Sunday Duvet Reading - Sea Of Tranquility By Emily St. John Mandel
Dive under the covers with me this weekend and find out what I've been reading this week.
It really feels like someone has flicked a switch - and just like that we’ve moved from days filled with summer sunshine to fall. But if I’m honest, I’m not mad about it. Fall is one of my favourite seasons, defined by warm fires, pumpkin spiced lattes, golden crunchy leaves, Gilmore Girls and best of all - Halloween! Maybe I’m biased - I’m a autumn baby (Hi fellow Libras!). But I find autumn delightful.
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As we warm ourselves under the covers and turn on the heating for the first time in months, grab a cup of tea and let’s get cosy as I discuss my latest read - Sea Of Tranquility By Emily St. John Mandel.
Sea Of Tranquility By Emily St. John Mandel
‘A novel of art, time travel, love, and plague that takes the reader from Vancouver Island in 1912 to a dark colony on the moon five hundred years later, unfurling a story of humanity across centuries and space.
Edwin St. Andrew is eighteen years old when he crosses the Atlantic by steamship, exiled from polite society following an ill-conceived diatribe at a dinner party. He enters the forest, spellbound by the beauty of the Canadian wilderness, and suddenly hears the notes of a violin echoing in an airship terminal--an experience that shocks him to his core.
Two centuries later a famous writer named Olive Llewellyn is on a book tour. She's traveling all over Earth, but her home is the second moon colony, a place of white stone, spired towers, and artificial beauty. Within the text of Olive's best-selling pandemic novel lies a strange passage: a man plays his violin for change in the echoing corridor of an airship terminal as the trees of a forest rise around him.
When Gaspery-Jacques Roberts, a detective in the black-skied Night City, is hired to investigate an anomaly in the North American wilderness, he uncovers a series of lives upended: The exiled son of an earl driven to madness, a writer trapped far from home as a pandemic ravages Earth, and a childhood friend from the Night City who, like Gaspery himself, has glimpsed the chance to do something extraordinary that will disrupt the timeline of the universe.’
My Thoughts
Emily St. John Mandel’s Sea of Tranquility is a multi-layered novel that stretches across centuries, bending time and space to explore the deep and profound connections between people, events, and reality. Known for her skillful blending of genres, Mandel crafts a story that is both speculative and grounded, introspective yet intimate. This novel builds on the themes of her previous works, like Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel, yet stands uniquely on its own as a meditation on time, memory, and human experience.
Sea of Tranquility spans over 500 years, interweaving narratives that take place in different times and locations, yet somehow are linked by a mysterious anomaly. The novel opens in 1912 with Edwin St. John St. Andrew, a young Englishman sent to British Columbia after a family disgrace. While walking in the forest, Edwin experiences a bizarre auditory and visual phenomenon: the sound of a violin, the hum of a futuristic airship, and a fleeting sense of dislocation. His encounter with the anomaly in the forest sets the tone for the novel’s exploration of displacement and existential reflection.
Fast forward to 2020, where Mirella, a character from The Glass Hotel, is struggling with grief after the disappearance of her friend. As she searches for answers, she stumbles upon a video of a violin performance that echoes the strange experience Edwin had centuries before.
The narrative then leaps to the future. Where Olive Llewellyn, a celebrated author from a future lunar colony, currently on a book tour on Earth, grapples with isolation away from her family. Through Olive, Mandel examines the nature of art and storytelling itself, echoing emotions both distant and deeply relatable.
Finally, we are taken even further into the future, where Gaspery-Jacques Roberts, a time-traveling detective is tasked with investigating this time anomaly that threads through history. His journey through time becomes the linchpin of the novel, revealing the deep, interwoven connections between the characters and events across centuries. His investigation into the time anomaly and its impact on the lives of the characters across centuries, leads to a profound realisation about the nature of existence. His journey is one of sacrifice, curiosity, and, ultimately, understanding, making him a deeply compelling character.
At its core, Sea of Tranquility is a novel about time - how it stretches, contracts, and repeats. Through the structure of the novel, Mandel asks profound questions: What is the nature of reality? Are our lives predetermined by the forces of time and space? Is existence itself a simulation, or are we free agents moving through the universe?
One of the most striking aspects of the novel is its exploration of pandemics and isolation. While Mandel wrote Sea of Tranquility during the COVID-19 pandemic, the novel’s treatment of isolation and existential reflection feels timeless.
Olive, an author from a future colony on the moon, writes about a pandemic that mirrors our real-world experience, evoking the unsettling feeling of history repeating itself. Mandel captures the loneliness, fear, and reflection that often come with global crises, making Sea of Tranquility both timely and eerily prescient.
The novel also delves into the idea of simulations, particularly as Gaspery-Jacques investigates whether the universe itself could be a simulation. This concept often the domain of hard science fiction - feels surprisingly accessible and human in Mandel’s hands. Rather than getting lost in the technicalities of time travel and simulations, she focuses on the emotional and philosophical implications: How do we live meaningful lives in the face of uncertainty? If time is malleable, do the choices we make matter?
Mandel’s minimal descriptions often left me wanting, although her prose is as elegant, it felt to restrained and the catalog of characters to broad for the size of the book. Although she leaves the reader to fill in the gaps themselves, I struggled to empathise fully with each character, as our encounters were to brief.
Jumping between centuries and characters—could feel disjointed and confusing at times and this effected the pacing and momentum of the book. Leaving me a little frustrated with the ending, which should have been climatic but left me deflated.
As the title suggests, there’s a stillness at the heart of Sea of Tranquility—a quiet, contemplative exploration of existence. Despite the centuries separating the characters, they are all connected by the same cosmic mystery. This connection suggests that no matter how far apart we are in time or space, our lives intersect in ways we may never fully understand. Mandel’s treatment of this theme is subtle, but it resonates deeply as we see how small moments ripple across centuries, altering the course of lives and realities.
The idea of fate plays heavily into the narrative, with the time-traveling detective Gaspery-Jacques grappling with the question of whether time can be altered. Is there such a thing as free will, or are we all moving along a predetermined path? Mandel leaves much of this up to the reader to ponder, providing a satisfying ambiguity that encourages personal reflection.
Sea of Tranquility is a novel that lingers in the mind, offering no easy answers but inviting the reader to consider the connections between time, memory, and meaning.
For readers of science fiction, literary fiction, or anyone who enjoys a novel that challenges perceptions of time and reality, Sea of Tranquility is an absolute must-read. It’s a quiet, reflective story that ultimately reminds us of the enduring mysteries of existence.
I will say that this genre is not my cup of tea hence my rating of 2 out of 5 stars. I much prefer novels that are deeply descriptive with fully realised characters and for me Sea of Tranquility missed this mark.
Feel like reading Emily St. John Mandel’s Novel sea of Tranquility purchase it here.
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