Sea of Tranquility
From the bestselling author of Station Eleven
-
- 8,99 €
-
- 8,99 €
Publisher Description
THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES AND NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
'So wise, so graceful, so rich' - Naomi Alderman, author of The Power
'Ingenious' - Guardian 'One of her finest novels' - New York Times 'Transcendent' - Wall Street Journal
The award-winning author of Station Eleven returns with a story of time travel that precisely captures the reality of our current moment . . .
In 1912, eighteen-year-old Edwin St. Andrew crosses the Atlantic, exiled from English polite society. In British Columbia, he enters the forest, spellbound by the beauty of the Canadian wilderness, and for a split second all is darkness, the notes of a violin echoing unnaturally through the air. The experience shocks him to his core.
Two centuries later Olive Llewelyn, a famous writer, is traveling all over Earth, far away from her home in the second moon colony. Within the text of Olive’s bestselling 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 time, he uncovers a series of lives upended: the exiled son of an aristocrat 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.
Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel is a novel that investigates the idea of parallel worlds and possibilities, that plays with the very line along which time should run. Perceptive and poignant about art, and love, and what we must do to survive, it is incredibly compelling.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
“Plagues, steamships, detectives and time travel! Sign me up! Emily St. John Mandel constructs powerful landscapes to get lost in with sharp, intelligent and intensely drawn characters,” George Stroumboulopoulos says. “I am delighted to have this immensely talented writer from Canada be part of Strombo’s Lit.” In Mandel’s mind-bending novel, a single event ripples through generations. Time-travelling investigator Gaspery-Jacques Roberts has been tasked with looking into an anomaly experienced by three unrelated people over the course of three different centuries. Beginning in 1912, Roberts must visit each period to determine how an English aristocrat, a young girl and a famous author could all have witnessed the same phenomenon—one that left each of them questioning their sight, their sanity and even their own existence. Station Eleven author Mandel masterfully weaves together multiple storylines into one fast-paced read that took us through time and space with unending excitement. We were impressed by the way she incorporates poignant themes of love, humanity and tragedy into one enthralling tale. Sea of Tranquility is a thought-provoking story about the inexplicable ways in which we’re all connected.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Mandel's stunning latest, people find themselves inhabiting different places and times, from early 20th-century Canada to a 23rd-century moon colony. Edwin St. Andrew's wealthy British family banishes him to Canada after his unpatriotic opinions disrupt a dinner party. Walking in the dense forest near tiny Caiette, B.C., in 1912, he suddenly hears haunting violin music and a human bustle. In 2020 Brooklyn, avant-garde composer Paul James Smith shapes a composition around a fragmentary video shot by his late half sister Vincent (both characters appeared in Mandel's The Glass Hotel). Its footage of the forest outside Caiette, where Vincent was raised, is abruptly interrupted by a black screen and a collage of sounds including violin notes, a "dim cacophony" reminiscent of a train station, and "a strange kind of whoosh." Author Olive Llewellyn leaves her home on the moon's second colony in 2203 to promote her bestselling "pandemic novel" on Earth. As a new virus spreads through Australia, she fields questions about a scene in the book, based on personal experience, in which a character listening to violin music in an Oklahoma City airship terminal feels briefly transported to a forest. In 2401, the secretive, powerful Time Institute is concerned by the glitch that Edwin, Vincent, and Olive have all experienced. When they send investigator Gaspery-Jacques Roberts back in time to discover more, the novel's narratives crystallize flawlessly. Brilliantly combining imagery from science fiction and the current pandemic, Mandel grounds her rich metaphysical speculation in small, beautifully observed human moments. By turns playful, tragic, and tender, this should not be missed. Agent: Katherine Fausset, Curtis Brown.
