Book Review - Sea of Tranquility - Emily St. John Mandel
Emily St John Mandel was my favourite find of 2022, so it seemed apt to start 2023 with a review of her most recent book,’ Sea of tranquility.’ Again, she doesn’t disappoint.
Vancouver Island and The Glass Hotel
The book begins on Vancouver Island and the year is 1912, where we meet Edwin St. Andrew, an immigrant from England. He’s been banished by his family for a bit of a rant at the dinner table. Two hundred years later and the book introduces Olive Lleywellan, a novelist who is visiting earth for a book tour. She’s originally from moon colony two, as is Gaspery Jacques-Roberts, a sort of time travelling detective who lives in the night city aronund 2400 and becomes interested in these characters.
What links these people together is a short piece of footage shot by a teenage Vincent, who we meet in ‘The glass hotel.’ Her brother Paul has been using it in his performances, which is where we meet Vincent’s old friend Mirella. The footage seems have captured an anomaly on Vancouver Island, which might be a tear in the time-space continuum. Are we living in a simulation?
Historical Fiction and Science Fiction
I’m probably making it much more complicated that it really is and not really explaining it well. I’ve covered some of the story, but like Mandels other books, it’s also about family, about art and culture, and the ties that bind us. There were many occasions when I had to pause my reading of this book just to think about what I’d just read. The space/time story is quite easy to follow.
It’s a superb mixture of historical fiction and sci-fi, and Mandel is so deft at moving between the different time periods and linking them together via the characters and events.
It’s interesting how the novelist character is on a promotional tour for a book called ‘Marienbad’ which is about a flu pandemic. Mandel shot to fame during recent years with her novel ‘Station Eleven’ (and subsequent tv show) which is about a pandemic that wipes about much of humanity, which she wrote back in 2014. At one stage the character tells a journalist she’s never been interested in auto fiction (very much the subject of one my recent reads, ‘The shards’ by Bret Easton Ellis) but it definitely does feel like Mandel is telling us about that experience and the publicity that came with it.
“Pandemics don’t approach like wars, with the distant thud of artillery growing louder every day and flashes of bombs on the horizon. The arrive in retrospect, essentially. It’s disorienting. The pandemic is far away and then it’s all around you with seemingly no intermediate step.”
Familiar and Nostalgic
Mandel is very good at making you feel that each of the worlds and characters are familiar. That’s not say that you need to have read the previous books - this works very much as a stand alone, and I think it’s a tribute to her writing and her world building. But there is something satisfying about the crossover between the books. Her prose is so clear and lilting, and I always find a feeling of nostalgia in her writing. There’s a sadness and a wistfulness there too that really gets me.
Part of the attraction is that these worlds don’t feel so different. There’s a fluidity in the prose, the way that Mandel transports us from the past into the future. It feels familiar and effortless.
“My point is, there’s always something. I think, as a species, we have a desire to believe that we’re living at the climax of the story. It’s a kind of narcissism. We want to believe that we’re uniquely important, that we’re living at the end of history, that now, after all these millennia of false alarms, now is finally the worst that it’s ever been, that finally we have reached the end of the world.”
Does she answer the big question at the end? I’m not sure, but I don’t think it matters. ‘“A life lived in a simulation is still a life” one of the characters says at one point. We still live and love, some of us get sick and we die at the end.
I’m completely up to date with Emily St. John Mandels recent output, which I guess means I’ll be going back to check out her earlier releases. One of my favourite modern writers, there’s so much in her books to enjoy and appreciate.
Book review - Sea of Tranquility by Emily St John Mandel
255 pages hardcover Published May 5, 2022 by Knopf
Sea of Tranquility Book Club Questions - Spoilers ahead
One of the characters says at one point ‘‘A life lived in a simulation is still a life”. What do you think this means?
Do you think Gaspery made the right decision and why?
The book covers a number of centuries - what has changed, and what has stayed the same?
Which of the characters featured did you identify with most and why?
If you have read ‘The glass hotel’ do the lives of the characters match up and if there are discrepancies what are they?
What is Vincent’s role based on the video clip she made in the forest?
Time travel is a complex business. If you were in charge, what rules would you insist on?
Which actors would you like to see playing the roles of the main characters in the movie/tv version and why?
What’s your favourite line or quote in the book?