mathmom, if you do read more Hesse, maybe private message me and tell me. It would be interesting to talk about him.
I just looked up some information about Hesse’s Glass Bead Game and I saw that it is set in the post-apocalyptic future! He won a Nobel Prize for the book (or at least he won the Nobel soon after writing it)…
NJTM, Jeevan is already out of his twenties when the story starts (p. 11), which would put him in his mid-forties the last time we see him in the summer of Year 15 (p. 269). So I vote Kal Penn.
Thinking about our various visions of Miranda’s comic book reminded me that I meant to respond to a couple of earlier posts about her:
I can see both sides, but as it happens, I share @frazzled1’s point-of-view, and I know exactly why: My sister (single, childless like Miranda) is a gifted artist and also a successful executive—who flies around the world! She might be putting the finishing touches on a painting at her art studio one week, then leaving for a business conference overseas the next. I can’t use both sides of my brain like that, but she does, so Miranda felt very real to me.
Here’s an interesting essay by Emily St. John Mandel (part of a guest-writer series in The Atlantic): http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/12/by-heart-emily-st-john-mandel/383842/
She mentions in the essay that it was a surreal experience to move between her day job as an administrative assistant and after-work functions focused solely on her writing, so maybe she drew on that feeling when creating Miranda.
I was re-reading the thread to see where we’ve been and to reflect on some of the comments. The only problem with this is that my own typos jump out at me—like I noticed that in the process of editing one post, I inadvertently copied identical sentences from my previous post. Goofy. Good thing the edit function is only 15 minutes or I’d be obsessively going back to 2009 to correct my grammar and syntax. But I digress…
Here is a question that we haven’t covered, but I think it’s important, because where would Station Eleven be without Station Eleven?
The most obvious connection to me is that the comic book tells the story of people in a strange new world longing for the old one. Dr. Eleven says, “I stood looking over my damaged home and tried to forget the sweetness of life on Earth.”
Written before the collapse, the comic book is almost clairvoyant, which might be one of the reasons it means so much to Kirsten and Tyler.
Do you think Dr. Eleven and Captain Lonagan represent any specific characters in the novel? What about the people of the Undersea? (The most complete description of Miranda’s creation is on pp. 83-84.)
I’m another who pictured the Station Eleven comics with a different look to them. My imagination ran along the same lines as Mary - post #191 John R. Neill link.
And you can check off another book on the list of Pulitzer Prize winners.
Great … I’ve been sitting here reading FREAKANGELS - mathmom post #199. No willpower here or sense of when to stop.
I’m glad we’re looking at question #5. I agree it’s an important question and I’m really interested in finding out what you guys think.
Love this quote. Having been both a judge and a participant in art shows - I know exactly how true this is!
As for Miranda, it’s not the act of juggling being an artist and an executive that didn’t feel believable to me. It’s that when we see her as an obsessive artist, she seems like a completely different person. And she never really seems to make an effort to be a part of Arthur’s world - she seems subsumed by the comic and sleepwalking through the rest of life. But maybe she wakes up when she leaves Arthur. BTW, I completely forgot that after Miranda talks to Jeevan she goes back inside and sees the start of one of the letters to “V” and picks up (steals) the paperweight. Then she struggles to write the words that are like a summation of the novel:
and that’s when next-wife Elizabeth comes into the studio with Miranda not minding as much as she thinks she should because she’s already half out the door. Though she does manage to tell Elizabeth that “no one ever thinks their awful even when they really are. It’s some sort of survival mechanism.” and objects to Elizabeth’s idea that this is the way things are supposed to happen. Actually rereading it - I do see that Miranda makes a determined effort to become a different more competent person. She gets a degree and new clothes. (I couldn’t help thinking of Walden, " I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes. If there is not a new man, how can the new clothes be made to fit? If you have any enterprise before you, try it in your old clothes.")
I like actually that the comic is not too parallel to the plague. While there’s some discussion about whether to tell the children about the world before or not - I don’t see how they can help but learn about it. It’s inevitable that civilization of some sort will return much faster than if there weren’t the evidence of it all around them in ruined cities and the memories of adults. Station Eleven is far from earth and starting anew is a viable alternative than living as slaves or worse under aliens.
I agree with this. Miranda escapes to Station Eleven probably more than is normal or healthy.
Love the Walden quote!
Regarding the artist who does other things, one of the most gifted artists I have met was studying for a law degree because she could not make money off her art. She said she would love to just make art, but it simply wasn’t possible. She said there are a lot of artists like that. There is the mostly frightful art that you see at community art shows (or hanging on walls in your doctor’s office or your motel), the trendy, celebrated art that is available for huge sums in major galleries, and work like that of my friend’s that is hiding in the smaller galleries that you’d never know about unless you knew her.
ignatius, I did the same thing with FREAKANGELS. I got drawn in and kind of liked it.
mathmom, I"ve always loved that Thoreau quote about new clothes. I never knew the whole thing though. Thanks.
I don’t think there was anything deep about the relationship of the Station Eleven books to the story of the novel. I just thought it was a gimmick. Sorry. 
I am still in the camp of thinking we should have been made to feel more about Frank. A better writer could have sketched him in with a few sentences that went straight to the heart. The kind of writer I like would have wanted to.
Mary: Thanks for that paperweight connection to 1984, Miranda in The Tempest (I should have caught that one!), and the rest of the Milosz poem!
I thought Mandel gave us a lot of information about the characters’ inner lives, in particular about their memories. It was a plot driven book, so it was enough for me in this case.
I thought it was beautiful that Clark and Arthur’s memories were described so similarly at the end of their lives. I think of them as the two main characters; Arthur is of the old world, and his death connects the other characters; Clark bridges both worlds, keeping the old one alive in his museum.
