 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 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. The Swiss Family Robinson managed, and they were mostly kids! 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. Public Books, 15 June. Station Eleven. Published by There is no emotion and it is not greatly Or at least part of it is. DOI: http://doi.org/10.1057/9781137430144, Munslow, A 2006 Deconstructing History. It may become antiapocalyptic in its refusal of the transition from the tribulation to the millennium (2000: 410, 412). Available at: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and-media/book-reviews/station-eleven-offers-suspense-and-science-fiction-but-it-is-undoubtedly-a-literary-work/article20577909/ [Last accessed 24 October 2018]. Like Hicks, I argue that the contemporary post-apocalyptic novel addresses the nature of modernity (2016: 4); unlike Hicks, I argue that these fictions do so to critique, rather than to salvage, modernity, and specifically, to critique the apocalyptic understanding of time underlying Western modernity through what I term critical temporalities. Derrida, J 1992 Of an Apocalyptic Tone Newly Adopted in Philosophy. West, M 2018 Apocalypse Without Revelation? Even the guy who auditions by reciting Bill Pullmans speech from Independence Day believes. Convenience Store in Sterling, VA. 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." Something that came up for me as I was writing this book was how incredibly local your world would become. Get Screen Gab for everything about the TV shows and streaming movies everyones talking about. Heffernan, T 2008 Post-Apocalyptic Culture. This article examines Emily St. John Mandels Station Eleven (2014) in the context of the growing body of contemporary post-apocalyptic fictions and what I argue is their critique of the apocalyptic tradition. It won several major awards, was an NPR Books Concierge pick, and it's just come out in paperback. Furthermore, teleology entails determinism, which compromises the possibility of choices and ethics. We were saved because we are the light. Rather than stressing the end, the emphasis is on the present and its ethical value, as the moment in which individuals take choices that inform the future. Ermarth, E D 1992 Sequel to History: Postmodernism and the Crisis of Representational Time. The Traveling Symphony is a troupe of actors and musicians dedicated to keeping the remnants of art and humanity alive. The ships were lit up to prevent collisions in the dark, and when she looked out at them she felt stranded, the blaze of light on the horizon both filled with mystery and impossibly distant, a fairy-tale kingdom (Mandel, 2014: 28). Here in the present, we play we play musical instruments at refugee camps. Or, more precisely, it is half masterpiece, half not. Globe and Mail, 12 September. Yet, significantly, [T]he road seemed dangerous. What would make life still worth living after the collapse of civilisation? Even when the man contemplates the possibility of ships out there, these are deathships, and the hypothetical father and son on the other side are similarly hopeless, living among the bitter ashes of the world st[anding] in their rags lost to the same indifferent sun (McCarthy, [2006] 2007: 219). It began to read to me as a tacit acknowledgement that its vision of the future is not as immersive as its vision of the present or past. He likes the thought of ships moving over the water, towards another world just out of sight (Mandel, 2014: 33233; emphasis mine). Cloud Atlas consists of six narratives set between the nineteenth century and a distant post-apocalyptic future. Griffith, C 2015 When the Dust Settles: An Interview with Emily St. John Mandel, April. Emily St. John Mandel. The silence (McCarthy, [2006] 2007: 274), an irrecoverable ecosystem that indicates the lack of a utopian renewal after the end indeed, the lack of post-apocalyptic futurity tout court and the collapsing of the sense-making order the traditional apocalyptic paradigm projects onto history through teleology. And the novel skips forward 20 years to a young woman who was just eight when she was on stage with that actor and is now trying to make her way in a world that's been shorn of most of what we call civilization. Station Eleven has been a best seller. It won several major awards, was an NPR Books Concierge pick, and it's just come out in paperback. Arthur C Clarke Award 2015 2015 Winner. If you can stick with it, you will be rewarded. Aptly described as an elegy for the hyper-globalised present by Andrew M. Butler of the Arthur C. Clarke Award committee (ACCA, 2015: n.pag. Albany: State University of New York Press. Kermode, F [1966] 2000 