5. Toronto

Chapters 27 – 37

This section straddles two time periods and focuses on Jeevan and Frank in Toronto during the pre-collapse period and Kirsten’s interview with Diallo. A scene is recounted from Jeevan’s interview with Arthur Leander. After stalking him as a paparazzo, Jeevan is given an opportunity to talk to Arthur. Arthur turns the tables on Jeevan and questions him about how he became a paparazzo. A glimpse of Arthur’s frustration with his life appears and he offers Jeevan an exclusive interview about him leaving Elizabeth. Arthur’s dichotomous life of philanderer and image-preservation-expert come to a head as he callously drops the news of his new love interest but insists Jeevan includes a part about his commitment to co-parent the child, Tyler. In a novel that wrestles with what it means to survive, Arthur’s developed Hollywood survival skills are on display. Hunted by paparazzi and gossip columnists, he has established a series of disguises and tactics to preserve his career.

Jeevan reflects on this in Frank’s apartment as they anticipate what the new world will look like outside of their apartment. Survival of a different kind is on their mind. Holed up in Frank’s apartment, Frank is completing a ghost-writing project for a man that is likely to be dead in a world where printing presses lay dormant. He continues out of a sense of commitment, another example of art for art’s sake. The process is important to Frank despite the fact that the product is most likely redundant. The venture raises the idea of being famous and questions why people seek fame. The conclusion: to be remembered. This is an example of the idea of legacy. Some characters like Arthur and the Prophet seek to leave a legacy behind, carving out a significant life. Others, almost accidentally, leave a legacy through gifts of art like the Travelling Symphony, Shakespeare and Miranda or gifts of kindness like Tanya and Jeevan.

The novel returns to the new world and joins Kirsten in an interview with Francois Diallo. Francois, like Clark and his museum, have taken it upon themselves to record the history of the occasion. Diallo asks Kirsten about witnessing Arthur’s death on stage. She tells him about the man who came on stage to assist. She does not remember Jeevan’s name. It is interesting to note that the names of characters reflect their life. New world citizens are given single names, often pragmatic description such as August and Third Cello. No family names are provided giving a sense of disconnection with their lineage. Tyler Leander is lost, replaced by his name, the Prophet. Jeevan’s name is forgotten as he resides in anonymity, helping without seeking reward. Miranda’s name, while attributed to Arthur in celebrity gossip, is unidentified on her graphic novels where she is known only as MC. Mandel suggests the names we remember are those that sought to be remembered perhaps not those who deserve to be remembered.

These chapters show similarities in Jeevan and Kirsten in the first days after the outbreak as they are forced to leave their homes and walk. Drifting around the Great Lakes region, both of them having lost a brother, both in danger, connected, but never meeting again.

Part 5 Quotes

On silent afternoons in his brother’s apartment, Jeevan finds himself thinking about how human the city is, how human everything is. We bemoan the impersonality of the modern world, but that is a lie, it seemed to him, it had never been impersonal at all. There had always been a massive delicate infrastructure of people, all of them working unnoticed around us, and when people stop going to work the entire operation grinds to a halt. Chapter 30

‘There’s still a world out there,’ Jeevan said, ‘outside this apartment.’
‘I think there’s just survival out there, Jeevan. I think you should go out there and try to survive.’ (Frank and Jeevan) Chapter 32

I’ve been thinking about immortality lately. … They’re all immortal to me. First we only want to be seen, but once we’re seen, that’s not enough anymore. After that, we want to be remembered.’ (Frank) Chapter 34

6. The Airplane

Chapters 38- 41

The novel resumes the plight of the Travelling Symphony, more specifically, Kirsten and August. They leave the house they have been ransacking and consider its place in a non-pandemic world. Kirsten imagines small differences such as locking doors. The pair imagine the possibilities that may have been if the pandemic had not struck, August even suggesting Kirsten could have been a famous actor with others writing about her. They share a resigned view of their situation, viewing the plague as a random occurrence. This is juxtaposed with the Prophet’s view of a deliberate act of a divine being specifically targeting individuals. These two world views are accompanied in the novel by the dichotomous view of the benefits of preserving the past against the chance to start again. The pair imagine worlds that were worse than this such as the years immediately after the collapse, years that led to Kirsten’s mysterious knife tattoos and the scar on her face. They set up and August thinks about Finn and the scar on his face. Kirsten suggests it was a mark from the Prophet. August realises what the symbol is, an airplane— a symbol of Tyler’s past—and civilisation. Airplanes are often used by Mandel as a sign of society. When they are flying, civilisation is functioning, when they stop, civilisation shrinks and halts, regressing to community over globalisation and stealing man’s ability to travel freely and join family. Paralleling this are the ships halted in the harbours of the world.

