Sea of Tranquility is an epic, moving novel
Despite its short page count, this book tells a deep, resounding story about time and reality
Emily St. John Mandel’s Sea of Tranquility is a beautifully-written novel about the future and reality. It poses substantially more questions than it answers, is filled with interesting characters, and tells a wide-ranging story in a little over 220 pages. I waited for this book eagerly ever since I learned about its existence and I’m happy to say that it met every expectation I had. It’s one of those rare stories that succeeds on nearly every level.
Mandel has been revered as an author for some time now, but capitalized on a boost of popularity from her most famous novel Station Eleven being adapted into an HBO Max show. The show itself was excellent (the book is even better) and it seems likely that all the positive buzz made Sea of Tranquility even more hotly-anticipated. These two novels share Mandel’s excellent prose and thoughtful takes on world-ending disasters, cementing her status as one of the premier authors currently writing.
Minor spoilers follow below, but I won’t touch on the big reveals later in the book.
The first thing to note about Sea of Tranquility is that its narrative jumps across centuries quickly and frequently. There are chapters set in the 20th, 21st, and 22nd centuries, involving pandemics, the First World War, and time travel. Characters from Mandel’s earlier work The Glass Hotel feature in the story as well, a cool nod to readers of her back catalog (though this novel is definitely stand-alone).
Despite a premise that involves extraterrestrial colonies and time travel, Sea of Tranquility is very much not a work of hard science fiction or even overtly technical at all. Mandel’s skill as a writer lies in her ability to dive deep into the minds of her characters and tell stories about their lives and interactions. Similar to Station Eleven, that’s the kind of story on the pages here. Everything makes sense and there’s a logic to the world, but Tranquility is certainly a human story instead of a technological one.
However, that being said, there are some pretty huge questions posed near the end of the book that help drive the plot toward its final conclusion. There are multiple reveals on the scale of a Christopher Nolan movie and I found myself with my jaw hanging open several times as I reached the final chapters. Given the scale of what happens in the story, it’s deeply impressive that this book is only roughly 220 pages. I’ve read many much longer books that had far less cohesive narratives.
Mandel’s wry sense of humor is also clearly present in Sea of Tranquility as well. Take this excerpt, where a character who is an author reflects on her book that is (a) about a pandemic and (b) has been adapted for screens:
“Well,” Olive said, “I’m traveling because of a novel called Marienbad. It’s about a pandemic.”
“That’s your most recent?”
“No, I’ve written two others since then. But Marienbad’s being made into a film, so I’m on tour for a new edition.”
And as a historian, I thought some of her observations on our attitudes toward history (near the end of the book) were particularly insightful:
“I think, as a species, we have a desire to believe that we’re living at the climax of the story. It’s a kind of narcissism. We want to believe that we’re uniquely important, that we’re living at the end of history, that now, after all these millennia of false alarms, now is finally the worst that it’s ever been, that finally we have reached the end of the world.”
Human nature can be so strange. We all want to place ourselves at the center of the narrative, no matter what narrative we’re thinking of.
All in all, I have no complaints about Sea of Tranquility and it’s easily one of the best books I’ve read this year. I’m still stunned by how short it is — I flew through the book in less than a week, but felt that its story was on the scope of a much longer novel. I can’t wait to read whatever Mandel writes next.
Notes:
- I wrote about Station Eleven (the book) back in the semi-early days of the covid-19 pandemic. I was a big fan of the show, too, and I think the story is one that everyone should experience in some form.
- I had some critical things to say about The Glass Hotel when I read it last, but I think I need to give it another shot. I think what I perceived as flaws are just features of Mandel’s writing and perhaps I’ll see attributes I missed the first time around.
- I’m not sure what book I’ll read next (I have a few options to choose from), but I’m extremely excited for the new Obi-Wan Kenobi show coming out tomorrow. It hasn’t been long since the last Star Wars content came out, but (as many have pointed out), this is a banner year for new shows on Disney+.
The views expressed are mine alone and do not represent the views of my employer or any other person or organization.
