In the High Peaks
















Tuesday, March 31, 2020

A Dystopian Novel? Now? And Other Books and Pastimes

Yes, I know--How crazy is it to pick up a dystopian novel based on the premise of a world-decimating influenza from the Republic of Georgia? Very crazy, I'll admit, but read on. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel was so highly acclaimed after its publication in 2014. It was a finalist for the National Book Award and the Pen/Faulkner Book Award. Station Eleven was also the winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Book Award and the Toronto Book Award. The novel received accolades from dozens and dozens of the best book reviewers around the world.

I bought it back in 2014 for my Nook, but never read it, yet can you believe I turned to it today, while waiting for another book to arrive?
Part of the premise of Station Eleven is little bit of a turn-off for me. The novel focuses partially on a group of troubadors, who wander from the shores of Lake Michigan to the shores of Lake Huron, (and I'm assuming Lake Ontario) to sing rock ballads and perform the plays of Shakespeare.
The world has been decimated by the "Georgian Flu," and after 20 years, life has been stripped down to its barest elements. No gasoline, no petroleum oil fuel, no electricity, no Internet, and the like. I read 50 pages this afternoon and am not yet convinced it's a great book, but I have 280 pages more to go. So it's too early to tell. 
In these times, I can't say I would recommend it to anyone, but I have a perverse trend of mind. And guess what? It's a treat because this post-apocalyptic novel reveals to me that our situation could be so much WORSE!  ha.

Okay, I promised you other books and pastimes.
Last winter I read Winter in Paradise, a wonderfully atmospheric, fun novel by Elin Hilderbrand, set on the island of St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Although St. John and its better-known, larger partner island St. Thomas was decimated by two hurricanes several years ago, Hilderbrand chose her setting there to be years just prior to the hurricanes, before so many businesses were destroyed and were not able to be re-built.

Her second novel in the series, What Happens in Paradise, was published last October 2019, but I have only just purchased it for my Nook. And I'll tell you, I so enjoyed the first novel that I'll thoroughly enjoy immersing myself in the main family drama and in the lives of all of the other characters who were introduced in Winter in Paradise. Looking forward, and Note! These are both COMFORT reads. Highly recommended by yours truly.

Other pastimes: I've been having so much fun telephoning my cousins, a couple each day. What a treat! We get into family history a lot.  The latest debate: What was the severe illness that our grandmother suffered that had her sleeping on the open-air porch at the family farm during the winter of 1922? I had the facts on that one, passed down by my grandmother's sister (my great-aunt Ruth), and all three of my grandmother's daughters, including my mother. It was tuberculosis. And, my grandmother was not alone in this, but when she became pregnant with my mother in 1923, she finally, finally made a full recovery from TB. It's now known that this sometimes happens because of the vast hormonal changes that occur during pregnancy. (My grandfather's first wife died of tuberculosis after only one year of marriage. It is likely that he was a carrier and infected my grandmother, as can happen.)


14 comments:

  1. My father was a long term patient in hospital from the age of 4 to 14 and in the winter their beds were wheeled outside no matter how cold it was. They woke up with snow on the covers. It's a wonder any of them survived! He didn't have TB but the doctors had a fresh air fetish I think.

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    1. Katrina,
      What an experience for your father to have endured--I can't imagine. Do you have any clues as to what the illness was? I'd be very interested to know any info you would like to share. I hope his nurses were kind at least, and that he had companionship.

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  2. I finished Station Eleven about two weeks ago. I will have a blog up soon. I ended up liking it a lot. I am curious what you will ultimately think of it.

    This might be a contrarian take, but I actually did not think that the situation portrayed in that book was all that relevant to today’s crises.

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    1. Hi Brian,
      Relevance may not be the operative word, perhaps. Just, perhaps, a society out-of-sync due to massive dislocations? In any case, I'm not reading it to see parallels. I've been meaning to read it for ages, and now LOADS of people are reading it, so there I am.

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  3. Wow, I did not know that pregnancy can sometimes cure TB. That's amazing.

    Funny, I said to Peter the other day that what we're going through could easily be so much worse. I'm not a great lover of dystopian novels but I've read enough to know that that is a 'fact'.

    Just finished Iron Lake, I think this is the start of a new series for me, loved it.

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    1. Hi Cath,
      I don't think that pregnancy cures TB. From what I've been told, in my grandmother's case, she was languishing along, she got pregnant, and somehow or other her health really started to improve. I'm hypothesizing that the vast, climatic hormonal changes that occur during pregnancy may have boosted her immune system somehow. In any case, it's true, she was not doing better (although not critical) and then she was much better.
      And Cath!! That's a fact and a good reason to indulge in dystopian reads if that's one's thing. You are so, so right--It could be so much worse!!! (as if it isn't bad enough.)
      I just finished Iron Lake, Ken is very close to finishing and is so loving it. We'll both be moving on to the next in the series for sure.

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    2. Ah right, thanks for the explanation, or at least the theory. LOL

      Yes, I'm certainly going to read more in the Cork Corcoran series, wonderful sense of place and 'winter' and, well, it was excellent.

      Just reading your reply to Tracy about buying books. I'm so with you. I'm just buying the books I want for my Kindle and not even trying to justify it. We're in lockdown, I can't go to the library, things are grim out there so I'm in here with my books and my knitting and I really don't care how much I spend on books, within reason. Like you said, we're not spending on anything else anyway...

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  4. The TB story reminds me that I want to read The Magic Mountain, though I'm not sure I can muster the concentration to do it now! Not usually a fan of dystopian novels, but I did like Station Eleven. I also enjoyed the first book in that Hilderbrand series. Hope the second is just as good!

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    1. Oh, JoAnn, it is so sad that I actually read halfway through The Magic Mountain and got terribly distracted by other books and did not continue. Aargh... I will always regret doing that. I enjoyed what I read, but I think I might have been a bit discouraged when I was only halfway through and so much more to go.

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    2. JoAnn,
      I meant to add that I'm happy to hear that you liked Station Eleven. I'm finding it a bit of a slog at 75 pages, but I'm determined to move forward with it until the end. Your post was the boost I needed to keep going.

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  5. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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    1. This was a duplicate comment, no doubt a Blogger hiccup!

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  6. I loved Station Eleven when I read it last year. Right now I am looking into other books of hers that I can get. Although I should not be buying books but I will be getting them from the local bookstore.

    I am commenting from my tablet which I haven't done before, hope it works.

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    1. Tracy,
      Your tablet is working well, it seems. I'm now exactly a third of the way through Station Eleven, and I'm more interested than I was at 75 pages, so we'll see. I imagine this comes together, so I'll put trust in that.
      When I think about my current book purchases and other items purchased lately, I realize we can't spend money in restaurants anymore, we can't drive places anymore, we're saving money from that. How's that for justifying book purchasing? I can go out on a limb when it comes to that.

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