Sea of Tranquility

Book Reviews

Aug 24

Sea of Tranquility
By: Emily St. John Mandel

[Winner for ‘Best Science Fiction’ category of the 2022 Goodreads Choice Awards Reading Challenge]

[On my list of Most Anticipated Books of 2022]

“Turns out reality is more important than we thought.”

So I read ESJM’s Station Eleven 6 years ago and I honestly don’t remember a single thing. I have my short review from then but none of it really stuck with me. Reading Sea of Tranquility was like reading ESJM for the first time… again. But I think with similar results.

I have to admit… it was a bit underwhelming.

It’s one of those books that’s just not for everyone. While it wasn’t my favorite, I can tell there will be a lot of people that really enjoy it and some that don’t care for it at all. I’m somewhere in the middle.

The book is divided into chapters according to timeline.

We’ve got Edwin in 1910.
We’ve got Mirella in 1990s.
We’ve got Olive in 2203. (Where La Quinta hotels are somehow still going strong… invest now, everyone!)
We’ve got Gaspery in 2401.

All the timelines have something in common which is the mystery and climax of the book. It has something to do with time travel if that interests you at all. I won’t get too much into plot here because I’d basically have to describe the entire book to you. Just read the Goodreads summary for that.

ESJM wrote this book during the Covid-19 Pandemic and it shows. In fact, I think everyone’s Covid experiences and attitude toward it in the aftermath will probably dictate a lot of how they relate to this book.

There is a pandemic involved and you’ll find familiar things like masks and lockdowns. In fact one of the characters doesn’t leave their house for over a hundred days.

As I don’t intend to turn this review into a Covid discussion, I’ll just say that this part of the book gave me negative feelings and I didn’t care for the pandemic’s inclusion as it was.

The title of the book, Sea of Tranquility, is named after the feature on the moon of the same name. The moon, in future years, is the location of new settlements because of the inevitable death of Earth yada yada.

What’s weird about the title is that the writing style feels gentle and tranquil, but the content of the book is anything but gentle and tranquil. There are things going on in each time period that are troubling, chaotic, or scary.

Maybe that’s why this book didn’t stand out to me. I felt disjointed and disconnected. The words and the scenes seemed at odds with one another.

A character says, “This is the strange lesson of living in a pandemic: life can be tranquil in the face of death.”

I think it’s possible for this statement to be true, but I don’t believe ESJM provided a satisfactory ‘why’ or ‘how’ in this book. The sentiment seems misplaced here, to me.

The character, Olive, is a writer in the book who has written a book about a pandemic (as one is currently coming to fruition in her real life). She is on a book tour doing interviews and is asked about apocalyptic literature.

(I can only assume the answers she provides to the questions mirrors ESJM’s feelings as a writer writing a book during a pandemic…?)

There is speculation about why people are interested in these apocalyptic books. Is it people’s desire to just start over and do better? Is it a longing for heroism and to be a hero? Is it because we have the narcissistic thought that we’re currently “living at the end of history” and it’s “the worst it’s ever been”?

No. She thinks it’s not “because we’re drawn to disaster but because we’re drawn to what we imagine might come next. We long secretly for a world with less technology in it.”

She also says, “I didn’t want to write about anything real.”

I get the last statement. During the pandemic (and now, I guess) I didn’t particularly like reading pandemic books if they’re too real. I wanted to escape that. I wanted to read books that happened in a world without Covid. I was just over it.

Imagination is a good thing. And I think that’s true that people are drawn to sci-fi and dystopian books because there is world building, new technology, things and places that we’ve never seen or heard of. We do like to imagine what is next.

Why are people drawn to apocalyptic literature? I don’t know. I don’t know if I’m one of them. If I’m reading a book about the end of the world I am most interested in how the heroes are going to stop it from happening. And if they don’t and we’re now living on the moon, it immediately becomes science fiction to me, not a potential reality.

I don’t believe we are at risk of the sun dying or Earth becoming uninhabitable, etc. My belief in God and what the Bible says about His sustaining the world and everything in it gives me confidence to live without that fear. He will uphold his creation and nothing humans can do can thwart that.

So my approach or feeling toward these type of books may be different than a lot of people’s.

And I must say, I don’t know if people are really desperate for a world without technology. Sure, certain parts of technology. Social media can head on out, but I was without Google for a week and it was incredibly frustrating. I have way too many questions to look up. I don’t need bluetooth headphones, self-driving cars, Siri, or email, but by golly, I need my search engine!!

Terri Blackstock wrote a series (The Restoration Collection) that takes place when a global EMP has taken out all electricity and the world is plunged into this unknown. I don’t think I even finished the first book because I was so stressed out reading it. It felt too real. I don’t think we need technology to survive, but I don’t think humanity knows that and the effects of that would truly be a nightmare.

Anyway. Rabbit trail over.

Recommendation

I think this is one of those ‘personal preference’ books. I can’t recommend or discourage anyone reading this book. It may be for you, it may not. It’s not very long, so it’s not a long commitment to try. If you end up not liking it, it will not have cost you much.

There’s not really one thing I can point to as to my general ‘meh’ feeling about it. It’s just this vague sense of disconnectedness from the story and characters and I don’t feel like any of it is going to stick with me for very long.

The ending was a nice surprise, but it just didn’t hit me like I would have anticipated it to. Maybe the book is too lulling? Maybe the settings didn’t feel compelling? Maybe it just felt a bit empty? Maybe the time travel part wasn’t as exciting as I was expecting? Maybe the conflict was too sparse? I really don’t know how to articulate how I feel about it.

Some other reviewers have said it connects a bit to her other books so maybe that would be appealing to someone who is familiar with her work.

I’m thinking her writing style is just not my favorite. I’ve got plenty of other authors to read, but if you already enjoy ESJM, then I would give this a try.

[Content Advisory: moderate swearing; no sexual content; multiple gay/lesbian couples but mostly noted in reference, not any main part of the book]

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