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. 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). Tyler reunites with his mother. Station Elevens post-apocalyptic beauty is a far cry from The Roads ponderous counterspectacle of things ceasing to be. 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. But you know, here I am in Philadelphia this afternoon. New York: Vintage. Charles, R 2014 Sorry, Emily St. John Mandel: Resistance is Futile. Station Eleven replicates what Gomel identifies as the plague pattern, where there is no place for millenarian rebirth. Ah, you say no. As Jeevan describes it, this night, was going to be the divide between a before and an after, a line drawn through his life (Mandel, 2014: 20; emphasis in original). 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). You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. 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. Nor did I want the kind of Theres Got to Be a Morning After survival celebration disaster stories so often rely on. Station Elevens structure similarly articulates a critical temporality that complicates the sense of an ending. Just like Bertis, Tyler uses contrived rhythms and repetition in his speeches, so much so that Kirsten notes a suggestion of a trapdoor waiting under every word [of his] (Mandel, 2014: 59). It won several major awards, was an NPR Books Concierge pick, and it's just come out in paperback. I dont [sic] think so. Just like Tyler, Bertis sees himself as the prophet of the new world to come, which is, however, not for everyone. This structure articulates a critical temporality that undermines the apocalyptic sense of an ending and, more specifically, foreshadowing, which, with its view of the present as the harbinger of an already determined future, is at the core of the temporality of traditional plots and apocalyptic history alike (Bernstein, 1994: 12). In: Atwood, M (Eds. WebSee 10 photos and 3 tips from 190 visitors to 7-Eleven. In accord with the postmodern narrative turn in historiography, the critical temporalities of these novels expose the modern and apocalyptic conception of history as a narrative construct deeply enmeshed with power structures. Villainry arrives (via the most frightening performance Ive ever seen, from Daniel Zovatto as the stranger who insists on joining the Traveling Symphony otherwise your friends are going to start to disappear), along with the secret community known as the Museum of Civilisation. After a discussion of traditional apocalyptic temporality as it informs modernity and a theorisation of the notion of critical temporality, my article turns to Station Eleven, drawing comparisons with other contemporary post-apocalyptic novels to illuminate key features of this body of writings and the critical temporalities they articulate. This passage is another intertextual reference to The Road. Station Eleven repeatedly emphasises that there is no deterministic pattern to time, contrary to what apocalyptic logic affirms. The scene in which a dozen women give birth was the before giving way to the future, just as all the scenes in which Miranda struggles to write Station Eleven were. The second timeline takes us 20 years in the future, when Kirsten (now played by Mackenzie Davis) is part of a troupe of actors known as the Traveling Symphony, who tour the midwest putting on Shakespeare plays Hamlet, when we meet them to the scattered plague survivors. Published by It may become antiapocalyptic in its refusal of the transition from the tribulation to the millennium (2000: 410, 412). The postmodern subversion of a realistic epistemology leads to the idea that there is no ultimate knowable historical truth, that our knowledge of the past is social and perspectival, and that written history exists within culturally determined power structures (Munslow, 2006: 27). 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. 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 Clark speaks to himself in bed next to Miles. And, as a sniper, he believes he is clearing the way for gods new utopian order, for [T]he people [he] shot bothered God. Toronto: Anansi. Arthur C Clarke Award 2015 2015 Winner. 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. In part because the partnership of Jeevan and Kirsten was so odd and hypnotic that Goneril dress! Is a Disarmingly Hopeful Post-Apocalyptic Tale. The spectre of the 2008 economic crisis and ensuing recession does haunt the novel, in which 12 percent of the worlds shipping fleet lay at anchor off the coast of Malaysia, container ships laid dormant by an economic collapse (Mandel, 2014: 28). London: Routledge. WebStation Eleven contains many explicit references to other works of art, and relies on them heavily for source material. DOI: http://doi.org/10.4159/9780674495647. Traditional apocalyptic narratives reveal a utopian teleology to history, a conception of time that deeply informs western modernity and its metanarratives. However, Station Elevens post-apocalyptic scenario is very different from McCarthys and, signifying the shift away from The Road, not only does Jeevan keep out of the road, but Kirsten cannot, and does not want to, remember anything about the traumatic year she spent on the road immediately following the catastrophe (Mandel, 2014: 195, 295). Importantly, these hours of miracles [are] visible as such only in hindsight (Mandel, 2014: 223), that is, the deterministic teleological pattern of apocalyptic logic, with its distinction between the elect and the non-elect, is always constructed retrospectively, after the end, be this a future projection or a past event that is perceived as an end of something, as is the case of the Flu with the survivors. 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.). 2010 Future Ethics: Climate Change and Apocalyptic Imagination. The full Long Island Rail Road terminal in Grand Central Station opened Monday. 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. London: Windmill. 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. I confess I came to Station Eleven reluctantly. Last year, as we all scrambled to create some sort of context for the COVID-19 pandemic, Mandel got all sorts of what does it feel to have predicted the future? questions, which seemed very unfair. It's some sort of combination of pessimism or narcissism that it's almost as though we want to believe or living at the climax of the story. Kermode, F [1966] 2000 The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction. 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. Ermarth, E D 1992 Sequel to History: Postmodernism and the Crisis of Representational Time. One of the things that drove me away from The Walking Dead was the core characters lack of expertise and inability to problem-solve. 