Printed text is extremely important within Station Eleven. Books are highly valuable in their many different forms in the post-collapse world. Kirsten’s prized possessions are the “Dr. Eleven” graphic novels, and she maintains a collection of tabloid clippings. August collects poetry books and TV Guides to remind him of the past, and the Symphony carefully guards its copies of Shakespeare’s plays. Books symbolize knowledge, a connection with the pre-collapse world, and an escape from the horrors of the post-collapse world. For a younger generation, they are one of the only ways of connecting with the modern world they cannot remember. Books also represent an effort to build civilization back up, as the town of New Petoskey maintains a growing library and prints a newspaper. The book Dear V, which publishes Arthur’s letters to his friend Victoria, exhibits a final way that books function within the novel. This book shows the way that a publication can impact people (it is extremely painful for Arthur and damaging for his friends and acquaintances), and it shows how the printed word contributes to what is remembered and what will be forgotten.
Books Quotes in Station Eleven
"You're always half on Station Eleven," Pablo said during a fight a week or so ago, "and I don't even understand your project. What are you actually going for here?"
…
"You don't have to understand it," she said. "It's mine."
“No one ever thinks they're awful, even people who really actually are. It's some sort of survival mechanism."
“I think this is happening because it was supposed to happen." Elizabeth speaks very softly.
"I'd prefer not to think that I'm following a script," Miranda says.
I was thinking about the island. It seems past-tense somehow, like a dream I had once. I walk down these streets and wander in and out of parks and dance in clubs and I think "once I walked along the beach with my best friend V., once I built forts with my little brother in the forest, once all I saw were trees" and all those true things sound false, it's like a fairy tale someone told me. I stand waiting for lights to change on corners in Toronto and that whole place, the island I mean, it seems like a different planet.
I’ve been thinking about immortality lately. … They're all immortal to me. First we only want to be seen, but once we're seen, that’s not enough anymore. After that, we want to be remembered.
“Well, it's nice that at least the celebrity gossip survived.'"
Books Symbol Timeline in Station Eleven
