Book Club Discussion Post: Station Eleven

Welcome to the Cannonball Read Book Club discussion of Station Eleven! I’m so excited that so many of you have decided to take on Station Eleven in time to have a discussion about the book. Let’s start with a few ground rules:

• Since we’re anticipating lots of conversation, please try your best to reply directly to each other, that way they are alerted and can keep discussing!
• Discussion is the important word. Let’s have a conversation (or as close a facsimile as we can in the comments section) so try to keep the thoughts flowing and give your fellow readers something to respond to.
• Please reference the topic number you are responding to (if you are) so other Cannonballers can hunt up the topics they want to discuss with you.
• Not that I’m expecting to need to, but be warned that I retain the right to delete any comments which go beyond the normal civil banter we have here at Cannonball Read. Consider yourselves warned.

I also have to mention that Canadian Cannonballers (and friends) can still enter a raffle for one of three copies of Station Eleven. Visit Rafflecopter to get in on this March 11 drawing, sponsored by HarperCollins Canada.

Now that the boilerplate and raffle are out of the way, let’s get into the book clubbing! As a refresher, here are the initial topics I posted back in February. I’ve numbered them for your convenience. If one of these catches your eye, get to chatting! I’ll be starting things off in the comments with #3.

Topics for Discussion:

1. Did you find the shifts between pre and post-apocalypse to be an effective storytelling technique? How about changing character perspectives?
2. Why do you think Station Eleven has been so successful when there are many other novels in a similar vein out there right now?
3. Does the novel have a main character? Who would you consider it to be?
4. How do Shakespearean motifs coincide with those of Station Eleven, both the novel and the comic?
5. What is the metaphor of the Station Eleven comic books? How does the Undersea connect to the events of the novel?
6. Certain items turn up again and again, for instance the comic books and the paperweight—things Arthur gave away before he died, what point is Mandel making?
7. Different characters we meet have different opinions about teaching children about the pre-collapse world. What are the benefits of remembering, and of forgetting?
8. Because we don’t know what happened to Kirsten in her first year on the road, did it affect your experience of reading the book?
9. The novel ends with Clark, remembering the dinner party and imagining that somewhere in the world, ships are sailing. Why did Mandel choose to end the novel with him?

So fellow ‘ballers, what did you think?