From Clark:
From Arthur’s “secret list of everything that was good”:
I found that so poignant. I know I have little moments like that frozen in memory–several are also of my children laughing, playing a game with my father, people I loved. What Arthur seems to realize at the end of his life is that those little moments are more important than his fame.
Kirsten speaks of her memories, too: She remembers the clink of ice cubes in her mother’s glass but not her mother’s face; she can’t remember her street address, but she remembers Arthur, Jeevan, snow falling indoors.
I’m curious what kinds of little moments are in other people’s memory banks.
I wondered if Arthur had affairs as a way of moving on before his wives had a chance to leave him. It was clear that Miranda was not happy with her life in Hollywood and we know that Elizabeth had issues. I’m not saying that’s an excuse for his behavior but the memory above about Miranda is very telling.
@buenavista, that’s a nice analysis of the parallels between characters and how they are both haunted and blessed by memories.
Grasping the importance of “frozen moments” with loved ones reminded me of the progression of the graffiti on the Traveling Symphony’s caravan, from “Hell is other people” to “Hell is other people flutes” to Kirsten’s ultimate realization that “Hell is the absence of the people you long for” (p. 144).
Thanks Mary for the Atlantic.com link. I thought this was telling about the author and most of the main characters, even the prophet who was removed from his imperfect father when taken to Israel, was separated from his fellow passengers by his mother; who cruelly isolated the members of his cult.
Mandel, reflecting on Raymond Chandler’s words:
There are SO many memories in my memory banks, ignatius! Most, kept alive with occasional refreshing, are small joys in my life: childhood moments with family and friends like hiding under a table at my fourth birthday party and listening to the birthday song; those of my children when they were young and life was easy (and we know how easy life always was with youngsters!); snippets of larger occasions with my husband like a harnessed carriage horse neighing during a very long Ave Maria at my wedding; and flash recollections of now deceased dear ones–my father’s distinctive laugh. Of course there are bad memories, but I don’t think I’m a dweller by nature. This is Kirsten’s point, possibly, in not remembering the horrible Year One. What’s sad, or maybe not, is that most of these small joys are not only taken for granted in our own lives, but completely lost when we pass on–a reminder to keep dusting them off and appreciate the many times each and every day that we pass one of those mini-landmark events? That’s something this book made me think about, my own “incomplete list”.
I was mugged once by a group of teens, I remember the weapons vividly - a knife, a bat, a stick, but I remember nothing about the way they looked and could provide no useful information about the way they looked. If I ever get mugged again I hope I’ll do better! But memory is weird.
I have odd memories of childhood. My oldest ones are of the curtains in my brother’s room, getting lost in under the sheets of a double bed. At four I drove our family VW bug into a ditch which I don’t remember at all, but when I got checked out at the doctors they gave me a green lollipop. Then funny ones - three years in Japan and I remember things like a trampoline center, homemade strawberry jam when we visited some friends, the taste of strawberry yogurt. I remember surprising little that is “Japanese”.
Oh my god, mathmom! Were you injured??
I really like that one!
No not injured at all. It was a very surreal experience. There were three of us and five of them. I started to give them my wallet then realized I had tickets to a screening of the silent movie Napoleon with a live orchestra, so I was busy pulling out those tickets, because the kids weren’t going to use them. My sil meanwhile was telling them they couldn’t have her camera! In they end they took our money, and people in the neighborhood called the police once they’d scampered off. This was near the Watts Towers in LA. We all realized after that how hard it is to be a good eye witness.
Okay, I’ll play the “memory snapshots” game, but mine are kind of long and wordy. I have so many snapshots from the years we were in Germany when I was five, six and seven that I wouldn’t know where to start. Same thing with my later childhood and adult years. But here are some of my earliest memories from when I was three or four that I guess would qualify as snapshots:
^ I love these! You’ve got me thinking about everything from a joyful ride on a red tricycle I got when I was three to a breathtaking hike down the Grand Canyon some 45 years later, with plenty of other vivid memories in between. “A life, remembered, is a series of photographs and disconnected short films” (p. 278).
An ice-cold glass of milk from the fridge. Turning on the heat to stay warm. Turning on the a/c to keep cool. Movie theaters. Fannie May dark chocolate vanilla buttercreams. My kindle. 
Buenavista- love your comparisons of arthur and Clark’s memorable moments. Well done.
Enjoy all your beautiful memories, especially TheaterMom- you should write.
I am remembering the past and thinking about what I’d miss in a post apocalyptic world.
Mary your quote ** " a life remembered, is a series of photographs and disconnected short films"**
I found this article, by emily st mandel, written for The Millions. In it, she describes her drab, stifling NYC day job, and visiting an art exhibit, in which the artist arranges a series of objects, photographs and short films, which move emily st mandel.
I must say I’m becoming more fond of this author and Stations Eleven, realizing how her book has evoked such lovely memories in all of us.
Thank you, SJCM. I like dipping into the author’s other essays and getting a sense of what influenced her when she wrote Station Eleven. The art exhibit appears to have been one of those influences: “I think sometimes about the way objects tie us to the past,” writes Mandel, as she reflects on what she has seen.
There’s something about the last couple of sentences, too, that calls to mind Station Eleven’s cast of characters, keeping performance alive in unexpected places before unusual audiences:
That’s a nice essay by Emily St John Mandel, SJCM. I wish her well. I see that Station Eleven is currently at #10 on the New York Times best seller list.
I’m assuming it has been a while since Mandel had her dreary day job. My younger son is a theatre person and is trying to create theatre while working at a survival job. A lot of his friends are doing the same thing. His survival job is not all that drab, though, He works at a place in Philadelphia called “Escape the Room.” People pay $25 apiece to be locked in a room (as part of a group) and figure out how to escape using puzzle-like clues. My son is one of the “cluemasters.”