Hi, everyone. I'm new to the sub. I've read the rules and tried to format everything as listed. If I need to fix anything up, lmk!
I purchased Sea of Tranquility on a whim from my local bookstore last year. I'd never even heard of Emily St. John Mandel or her works, and bought this book because the cover and the summary on the inside of the jacket drew me in. I did a test read of the first few chapters and wanted to read more, so I blew $25 with the sure feeling that I was buying a book I was going to like.
I was wrong.
I tried very hard to like this book, and for the first 35 or so pages that was Remittance (AKA Edwin St. Andrew's point-of-view) I actually enjoyed myself, and then I spent the rest of the 225 pages wondering when I was going to like the story again. I'm going to very quickly go over what I didn't like about Sea of Tranquility:
1. The Dialogue
Oh my god, it's bad. Actually, that feels a bit mean-spirited and inaccurate. Most of the dialogue is inoffensive; it has hardly any personality, granted, but it's fine. But when it IS bad, it's bad. I have no idea how Emily St. John Mandel went from writing perfectly readable lines like:
"I think I've had enough of this place […] I thought I could make a go of it here, but if you're going to leave England, surely there's something to be said for actually leaving England." (p. 21)
And then in the very next section (which is supposed to take place in a year Mandel actually lived through) write dialogue like this:
"I never told you this story? It's epic. Her husband has a secret second family." "Seriously? What a soap opera." (p. 41)
The dialogue from characters that live in the future is especially bad. Almost all of it is sluggish, cold, and lacking in any feeling or naturalness. None of the characters talk like people. I think the absolute worst example, which was so bad I actually stopped reading to message my friend like, 'wtf was this?', was the four-year-old daughter of Ephraim, who says:
"If her parents loved her […] it would have felt like the end of the world." (the context is that her and her father find a grave of another four-year-old girl)
UGH!
2. The Characters
This is actually mostly about Olive Llewellyn, who I hated. She contributes what feels like absolutely nothing to the plot, and naturally takes up a good quarter of the book's limited pages. There's one stylistic aspect I liked about the writing, and it's that each point of view's chapters are broken up in ways that reflect the character; it's actually pretty excellent characterization. Olive is a fatigued, self-pitying writer, however, so this means her entire section gets no chapter breaks. Isolated, I enjoy how this can exhaust a reader, kinda putting you in Olive's shoes in a way.
But Olive isn't likable. She spends so much of her inner monologue feeling sorry for herself and she never develops past this point. And the book and its characters treat Olive like she's SO IMPORTANT, so integral to the plot, that a main character gets into quite a lot of trouble for a decision he makes regarding Olive… and this leaves an especially bad taste in my mouth because Olive is basically Emily St. John Mandel's self insert. Olive is a writer who has become well-known because of a book she wrote that heavily features a pandemic (it sucks, by the way. They give you several excerpts from this fake book in the novel and it sucks),>! and now she has to live through a pandemic. !<She is also married to a man and has a young daughter. Mandel is also a writer who has become well-known because of a book she wrote that heavily features a pandemic (Station Eleven), had to then live through COVID-19, and, when she wrote Sea of Tranquility, was married to a man and has a young daughter (she is apparently divorced now).
The fact that Olive is such a bore while also being a core plot point while also being the author's very blatant self-insert character bogs down the story so much that I can't even get into the other characters too much because I have spent so much time talking about why I hated Olive.
Gaspery was okay, Mirella was overly judgemental and kinda mean but at least sympathetic, Edwin was the only character I can say I liked in any way that matters. Moving on…
3. The Plot
I've been typing for way too long now, and I know this is already a lot to read for a Reddit post, so I will attempt to keep it brief UNLIKE OLIVE WHO WANTS YOU TO KNOW HOW TIRED SHE IS EVERY THREE SENTENCES FOR LIKE 70 PAGES. I don't think the plot's concept was bad, obviously I thought it was a good concept or I wouldn't have paid $25 to read it.
But it's potential is squandered. It doesn't even begin in earnest until page 102, out of 255 pages. It gives the novel almost no time to actually do anything, and by the time things actually got interesting for me, the book was over! And the foreshadowing is SO bad, you can tell exactly what is going to happen by page 45, which means you get to read roughly 60 more pages knowing where this is going, wondering when the hell it's actually going to get going. The world-building is so lazy too. Everything about the futuristic world in Sea of Tranquility feels sluggish, and untethered.
