Review of "Sea of Tranquility: A Novel" by Emily St. John Mandel

Emily St. John Mandel's previous books, Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel, jump around in time, and Sea of Tranquility does as well. In this novel, though, a time machine is involved.

Mandel's craftily constructed plot revolves around a glitch in spacetime, so that several people - hundreds of years apart - have an audiovisual experience that includes a brief period of darkness and the sound of violin music (that comes from a future time).

The three people who experience the glitch are Edwin St. John St. Andrew; Vincent Smith; and Olive Llewellyn.

🎻 Edwin St. John St. Andrew 🎻



It's 1912, and eighteen-year-old Edwin St. John St. Andrew, who belongs to an aristocratic English family, makes the mistake of criticizing British colonialism at the dinner table. So Edwin, who's the third son in any case, is shipped off to Canada. British aristocrats don't 'work' as such, and Edwin meanders around Canada, meets people, takes drawing lessons, goes for walks, etc. One day Edwin is strolling in the forest when he has an alarming experience under a maple tree, during which it gets dark and he hears violin music.

Edwin feels ill afterwards, and steps into the local church, where he speaks with the priest.



*****

🎻 Vincent Smith 🎻



In the early 2000's, thirteen-year-old Vincent Smith - who likes to film things with her video camera - is living on Vancouver Island. Vincent points her camera up at a tree one day, and captures a clip of a brief period of darkness accompanied by violin music.

Years later, after Vincent dies, her musician brother, Paul Smith, uses Vincent's video to accompany a musical composition he's created. Paul then shows the film clip at his concert.



*****

🎻 Olive Llewellyn 🎻



In 2203, Olive Llewellyn - who lives on a moon colony - is doing a book tour on Earth, to promote the reissue of her pandemic novel, 'Marienbad.' One of the characters in Olive's book has an experience in which it suddenly gets dark and he hears violin music. The implication is that Olive had this experience, and attributes it to her protagonist.

Ironically, while Olive is promoting her pandemic book, a REAL pandemic is spreading from Australia to the rest of humanity.



*****

In the early 2400s, time travel, closely regulated by the Time Institute, has become a reality. Illicit time travel (or even the attempt) is harshly punished, and any tinkering with past events is a HUGE no no.

A young man called Gaspery-Jacques Roberts (GJ) is looking for a new job.....



.....and he approaches his sister Zoey, a brilliant physicist with the Time Institute.



Zoey has been studying the 'Simulation Hypothesis', which postulates that human life is a computer simulation. As it happens, Zoey is aware of the spacetime glitch involving violin music, and she believes this needs to be investigated.

After years of study, GJ becomes a Time Institute detective and 'goes undercover' to look into the glitches mentioned above. GJ travels to 1912 to speak to 18-year-old Edwin; travels to the 2000s to ask Paul Smith about his sister Vincent's video; and travels to the 2200s to interview Olive about the character in her novel.

GJ also interviews a violin player named Alan Sami, who plays his violin in the Oklahoma City Airship Terminal.



During his travels, GJ does something he shouldn't, and the consequences reverberate through the novel. GJ eventually solves the mystery of the glitches, and I thought it was a clever resolution.

Mandel uses lengthy vignettes about her characters to speculate about issues like reality and illusion; life and death; right and wrong; blame and absolution; and other dichotomies. Mandel also touches on issues like what happens during a pandemic; male chauvinism (a man assumes novelist Olive Llewellyn writes children's books); overpopulation (human 'overflow' necessitates colonies on the moon and beyond); and more.



This is a complex story that requires close attention, but it's well worth the effort.

I listened to the audiobook narrated by John Dee, Dylan Moore, Arthur Morey, and Kirsten Potter, who do an excellent job.

Rating: 4 stars