Sea of Tranquility: A Book Review

I recently had a roadtrip¹ that allowed me to listen to Sea of Tranquility by Emily St John Mandel. Overall, it was a delightful, light read. The audiobook came in at just under 6 hours.

I discovered after I had listened to the story that the author is Canadian. The story’s “not Americism” shows itself in both direct and more subtle ways. For one, the story opens with a young British man in 1912 who, exiled from polite society, goes to Canada: first to Halifax and then to Victoria, and then up the west coast of Vancover Island (rather than, say, an American from New York going to California). More subtly, in the parts set 400 years in the future, Red Deer² gets a nod as a ‘city with shinning towers’ and big enough to be a stop on a worldwide book tour.

Some of the limited bit I’d read about the story before I started in on it suggested it was “Science Fiction”; if it is, it wears it very lightly. Yes, it touchs on time travel (that I’m a bit of a sucker for), but for all it digs into how the science works, it may as well be magic. But overall, it adds well to the story and drives it forward, and is presented well.

The last peice that stood out to be was the despiction of the Covid pandemic. True, this part of the story is set several hundred years in the future, but published in 2022 it is truely is a surprisingly thorough explanation of the emotional realities of what living through the pandemic was like. It touches on “somewhere over there” nature of the first reports, the terror of the unknown and unseen virus when it is first encountered or hinted at in your personal life, the loneliness of lockdown even as we get to spend it with those we love and yet completely isolates us from others we love, the switch to online/virtual meeting and how they were both unable to replace the “real thing” and also more tiring, and finally, the seemingly un-endingness of living through the pandemic. For now, Covid is a recent event and currently well remembered, but I expect in the future it will be helpful to have descriptions like this to explain the emotional experience, perhaps to our children and grandchildren.

Overall, it was a delightful read, and delightfully tied together at the end. It left me feeling hopeful. Indeed, and enjoyable read.