The author thinks that cellphones won't be called cellphones 200+ years in the future, but she doesn't want to think up a name. So they're called "devices" instead, which makes for insanely clunky and awkward dialogue. The author brings up in the very beginning the theme of colonialism and its horrors, but she doesn't want to write a book about that, she wants to write a book ostensibly about how sad Olive Llewllyn is, so the colonization of the moon and space beyond isn't explored in the slightest. She wants the Moon Colonies to feel dystopian but she doesn't want the characters to see it as dystopian, but she doesn't want to commit too much to either view and so it's just one big SLOG to read through.
There's a lot more I could say here, but if I said them we'd be here for an eternity when I've already been here forever, lol. It took me several days to write up this post. I guess there's something to be said about a book that made me type this much, even if I came out thinking it wasn't very good. But now I have to ask: have any of you read Sea of Tranquility? Did YOU like it? I really feel like I wasted money here, and I may donate it to a bookstore or something. But I want to hear your thoughts!
Next up on my list is The Wind Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami. I hope to god that I like that book more.
by StarCrossedRoad
27 Comments
Yeah I agree with you, those first few pages had me hooked, there were hallmarks of a *good* novelist / prose stylist but those things get lost in the mess as the book gets going. Likewise feel the same in regard to how unimaginative the distant future felt and the plot went exactly where you’d anticipate it going.
If you’re curious at trying a book with some similar concepts, David Mitchell’s *Cloud Atlas* is solid.
Hyperion by Dan Simmons and Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell do a much better job of what the author was trying to accomplish in Sea of Tranquility. Interconnected stories that tackle multiple themes while also having an overreaching message.
This is super interesting because it’s probably one of my favorite books I’ve read this year. I don’t have anything to add except that I felt the opposite on a lot of your feelings toward this book. 😛
I enjoyed it so much, I read The Glass Hotel which is strangely connected to Sea of Tranquility. I did not enjoy it as much and felt it really dragged. But for some reason Sea of Tranquility kept me captivated.
I haven’t read this one, but Mandel’s *Last Night in Montreal* was required reading for my grad school program and I quite enjoyed it.
Sea of Tranquility was Sci-fi for people who don’t want to say they’ve read any sci-fi—like, it can’t be Real Literature if it’s sci-fi, so remove any workdbuilding beyond 21st century America but it’s on the moooooooon!
Agree with the Cloud Atlas comments—it was like that plus the most boring version of a Becky Chambers novel (who is awesome) and then stripped of anything that might make a potential reader think, Oh: this is “genre” not Literature.
I think your review is accurate.
I’m actually super glad you wrote this post bc after I read this book I was like… really, that’s it? But all I could find were glowing reviews.
I found it to be kind of a standard-issue time travel story with some not very interesting characters. Agree w you that the olive parts dragggged – like, we get it, staying in hotels is tiresome, meeting with fans is exhausting. More of same. Also it’s about a pandemic that happens 200 years in the future that somehow manages to be… exactly like our pandemic? The future parts really lacked imagination, imo. There were one or two interesting elements, but mostly it just felt like the suburbs of Cleveland, but on the moon.
I guess the thing that bugged me the most was that the book didn’t really seem to be about anything. It sort of read like a Message book, like it was building up to some really big idea about modern life or what it means to be human but never got there. What was the point, exactly? Travel is tiring? Being at home is nice?
My least favorite book I’ve read this year and honestly maybe the first that I’ve read and said “I can’t believe I paid for this.”
Isn’t there a instance where an interviewer is shocked Olive is on a book tour with a child at home? That, as a woman, she should be home taking care of her daughter? I didn’t find that to be a believable situation in the year 2400 or whatever it was. There were a few “future” moments I found unbelievable. Like the man begging for loose change. Little details or lack of imagination that distracted me from the story.
Reminds me of my frustrations with *Station Eleven*, which I DNF’d.
I didn’t like this book and I also didn’t like Station Eleven….both books that get heavy praise here. I tried twice with this author and I think it’s safe to say I’m done for some time.
This is surprising because I really loved this book. Sorry you didn’t like it.
