Sea of Tranquility – Emily St. John Mandel
100-Word (or Less) Synopsis: A strange event witnessed by three people over three hundred years becomes the focus of an organization exploring the meaning of life (or are they?)
Expectation: Highbrow science fiction.
Reality: Science fiction almost takes a backseat to this moving examination of relationships and fate.
Recommended For: Fans of Emily St. John Mandel’s previous novels.
Why I Read It: “Station Eleven” was one of my top reads of 2021.
My Take:
Mark it: “Sea of Tranquility” will become the love it or loathe it book of 2022.
While currently sitting with a 4.30 rating on Goodreads (with 8,600 reviews), its non-linear structure, sci-fi sensibilities, and ambiguous answers to questions central to the plot won’t sit right with some readers.
I was not one of those readers.
While the first quarter of the slim novel left me confused, in “Part 3: Last Book Tour on Earth,” Emily St. John Mandel started to build the world, answer (and raise questions) and provide meta Easter eggs for her fans.
The final minutes of that chapter propelled the rest of the story forward, and I could not put it down. This was also thanks in part to the phenomenal full-cast narration by John Lee, Dylan Moore, Kirsten Potter and Arthur Morey. While each of them elevated the text, Potter is the standout here, rooting Olive Llewellyn in the humanity needed to care about the story.
If you remotely like science fiction, or were a fan of St. John Mandel’s previous novels, I highly recommend giving this one a try.
[spoilers ahead – do not read on if you haven’t finished the book]
What I appreciated about “Station Eleven” is how St. John Mandel took multiple narratives and seamlessly tied them together over time and distance. She does that here, too, but rather than a few decades it is hundreds of years of interwoven moments all framed around a single situation: a shared experience, or anomaly, of violin music in an airship terminal witnessed in 1912, the mid-1990s and the 2100s.
How could people that lived centuries apart all experience the same thing? Finding the answer to that question is the responsibility of Gaspery-Jacques Roberts, a moon colonist and investigator for the Time Institute.
When time travel (think “Back to the Future”) and simulations (think “The Matrix”) were brought forward as the possible culprits of the anomaly, I was let down. Couple that with a similar plot and characters from her previous novels making appearances, it started to appear St. John Mandel was a one trick pony.
Where Science Fiction Meets Literary Fiction
My doubts were quickly pushed aside, however, because this isn’t a science fiction novel or a retread of “Station Eleven” or “The Glass Hotel.” It’s a broad in scope, yet intimate story about philosophy, connection and choice.
Rather than try to explain time travel and physics, she instead focuses on the people that experienced the anomaly and what happened to them because of it. I was moved by Gaspery’s efforts to help these individuals, even though it came at a great personal cost.
For someone who felt like a minor character for more than half of the book, he became its moral center — and somewhat of a hero — by the end. His visits to Edwin St. Andrew, Olive Llewellyn and Vincent Alkaitis added a layer of emotion to a story that could’ve felt cold and distant.
Of all the characters, Olive was my favorite. As mentioned above, Olive appeared as a proxy for St. John Mandel, and through the character we learn about the champagne problems — all tongue in cheek — of being a bestselling author with an adaptation in the works.
After fleeing Earth at the insistence of Gaspery, she survives the latest pandemic and grabbles with that guilt during lockdown and working from home. Many of us will find these experiences relatable, even though we don’t live on a moon colony or give lectures for a living. It shows how skilled St. John Mandel is at tapping into shared experiences.
This relatability, the central mystery and some well-placed details — like Gaspery, who lives in 2401 owning a cat from 1985 (a wink to “Back to the Future,” perhaps?) — shows the author is in on the joke, and wants us all to have fun while analyzing how much control we truly have over our fate.
She is the literary ABBA — thoughtful and kind of depressing but with a shiny gloss.
The Unanswered Questions
Rather than rehash every plot point or character in detail, I do want to discuss a few of the questions that St. John Mandel leaves open to interpretation (at least by me):
First, why did Gaspery warn Olive about her impending death when he was explicitly told not to, and second, was it all a simulation or simply time travelers causing the anomaly?
I don’t think Gaspery intentionally set out to save Olive, as her death would not have impacted his life. Her novel, “Marienbad,” which was adored by his mother and gave him his name, was already released.
But, when faced with her — a person that played such an important role in his childhood — and knowing her impending fate, he had to intervene. This raises questions about his fitness as an agent for the Time Institute.
With the Time Institute — and the second question of simulation or time travel — it felt like St. John Mandel was tapping into the increased reliance on conspiracy theories to explain away situations that challenge or make us uncomfortable.
A shadow organization that hunts down and penalizes those breaking laws? A group of scientists focused on solving a problem for which they are the cause? You don’t have to dig too deep to see the parallels to many popular narratives around COVID-19, U.S. elections and 9/11.
The Time Institute knows there’s no simulation — and its technology created the anomaly, but they need people to believe it is a truth-seeking entity. If not, there would be no reason for it to exist. St. John Mandel let “good” prevail while delivering a diatribe on overconfidence, bureaucracy and with-us-or-against-us policies.
Rating (story): 5/5 stars
Rating (narration): 5/5 stars
Formats: Audiobook (library loan)
Dates read: April 19 – April 21, 2022
Multi-tasking: Okay. The beauty is in the details when it comes St. John Mandel’s writing, so if you’re not able to pay close attention to the story, it won’t resonate as strongly.
