Emily May's Reviews > Sea of Tranquility

“Isn’t that why we’re here? To leave a mark on wilderness?”

I was one of the few readers (or so it seemed) left underwhelmed by Mandel's Station Eleven when I read it back in 2014. The hype and gushing reviews seemed at odds with the very okay novel I read, which is why I passed on reading The Glass Hotel.

Now I'm wondering: should I go back and read the author's other stuff? Because I have to admit I found Sea of Tranquility riveting and beautiful.

From what I remember, it is not stylistically that different to Station Eleven-- both are quiet, slow-build stories-- but I found the characters here fascinating and the exploration of both the simulation theory and what, if anything, that means for humans, deeply moving.

We begin with several chapters (or "Parts") of seemingly unrelated characters and stories, each set in a very different time and place-- Edwin arrives in Canada in the year 1912, Mirella goes to speak to the brother of an estranged old friend in 2020 NYC, Olive visits Earth for a book tour in 2203, scientists investigate the theory that the world is a simulation in 2401. Similar motifs appear in each story and it is clear they are linked, but how?

As the stories weave together and overlap, we begin to see the recurring theme in each one until it all comes together in a big picture at the end.

I really enjoyed it. There is this nostalgic quality to Mandel's writing that made me feel like I was revisiting places I'd been long ago, even though I obviously hadn't. I don't know if all the pandemic subplots were strictly necessary and I think the author could have achieved the same goal without that being a recurring theme, but this is a small complaint.

The novel touches upon the big questions like the meaning of it all and the nature of reality, as well as exploring the human obsession with the end of the world:

“I think, as a species, we have a desire to believe that we’re living at the climax of the story. It’s a kind of narcissism. We want to believe that we’re uniquely important, that we’re living at the end of history, that now, after all these millennia of false alarms, now is finally the worst that it’s ever been, that finally we have reached the end of the world.”

And, in the end, it all seems to be saying that maybe there is no meaning, maybe none of it's real, whatever that means, maybe the world is always ending, and maybe the real question is: does it even matter?