I haven’t read Sea of Tranquility yet, but I read The Glass Hotel and I watched Station Eleven and I St John Mandel is perhaps the most overrated writer alive.
what’s with all of the strikethrough sentences? is the wind up bird chronicle not actually the next book on your list?
I haven’t read the book but I don’t find anything particularly bad about the selected dialogue.
So I read Station Eleven and decided to read Glass Hotel and Sea of Tranquility due to their minor connections.
Was disappointed in them and do not recommend reading the books. FYI. Station Eleven series was changed in major ways from the book. Don’t recommend the series either. Although the main actress fit the character.
If you want a *good* book about time travelling characters wandering around having misadventures over a number of time periods but with like, a plot, and character development, and research, I’d try *To Say Nothing of the Dog*
How did you feel about Station Eleven? I love, love, love Station Eleven. AND ALSO I was quite meh on The Glass Hotel! So, I’m trying to decide whether to try Sea of Tranquility.
I’m a huge fan of her work and have read them all. I think she falls outside the category of a traditional writer and see her somewhere between novelist and poet, and view her work as somewhat akin to tone poem(s). Her sparse descriptions have just enough for me to paint my own internal vision of what is being described, for me it’s like the difference between Sumi paintings and French Classical Realism. Her prose is light as a feather but fully composed, and carefully wrought. I’ve re-read Sea of Tranquility and when I learned Glass Hotel (now in production for Netflix I think) I re-read that too, and that did help round out some of the characters. But I’m a big fan of films of the same nature, like Lost in Translation, or something like Aftersun, where not a whole lot is going on, and you have to fill in with your own personal history and encounters. I think her books are a breath of fresh air! It’s not the science or scene but the feelings she generates for me.
it’s an awful book, i agree
I read it.
Got to the end and was like ‘Is that it? ‘.
Not nearly as a a strong reaction as you, but 100% agree that it seemed like a novela that was filled in with Olive to make it a book.
I read Station Eleven and Sea of Tranquility and both mostly depressed me. She does have some parts that are beautifully written, but overall I didn’t love them. It’s probably partly because of reading them post Covid and just too close to reality!
She’s one of my favorite novelists—but Sea of Tranquility is my least favorite. I mostly agree with your assessments. Sea just felt clunky to me. I sorta suspected it might have been because she’s gotten to this level as a writer where her name is enough to sell books, so she just phoned that one in. Glass Hotel is my favorite. I’ve read it twice. I also really liked The Singer’s Gun.
I tried it but I could get past pg 50. I suffered enough finishing Station Eleven, why punish myself with more of the same. Her style clearly isn’t for me.
I feel like these gripes apply to all of her works. I read Station Eleven but honestly wanted to quit halfway through–then tried Last Night in Montreal and did quit. Her style/dialogue is offputting to me.
The twist/reveal at the end made me regret reading the book; Mandel has simply lifted that from the Star Trek: Next Generation finale “All Good Things”, where the Enterprise investigates an anomaly in space and time and – guess what – it’s the Enterprise’s crew’s presence at that area in space but at different periods in time that causes the anomaly!
Huge fan of the Glass Hotel here. Finished this one about ten minutes ago, am now completely incredulous at how utterly nonsensical this book is. Especially that the reveal at the end only uses about 10% of the buildup that the book created (why did Edwin’s character get so much development to simply not matter to the plot? Did Aretta’s real job make a lick of difference or was it just added in for some supposed shock value? Why bring up a second time machine to only use it to get out of more clever story telling? Among many others) and I just feel like it was, in a word, so lazy.
I think Mandel was leaning so heavily on everyone’s awe at her past two books that she didn’t feel the need to… I don’t know, finish this one?
What’s most shocking to me is the unanimously positive critical reception. I almost feel like I should reread it to make sure I didn’t black out for the chapter where she actually tied anything together.
Late to your thread obviously but I just finished the book and went straight to google “Sea of Tranquility a confused mess” and that sent me here… you articulated a lot of what I was trying to process about just how bad I found that book.
And bizarrely, I got it right after reading Station 11 which I absolutely loved.
So much of your take was exactly my thoughts, right down to the problem of enjoying the book up to the first time shift and then grinding through the rest hoping it might get good again. But no. Really disappointed.
100000000xxxx agree with everything you said