Mourning a Lost Culture
Jeremy Sabol

18 March 2022

When we are grieving, is it a good idea or a bad idea to engage with art that takes grief to be its subject? Does this help us to cope, or does it rip out whatever stitches we have managed to sew in while we try to bear an unbearable loss? 

I recently read Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven, and then watched the HBO mini-series adaptation. Josh and I were planning to talk about the TV version on this year’s “Dionysus Awards,” but there were so many amazing films to talk about that we just didn't have time to fit it in. 

Both the novel and the series are about disease, death, and dread, and mourning on a global scale. Exactly what we all want more of right now! So why did I love them so much, even though they offer up situations that are painful to imagine? 

Mandel's Station Eleven is about art, and grief, and how the one tries to address the other. The plot involves a pandemic that pretty much ends our contemporary civilization; 20 years later, some people have survived. But there's no more TikTok and no more microwave popcorn and no more penicillin. We follow a group of characters who travel from town to town bringing Shakespeare to the traumatized survivors, and the afterlife of a mysterious graphic novel which many find inspirational, indeed almost mystical.

The novel wrestles with what I would call cultural grief: how do we, how can we, mourn a culture that is gone? By conjuring up a world in which our world has abruptly died, Mandel helps us see what is vital about our world, and what is trivial, what we should hold close and what we should stop valuing. The grief of the survivors provokes us to make decisions about what is truly valuable about the life we are still living, both individually and collectively.

The miniseries does this work, too, impressively. But what's great about the miniseries is its self-reflexivity: it is a work of art that pushes us to reflect on the power of works of art, the power that works of art may have to help us survive the unavoidable losses of being human. 

There's a gorgeous scene in Episode 2 where the protagonist performs a monologue from Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 2. The brilliant performance by Mackenzie Davis as Kirsten, as well as the masterful flashbacks to an earlier traumatic moment in Kirsten’s life, offer an image of productive repetition: maybe art can allow us to relive a horror, and the reliving of that horror gives us some reckoning, some loosening of the grip of trauma; a repetition that—although backward-looking, to a younger self, to a play written in 1604—allows us to have the courage to look forward.

Comments (2)


Tim Smith's picture

Tim Smith

Friday, March 18, 2022 -- 8:57 PM

I liked Salt In My Soul about

I liked Salt In My Soul about Stanford student Mallory Smith who passed in 2017 from cystic fibrosis complicated by an infection of the gram-negative bacteria Burkholderia cenocepacia. The movie runs just over 90 minutes and is based on the book by the same name.

The story brings up issues around life and death, abortion, health care, privilege, and happiness. Not every culture or family could provide like Mallory's family did, nor would any like to try. This was a touching movie about people supporting and a person dying well before her "normal" life span. Mallory's book and this 2022 movie are thought-provoking and philosophical, and I recommend this movie as food for the brain. What is wrong with healthcare, with our society. This movie gives some pointers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSnu6k5emhA

Thanks, Jeremy, for hosting again this year and recommending Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven. I will pick this up and watch this when it comes around my next HBOMax streaming subscription (I've gone to a rotation of subscriptions to limit my monthly cost.)

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Brandasaza's picture

Brandasaza

Wednesday, November 20, 2024 -- 4:51 AM

Mandel's Station Eleven is a

Mandel's Station Eleven is a beautiful story about how art helps us cope with grief and loss. It imagines a world after a pandemic wipes out modern civilization, and survivors cling to things like Shakespeare and a graphic novel for hope and meaning. Both the book and the miniseries make you reflect on what really matters in life and how art can help us survive tough times. If you’re into exploring themes like this, it’s definitely worth checking out! Speaking of meaningful growth, for those focused on their TikTok presence, I’d recommend a solid tiktok followers service to help amplify your creative work—it’s a powerful way to connect with audiences today.

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