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. As one of the survivors puts it, Elizabeths [the prophets mother] a fucking lunatic (Mandel, 2014: 253). Station Eleven is a slow burn. Available at: https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/38e15y/hi_im_emily_st_john_mandel_author_of_station/ [Last accessed 24 October 2018]. Emily St. John Mandel. But series creator Patrick Somerville had her blessing to change it. Alter, A 2014 The World is Ending, and Readers Couldnt Be Happier: Station Eleven Joins Falls Crop of Dystopian Novels. You know, it's interesting. Therefore, the plot of pestilence is not so much a fiction of an end as a fiction of an end indefinitely postponed. People die alone, with their loved ones unable to be with them, and people grieve alone. He likes the thought of ships moving over the water, towards another world just out of sight (Mandel, 2014: 33233; emphasis mine). The sense of an ending and the deterministic foreshadowing it allows should pertain to the closure of time in traditional plots, not to the openness of time as lived, where the future is unwritten. If nothing else, its pleasant to consider the possibility. By the same token, Station Elevens prophet terrorises the population of the region, assembles a cult, and gains power thanks to a combination of charisma, violence, and cherry-picked verses from the Book of Revelation (Mandel, 2014: 280), where cherry-picked underlines the constructedness of Tylers prophecy. 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. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Author Emily St. John Mandel was not involved in the adaptation of her hit novel. I was very deliberate in the timing of the narrative: its set mostly fifteen and twenty years after the collapse, not during or in the immediate aftermath (Mandel, 2015: n.pag.). Chute, H L 2016 Disaster Drawn: Visual Witness, Comics, and Documentary Form. The full Long Island Rail Road terminal in Grand Central Station opened Monday. Basingstoke: Palgrave. This pattern comprises panic, dissolution of socioeconomic structures, and despair, succeeded by a makeshift return to normality once the disease has run its course. 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. Station Eleven and The Last of Us share one more very specific similarity: juxtaposing destruction with art. 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." Both texts expose how apocalyptic discourse is fabricated to push ideological agendas. Born in the Boston area, educated at USC and an adoptive New Orleanian for nearly 10 years, he returned to Los Angeles in 2019 as the newsrooms television editor. I remember watching that episode and I remember being absolutely struck by that line. A scar strip, Thank you for asking, she says, Hoda Kotbs enigmatic Today absence finally explained on air: Hodas OK, Blake Shelton embarks on last season of The Voice before doing a little bit of nothing, Chris Rocks live Netflix special taps several comedy greats, from Sykes to Seinfeld, Savannah Guthrie exits Today mid-broadcast and tests positive for COVID-19 again. 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). Manchester: Manchester University Press. 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). The first few episodes look beautiful but move at a stately pace. London: Bloomsbury. The mere existence of a character like the Conductor, played with bug-eyed, Emmy-worthy brilliance by Petty, made my heart sing. There is no emotion and it is not greatly What you call the present showcases people who are neither hero nor villain, except perhaps in their own minds, but they are artists. Washington Post, 15 October. Even in rural Pennsylvania, let alone Asia, you know your world becomes so small so quickly. An uplifting pandemic drama? Yet, just like The Road, Station Eleven articulates a critical temporality that subverts the utopian teleology of apocalyptic logic. 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. 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. 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). Consider the card games played belowdecks in the evenings on the ship carrying the containers across the ocean, a hand stubbing out a cigarette in an overflowing ashtray, a haze of blue smoke in dim light, the cadences of a half dozen languages united by common profanities, the sailors dreams of land and women, these men for whom the ocean was a grey-line horizon to be traversed in ships the size of overturned skyscrapers (Mandel, 2014: 255). Yet Tylers apocalyptic narrative indicates not only the complicity of apocalyptic logic with violence and power structures but also how the appeal of this kind of narrative depends on its promise of a sense-making temporal order. 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). After all, McCarthys text which depicts a father and sons journey in a post-apocalyptic US where, after an unspecified catastrophe, everything [is] dead to the root (McCarthy, [2006] 2007: 21) is one of the most famous examples of the contemporary body of post-apocalyptic novels as it won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. In the new miniseries "Station Eleven," it's two decades after a deadly flu pandemic, and global civilization has nearly collapsed. (Only the Apple TV+ show See takes on the importance of myth and art, albeit in a more controlling, prophetic way, but that pandemic left everyone blind, which brings its own issues.). It received critical acclaim and was nominated for seven Primetime [18] 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]. What would make life still worth living after the collapse of civilisation? Mandel self-reflexively plays with the determinism of the sense of an ending by deploying apocalyptic foreshadowing as a narrative device that connects the various sections. The improbability of it, muses Clark, who is echoed by Kirsten reminiscing about the urban landscape seen from a plane at night: clusters and pinpoints of light in the darkness, scattered constellations linked by roads or alone. Station Eleven replicates what Gomel (2000: 408) identifies as the plague pattern, where there is no place for millenarian rebirth. I read Emily St John Mandels bestselling Station Eleven shortly after it came out in 2014, when the tale of a mysterious flu sweeping the globe and laying waste to normal life lay wholly beyond the bounds of reality. It is almost more discomfiting, however, to be able to point now to moments the creators get wrong. DOI: http://doi.org/10.13130/2035-7680/2987, De Cristofaro, D 2018 Time, no arrow, no boomerang, but a concertina: Cloud Atlas and the Anti-Apocalyptic Critical Temporalities of the Contemporary Post-Apocalyptic Novel. 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). 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. but mainly because it quickly became obvious, from the running references to Shakespeare and the (fictional) graphic novel Station Eleven, that this story was not about how to survive a pandemic. It wasnt like that. Indeed, Mandel glosses over the blood-drenched years just after the collapse, the first unspeakable years which were, tellingly, spent on the road, travelling (Mandel, 2014: 48, 37). In the very early days, for example, Jeevan and Kirsten go round a supermarket that is full of produce but empty of people. 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