The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction. Indeed, the passages beautiful writing and imagery sublimates and glosses over a production process that relies on the exploitation of cheap labour from the global South, something Mandel merely hints at through the mention of workers somewhere in China and the cadences of a half dozen languages. Traditional apocalyptic narratives reveal a utopian teleology to history, a conception of time that deeply informs western modernity and its metanarratives. As I have argued, the critical temporalities of the contemporary post-apocalyptic novel debunk the apocalyptic conception of history at the core of western modernity as a narrative construct. And during the montage of embraces between Jeevan and Kirsten near the end of Dr. 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. The chaos of historical contingency chaos which is even more evident and dreadful at times of crisis, such as that of the devastating Georgia Flu is tamed through the recourse to apocalyptic determinism, namely, to the belief that everything happens for a reason, as the prophets mother repeats throughout the novel. And though I admire HBO Max for releasing a show about a fictional deadly pandemic in the middle of an actual pandemic (after the shows production was shut down for months by same), I was not interested in any kind of survival guide. 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. Where the book felt stylized, more like poetry or a fable, the It is almost more discomfiting, however, to be able to point now to moments the creators get wrong. The beauty of it (Mandel, 2014: 247, 135). In the new HBO Max series Station Eleven, Davis plays the lead as a tough but vulnerable survivor of a pandemic. As he claims, when we speak of the light, we speak of order. 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). 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. An uplifting pandemic drama? If one of the precepts of the series own holy text, a graphic novel, is show, dont tell, it seems to me indicative of the series strengths that its most moving moments feature spliced-in images, memories, of the characters former selves. The same interplay of artificial lights and darkness can be found in the description of a shipping fleet permanently anchored off the coast of Malaysia due to the 2008 economic crisis. Addressing this nexus, and through it the power dynamics and determinism embedded in teleology, the narrative structures of the contemporary post-apocalyptic novel articulate critical temporalities that invite us to conceive of narrative, and therefore of history, beyond the sense of an ending. This reaction, of course, is a reflection of our own present, in which art seems to swim ceaselessly against the tide. Tate, A 2017 Apocalyptic Fiction. I remember watching that episode and I remember being absolutely struck by that line. Events unfurl like a runaway train: Jeevan (Himesh Patel), an anxiety-ridden mess, is attending a performance of King Lear when an onstage tragedy prompts him to intervene. Available at: https://www.clarkeaward.com/2015-winner/ [Last accessed 24 October 2018]. Of course you hope in a scenario like this, what would survive would be the Beethoven symphonies, the Shakespeare plays, the things that we think of as the highest and most exalted expressions of our culture. Published in 2014 to critical and popular success, Emily St. John Mandels Station Eleven is part of a widely-discussed, growing corpus of post-apocalyptic novels written by authors who do not typically write science fiction.1 In what Andrew Hoberek (2011) identifies as the genre turn of contemporary fiction, the post-apocalyptic genre has moved from the margins (tacky science-fiction) into the mainstream (legitimate, widely-recognized and practiced speculative fiction) (Buell 2013: 9), so much so that Frederick Buell frames it as a cultural dominant.2 As Andrew Tate puts it, contemporary narrative is haunted by dreams of a future that is a place of ruin (2017: 2). Stressing the role of contingency and chance in life, reflections of Arthurs include how did I get from there to here? and How have I landed in this life? Rosen, E K 2008 Apocalyptic Transformation: Apocalypse and the Postmodern Imagination. Ah, you say no. Skrimshire, S (Eds.) 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. On the other hand, the key element of the novels final passage is the sense of possibility (see my emphasis below), rather than the totalising teleological determinism of apocalyptic logic: is it possible that somewhere there are ships setting out? Gomel, E 2000 The Plague of Utopias: Pestilence and the Apocalyptic Body. Plymouth: Lexington. 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