Admittedly, I have not read Emily St. John Mandel’s post-apocalyptic novel Station Eleven (2014), nor do I think I could stomach it as the COVID-19 pandemic trudges into its third year. Still, after hearing and reading so many good things about HBO Max’s eponymous adaptation of the book, I decided to give the miniseries a try. The show essentially takes place in two time periods: the first as the world learns of a flu strain that is destined to kill the vast majority of the global population, the second as various pockets of survivors seek to rebuild civilization twenty years after “Year Zero.” Without delving too much into Station Eleven’s labyrinthine plot—the series features an ensemble cast, led by Mackenzie Davis—I think the show (and presumably the novel) is ultimately about the role of art in coping with tragedy. For instance, the following scene jumpcuts between a girl named Kirsten (Matilda Lawler), who has been unable to contact her family during the virus’ outbreak and who has taken refuge with strangers, and the same girl two decades later (now played by Davis), as she stars as Hamlet in a makeshift production of Shakespeare’s play.
The words are taken from Act 1, Scene 2 (72-86) of Hamlet, in which the prince laments the loss of his father—a lamentation, he says, so deep as to be ineffable:
Queen:
Thou know'st 'tis common: all that lives must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.
Hamlet:
Ay, madam, it is common.
Queen:
If it be,
Why seems it so particular with thee?
Hamlet:
Seems, madam? nay, it is, I know not "seems."
'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
Nor customary suits of solemn black,
Nor windy suspiration of forc'd breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected havior of the visage,
Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief,
That can denote me truly. These indeed seem,
For they are actions that a man might play;
But I have that within which passes show,
These but the trappings and the suits of woe.
While art can be seen as a distraction or even as an escape from “the real world,” this scene suggests that it is capable of summoning experiences and relationships otherwise forgotten. The artist, like Hamlet, keeps company with ghosts.
"Capable of summoning experiences and relationships otherwise forgotten." Inspiring. Yes. Summoning, evoking, "calling into being what what was [thought to be] not." The gist of that is what J.B. Metz notion of practical reason situated within "dangerous memory" sets out to do (with reference to the work of love in remembering, from SK).
It is a good book.