Sound Judgment audiobook review: ‘Station Eleven’

I know what you’re thinking: “Sawyer, the last thing we want to listen to is an audiobook about a worldwide pandemic. Been there, done that.” To which I would agree. Even though we’re five years out from the worst of COVID, I feel I could go my whole life without hearing another pandemic story ever again, and I would be just fine.

“Station Eleven” by Emily St. John Mandel is not your average pandemic book, however. Sure, it tells us what happened in the wake of the Georgia Flu that has infected 99% of the population, but much of the story takes place up to 20 years in the future, after society has collapsed and has begun to rebuild. “Station Eleven” is a post-apocalyptic survival story that asks the heavy questions like “What comes next?” and “What does it mean to survive?”

Kirsten Potter is our narrator this time around. Potter speaks life to this book in a different way than some of our past narrators have because “Station Eleven” is written in third-person. We don’t hear a character’s recounting of events but rather an outside view looking in on what is unfolding. This hinders our narrator slightly by being held to this specific perspective, but the story gains a certain charm for the very same reason. Kirsten Potter’s reading starts to feel like a recounting of history in some spots and helps listeners visualize a budding civilization after its initial collapse.

We hear about the experiences of multiple characters and about many different points in time, not necessarily in order. It could be easy to become confused at any point if you happen to zone out. But if you can keep track, you might find the story well worth your time.

If I were to assign a main protagonist to the book, it would be Kirsten Raymonde, a child actor at the onset of the pandemic. She spends the beginning of it fighting for survival until she finds a new home with the members of the Traveling Symphony, travelers who perform Shakespeare for budding settlements to give them a distraction from their daily lives as they try to rebuild something vaguely similar to the world that has been long forgotten.

Meanwhile, we also hear the stories of famed actor Arthur Leander in the lead-up to the pandemic and of paramedic Jeevan Chaudhary as he navigates the early days of the outbreak. The path of our three characters intersects on the night the Georgia Flu makes its way into America. What follows is a well-rounded story of an Earth-shattering event and how people fight to survive in the aftermath.

No post-apocalyptic story would be complete without a classic villain, and none can quite match up to the man known as “The Prophet.” While “Station Eleven” first seems something akin to a ghost story, we end up seeing a dark underbelly that has grown in the shadows of the settlements that have risen since the world’s collapse. And while he isn’t the main focus, The Prophet gives a wonderful contrast to the idealistic members of the Traveling Symphony in this era of ruin and shows that people can react to crisis in all sorts of ways.

All in all, “Station Eleven” is not about a person or even a group of people navigating a crisis; it’s about humanity’s survival and what it means to truly live. Under the surface of the world that is presented to us is a meaningful story that explores the human spirit and the importance of art to humanity.

The very essence of this book is captured by the motto the Traveling Symphony uses to justify its cause: “Survival is insufficient.” And it is a motto I have found myself thinking of in the days after finishing this audiobook. LL