A glimpse into Arthur’s last few weeks show him reuniting with Miranda. Arthur is seemingly in a state of transition, having come to the end of his search for fame and finding little joy in the prize. Miranda has changed too, she is more confident and better dressed, an executive repeating her mantra: ‘I regret nothing.’ Miranda’s creed is unexpected for someone who chose Pablo, the artist who beat her, and Arthur, the actor who cheated on her. Miranda’s strength comes from moving from each situation to a stronger position and taking solace in her creative work. Clark calls her and others to inform them of Arthur’s death.

Telephones soon cease to work and, with that, connectivity is reduced to coincidental meetings. Clark heads towards Toronto but the plane is redirected to Severn City ensuring the miraculous survival of Clark, Elizabeth and Tyler, an example of the novel’s exploration of fate and chance. Is it merely a lucky accident that they avoid contact with the flu, or is it some sort of fated occurrence?

Miranda is taken by the virus in Malaysia while on a work assignment, separated from Arthur and others, alone. She tries to be positive and believing in human connection, reaches out non-verbally to a dying man she witnesses on the floor to let him know she sees him, he is a person, someone cares. Miranda’s last moments are a fusion of life and her creative work, Dr Eleven, signifying that beyond life there is art.

Part 6 Quotes

‘At least the celebrity gossip survived.’ (Kirsten) Chapter 38

In any event, August liked the idea of an infinite number of parallel universes. Chapter 38

She saw ghosts of herself everywhere here. A twenty-three-year-old Miranda with the wrong clothes and her hair sticking up …. a twenty-seven- year-old recently divorced Miranda slouching across the lobby with her sunglasses in place, wishing she could disappear… remembering them was almost like remembering other people, … she felt such compassion for them. ‘I regret nothing.’ Chapter 39

I think about my childhood, the life I lived on Delano Island, that place was so small. Everyone knew me, not because I was special or anything just because everyone knew everyone, and the claustrophobia of that…. I just wanted to get out…. Toronto felt like freedom. (Arthur) Chapter 40

‘He was wonderful,’ Clark said. ‘Back then, back at the beginning.’ Chapter 40

A man was curled on his side near the elevators, shivering. She wanted to speak to him, but speaking would take too much strength, so she looked at him instead—I see you, I see you—and hoped this was enough. (Miranda in Malaysia) Chapter 41

7. The Terminal

Chapters 42-47

This section features snapshots from year one in the terminal, year fifteen interviews, year fifteen of Jeevan’s new life and year nineteen in the terminal, as well as memories and reflections. It provides back story and delays action, creating tension, while traversing several of Mandel’s themes around technology, memory, survival and death.

The Severn City Airport terminal is a stable location in the post-collapse world. If Arthur is the central character, the terminal at Severn City is the location equivalent. It is pivotal as the home of Clark and his museum, Elizabeth and Tyler before their delusion and departure, and a destination for the fractured members of the Travelling Symphony, disrupted from their usual course by the interference of the Prophet and his men.

Upon arriving at Severn City Airport, Clark establishes the Museum of Civilisation. At first struggling to explain things, he tries to pass on knowledge where he can. After the collapse, he recognizes that so many daily interactions with others and technology are indeed taken for granted, which now seem so miraculous. Clark falls into the group who wish to preserve the past. He reflects on technology and thinks how lucky he has been ‘to have lived among those wonders for so long’. The harsh side of the collapse is explored through the young girl, without medication, assuming she would be home by now. Like Jeevan’s brother Frank, those with special needs would find the new world harsh and difficult. This provides commentary on the positives of technology and the connectedness offered through forms of support services and medication to those in need. Such technology is regrettably lost for some passengers at the airport who are unable to complete their personal mission of posting photos of themselves with Elizabeth after recognising her celebrity status.

The inevitability that Tyler will become the Prophet is cleverly foreshadowed by his mother’s belief that everything happens for a reason, his petulance as a child, his religious zeal in reading to the dead on a small plane, and his departure with religious fanatics indicating his life journey.

Chapter 45 continues the interview between Kirsten and Diallo. She tells him that she will talk about how she thinks the world has changed if it is off the record. She admits that she has killed two people. The contrast between two lives lost against the backdrop of the near annihilation of mankind raises the fragility and precious nature of life. Viewed individually, the lost lives of the two people killed by Kirsten (though in self-defence) and of Frank and Arthur are significant in the same way that all the lost lives in the pandemic are significant. Viewed collectively, the essential nature of humanity is lost. Kirsten is adamant to not have information about the killings published. As a collector of gossip magazines, she understands how a legacy can be changed with a column of print or a quick photograph.

