好書推薦： “Station Eleven” by Emily St. John Mandel

“Survival is insufficient.” 

Station Eleven。 這應該不能算是一本科幻小說，但故事的確以末世為背景：在一個寒冬雪夜，一場凶猛的致命流感襲卷了整個世界，在短短的兩三周裏，99.9%的人類被wiped out，我們習以為常的文明世界也就此奔潰。 

故事在世界崩毀前後來回切換。 人物頗為繁雜：好萊塢明星Arthur Leander和他的好友Clark丶前妻（們）Miranda和Elizabeth丶Elizabeth的兒子Tyler丶以及小演員Kristen丶狗仔隊Jeevan。。。隨著情節發展，他們各自的人生軌道也交織在一起。 隻是因為角色太多，每一個都著墨不夠，刻畫得有欠深刻，叫我覺得他們像是熟人，但不夠真的深切認識。

災難二十年後，Kristen和一群幸存者組成的音樂兼話劇團在五大湖區徒步而行，遇到殘留的村落就演出交響樂和莎士比亞戲劇，因為劇團的格言就是“Survival is insufficient.”  每到一地，村民們從破敗的生存中暫時抽離，含著熱淚享受演出。 然而，他們遇到了一個被邪教控製的村落，前麵的道路險情遍佈。。。

這本書的情節推進比較弱，科幻也少的可憐，作者的更側重的是人文探討。 當世界停擺丶文明中止，幸存的我們被迫重回蠻荒時代，沒有水丶沒有電丶沒有汽油丶沒有網絡丶沒有城市丶沒有科技和醫療。 為了求生存就必須狩獵丶步行丶武裝自己丶也要隨時防範被攻擊被屠殺。。。 重新適應一個充滿危機險惡的世界。 但僅僅是生存，人和動物又有何區別？ 哪些文化會被傳承下去？ 高雅的貝多芬第九交響樂和莎士比亞戲劇，沒沒無聞的漫畫（貫穿整部書的線索就是Arthur第一任妻子Miranda畫的叫“Station Eleven”太空站的漫畫）丶甚至被我們不齒的狗仔隊gossip雜誌。。。都有可能被當成寶貝。 

Mandel的文筆溫柔細膩，沒有什麽驚天動地的情節，沒有自相殘殺的血腥描寫，連末日時的混亂和失控都淡化。 但淡淡的哀愁貫穿著全書，Mandel借書中人物，以詩意的語言，柔情傾訴對過往的緬懷丶對人生的反思丶對未來的希冀。 在這凋敝的世界，即使籠罩在死亡的陰影下，仍然有一種淒愴的美，一種脆弱的珍貴。 被植物盤據的宅第丶布滿鐵鏽的汽車丶機場一字排開永遠不能起飛的飛機丶停了二十年大塞車的高速公路。。。都那麽有畫麵感。 那本科幻漫畫Station Eleven的水下世界，在舊世界的甜美和新世界的殘酷中苟且，正和殘破的現實同樣哀傷而無奈。 讀起來非常吸引人，真的很喜歡。

Quotes:

“Hell is the absence of the people you long for.” 

 

“I stood looking over my damaged home and tried to forget the sweetness of life on Earth.” 

 

“First we only want to be seen, but once we’re seen, that’s not enough anymore. After that, we want to be remembered.” 

 

“No more Internet. No more social media, no more scrolling through litanies of dreams and nervous hopes and photographs of lunches, cries for help and expressions of contentment and relationship-status updates with heart icons whole or broken, plans to meet up later, pleas, complaints, desires, pictures of babies dressed as bears or peppers for Halloween. No more reading and commenting on the lives of others, and in so doing, feeling slightly less alone in the room. No more avatars.” 

 

“She had never entirely let go of the notion that if she reached far enough with her thoughts she might find someone waiting, that if two people were to cast their thoughts outward at the same moment they might somehow meet in the middle.” 

 

“It was gorgeous and claustrophobic. I loved it and I always wanted to escape.” 

 

“Jeevan found himself thinking about how human the city is, how human everything is. We bemoaned the impersonality of the modern world, but that was a lie, it seemed to him; it had never been impersonal at all. There had always been a massive delicate infrastructure of people, all of them working unnoticed around us, and when people stop going to work, the entire operation grinds to a halt. No one delivers fuel to the gas stations or the airports. Cars are stranded. Airplanes cannot fly. Trucks remain at their points of origin. Food never reaches the cities; grocery stores close. Businesses are locked and then looted. No one comes to work at the power plants or the substations, no one removes fallen trees from electrical lines. Jeevan was standing by the window when the lights went out.” 

 

“The thing with the new world,” the tuba had said once, “is it’s just horrifically short on elegance.” 

 

“We traveled so far and your friendship meant everything. It was very difficult, but there were moments of beauty. Everything ends. I am not afraid.” 

 

“Do you remember when we were young and gorgeous?” 

 

“Toward the end of his second decade in the airport, Clark was thinking about how lucky he’d been. Not just the mere fact of survival, which was of course remarkable in and of itself, but to have seen one world end and another begin. And not just to have seen the remembered splendors of the former world, the space shuttles and the electrical grid and the amplified guitars, the computers that could be held in the palm of a hand and the high-speed trains between cities, but to have lived among those wonders for so long. To have dwelt in that spectacular world for fifty-one years of his life. Sometimes he lay awake in Concourse B of the Severn City Airport and thought, “I was there,” and the thought pierced him through with an admixture of sadness and exhilaration.”