Jeevan’s life choice to extract himself from the world of celebrity, chasing and trying to make a difference, has come to fruition and in the year fifteen he is married to Daria and has a child named after his brother, Frank. His life is again interwoven with Arthur’s as Arthur’s son Tyler, The Prophet, shoots a women after kidnapping her child and Jeevan treats the wounded lady. The identity of the Prophet is revealed when Charlie and Jeremy arrive at the terminal and discuss him with Arthur who has enough information to piece it together.

Part 7 Quotes

‘Are you leaving?’ Clark asked. It still wasn’t entirely real.
‘Not yet,’ Elizabeth said. She looked a little deranged. Chapter 42

‘I was in the hotel,’ he said finally. ‘I followed your footprints in the snow.’ There were tears on his face.
‘Okay,’ someone said, ‘but why are you crying?’
‘I’d thought I was the only one,’ he said. (Man walking in to airport) Chapter 43

The children understood dots on maps—here—but even the teenagers were confused by the lines. There had been countries, and borders. It was hard to explain. Chapter 44

‘Right now he’s over by the quarantined plane,’ Clark said, ‘reading aloud to the dead from the Book of Revelation. … I think maybe he’s picked up some strange ideas about, well, about what happened. … He thinks the pandemic happened for a reason,’ Clark said.
‘It did happen for a reason.’ (Clark and Elizabeth) Chapter 44

‘Maybe you’re right,’ Daria said. ‘I suppose the question is, does knowing these things make them more or less happy?’ Chapter 46

‘He’s a high-functioning sleepwalker, essentially.’ (Dahlia, an employee being interviewed by Clark) Chapter 47

8. The Prophet

Chapters 48 -52

The novel returns to the narrative of Kirsten and August. They are in search of the Travelling Symphony and on their way to Severn City when they come across a member of the company, Sayid, who is accompanied by two men and a boy. He has been captured by the Prophet’s men. A violent scene ensues with August shooting one man with an arrow and Kirsten striking a man in the torso with her thrown knife. The boy flees. In introducing a young Kirsten to the reader, enamoured with acting and colouring-in comics, Mandel presents a vulnerable character the reader would expect takes no pleasure in killing. Kirsten’s tattoos of knives serve as a sad reminder of forced strength, not of a trophy. The man struck by Kirsten’s knife reveals they are hunting the Symphony because of the stowaway, Eleanor, who was to be an unwilling bride of the Prophet. He chants the religious mantra of the Prophet before Kirsten removes her knife and he dies. The men’s devotion to the Prophet shows that faith is a pertinent haven for those in peril. Like August praying for the dead, faith can be used to make sense of the world. Mandel shows the dichotomous nature of believing: faith can sustain a victim but can also justify a tyrant’s action. In the same way, Mandel explores the dual nature of art in that it can be a pure element to sustain someone like Miranda or an untamed tyrant to lead Arthur down an alley of broken dreams.

Art is questioned even further as the Symphony notice the missing clarinet player. The Clarinet had wanted to perform modern post-collapse plays and saw merit in initiating art of the new world rather than retrospectively continuing a fascination with Shakespeare. She begins to pen a new play ‘Dear friends, I find myself immeasurably weary and I have gone to rest in the forest’, and her single line is misunderstood as a suicide note. It turns out the Prophet has captured the Clarinet to exchange for Eleanor.

Kirsten, Sayid and August continue toward the airport, and Kirsten reflects on killing a man. Society has collapsed and she is required to defend herself in the wild times immediately following the Flu however when civilised society prevails again she will unlikely be called upon to kill. Kirsten’s hope that she will not have to kill again is a hope and indicator that society has regained civility. It is the Prophet that hinders this time of peace.

The trio are nearing the airport but the sound of a barking dog, Luli, the Prophet’s dog, forces them to hide. Kirsten has not managed to successfully evade the dog and it alerts some of the Prophet’s men to their hiding position. Kirsten surrenders. In a moment of two lives intersecting, Arthur’s son and Arthur’s protégée meet. The Prophet calls her Titania, the character she played in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, performed in front of him and the community at St Deborah by the Waters. Titania, queen of the fairies, is a strong minded women who clashes with her husband Oberon, the king of the fairies. Their greatest clash comes over Titania’s refusal to give Oberon a changeling boy she has taken under her wing. Mandel draws parallels as the two face off now with Kirsten accused of taking Eleanor from the Prophet.

Unlike Oberon, the prophet is unable to tame Kirsten who stands resolute and resigned that she will die. The Prophet speaks as he moves to kill her: ‘We are the light moving over the surface of the waters, over the darkness of the undersea.’ Kirsten immediately recognises this as lines from the Dr Eleven comic and responds with the next line from Miranda’s creation: ‘We long only to go home, we dream of sunlight, we dream of walking on earth.’ The passage is taken from the confrontation between Dr Eleven and his nemesis from the Undersea. Life imitates art as once again adversaries meet the Prophet believing he is the ‘light’ and Kirsten’s simple wish is reflected in a desire to walk in the sunshine, to be home. The connectivity of the two is highlighted as they stand face to face: Titania and Oberon, Dr Eleven and his enemy, Kirsten and Tyler, the Prophet. Symbolic of fate and faith, the two seem set to fulfil the Prophet’s vision for their encounter when the young man interjects.

The young boy shoots the Prophet and August seizes the opportunity to kill the other guards leaving Kirsten and the boy looking at the Prophet. The young boy ignores Kirsten’s pleas to stop and shoots himself. Influential to the young boy’s murder-suicide was Sayid’s conversation with him explaining the evilness of the Prophet and observing that Kirsten had knowledge of the Station Eleven graphic novel but had instead chosen to follow art over power. As they take in the devastating scene, members of the Travelling Symphony catch up to them. They agree to continue to Severn City Airport. When Sayid, August, and Kirsten set out, the Prophet’s dog follows them. Kirsten calls for Luli, the dog responds and stays by her side. The groups continues and meet at the airport.

Kirsten and Charlie, reunited, discuss the fact that Kirsten needs another knife tattoo to symbolise a life taken. It shows that no life is insignificant to her. Kirsten is preoccupied with how the Prophet could have had a copy of the Station Eleven graphic novel. In the airport 320 people have formed a makeshift community of survivors. Amongst them as a leader now is Clark who meets Kirsten and knows their connection. Rather than focus on the past or the present, Clark instead shows Kirsten lights from a nearby town flickering into being with the hope of rebuilding society. The hope offered is a new dawn, the lights on the horizon simulating the sunrise of a new day.

Part 8 Quotes

‘Have faith,’ he whispered. ‘We’ll find them.’ (August) Chapter 48

Severn City had been a substantial place once. Chapter 48

‘Some things in this life seem inexplicable,’ the archer said, ‘but we must trust in the existence of a greater plan.’ Chapter 49

She had once met an old man up near Kincardine who’d sworn that the murdered follow their killers to the grave, and she was thinking of this as they walked, the idea of dragging souls across the landscape like cans on a string. The way the archer had smiled, just at the end. (Kirsten) Chapter 50

Who were you? How did you come to possess this page? Kirsten knelt by the prophet, by the pool of his blood, but he was just another dead man on another road. Chapter 50

In the distance, pinpricks of light arranged into a grid. There, plainly visible on the side of a hill some miles distant: a town, or a village, whose streets were lit up with electricity. Chapter 51

9. Station Eleven

Chapters 53-55

The denouement of Mandel’s novel returns to Arthur. It is his last day on earth. The return to Arthur after exploring the future prompts the reader to see the world in a new, omniscient way. Arthur is making plans to get closer to his family, to do something kind for Tanya, but it will be too late. His life will be preserved in different ways, gossip columns and an unauthorised book of his personal letters, but more importantly, through those who knew him, met him or admired him. It is their lives that all hold a small part of Arthur in the same way a paperweight or a graphic novel will call attention to the connections between humans.

Someone calls ‘places’ and Arthur takes his place on stage. He lists joyful things he can remember, few related to his fame, most being slices of life when he had experienced real connections with people he once treasured.

Part 9 Quotes

‘I have a present for you.’ He felt a little guilty as he handed her the Dr Eleven comics, …. but he didn’t want the comics because he didn’t want possessions. He didn’t want anything except his son. (Arthur and Kirsten) Chapter 53

He had done some things he wasn’t proud of. ….. The way he’d dropped Miranda for Elizabeth and Elizabeth for Lydia and let Lydia slip away to someone else. The way he’d let Tyler be taken … The way he’d spent his entire life chasing after something, money or fame or immortality or all of the above. (Arthur) Chapter 53

He stared at his crown and ran through a secret list of everything that was good. .. pink magnolias in the backyard of the house in Los Angeles. .. Outdoor concerts, the way the sound rises up into the sky. Tyler … Dancing with Clark when they were both eighteen, their fake IDs in their pockets, Clark flickering in the strobe lights. Miranda’s eyes … Tyler. (Arthur) Chapter 53

Dr Eleven: What was it like for you, at the end?
Captain Lonagan: It was exactly like waking up from a dream. Chapter 54