There are a lot of novels about time travel, but somehow it happened that ITC.ua reviews almost never mentioned them. Only the recent «Recursion» Blake Crouch. So it’s time to make amends, especially since today we’re going to talk about «Sea of Tranquility» by Emily St. John Mandel from Vivat — one of the best works of chrono-fiction, in my opinion. It’s also soft, social and science fiction with a touch of drama. The book won the Goodreads Choice Award 2022 in the «Best Science Fiction» category and was also nominated for the Locus 2023. If you’re interested, there’s more to come.
«Sea of Tranquility»
Author Emily St. John Mandel
Translator Vitaliy Rakulenko
Publisher Vivat
Language Ukrainian
Number of pages 244
Cover Solid
Year of publication 2024
Size 197×127 mm
Website vivat.com.ua
In 1912, a rich young man named Edwin travels from England to Canada. In 2020, a girl named Mirella sets out to solve the cause of her friend’s disappearance, and in 2203, the writer Louise, who lives on one of the moon’s colonies, goes to Earth on her new book tour. Also in 2401, Gasperi-Jacques starts working at the Time Institute. Later, he and his sister will begin to investigate a temporal anomaly that will lead to an incredible intertwining of time, people’s lives, the future, the present, and the past.
Canadian writer Emily St. John Mandel has been surprising English-speaking readers with her incredible novels for years. For «Sea of Tranquility» is her sixth novel, but the first to be translated into Ukrainian. She also has such fascinating novels as The Glass Hotel and Station Eleven, not to mention other works. However, the latter was filmed as a series on HBO Max «Station Eleven». Therefore, you can join this work at least in this format. We hope that our publishing houses will do a better job in the future because almost every new novel by the writer creates a stir and heated discussions. And there is a lot to talk about.
I started reading «Sea of Tranquility» without any knowledge of the author or the context. I knew it was a book about time travel and that was it. And it became for me one of those books that you start reading and after a while you realize that you can’t stop. At all. You only allow yourself to take a bathroom break, make tea, or eat. And even then, the latter can be combined with reading.
Among the sea of books I’ve read, I rarely have such reactions to novels. For example, it was the same with «The Lord of the Rings», «Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption», «The Green Mile», «11.22.63», and so on. This also applied to all of Haruku Murakami’s novels, and it’s a pity that he doesn’t have one in Ukrainian. And now, to this esteemed list, «Sea of Tranquility» by Emily St. John Mandel has unexpectedly been added.
I mentioned Murakami and his meditative works above for a reason. I experienced very similar feelings with this novel because it is both slow and calm, and also full of events and overflowing with the characters’ feelings. They are not in a hurry because the writer allows them to immerse themselves in reflection, to observe the little things around them, to dig into their own shortcomings, and so on. This is the first important point that catches the attention.
The second is classic chronofiction, but with a twist. In this case, it is a time-space anomaly that one of the characters takes on to investigate. As the story progresses, its solution becomes closer, and characters from different eras unite and intertwine in an incredible way.
Such magic is achieved not only by the author’s skill in observing people, but also by her well-honed writing style. There are no unnecessary words here, only the right ones that create sentences that you can’t help but read until they end.
The novel raises many important issues and global traumas from the recent past. «The Sea of Tranquility» was written during the COVID-19 pandemic, so the pandemic will also exist in the future, and it plays a key role in the plot. The writer also analyzes human nature and touches upon the themes of loneliness and self-knowledge, social isolation, psychological trauma, the end of the universe, the impact of technology, space travel, and more. All of these and many other important points are constantly emerging through all of the key characters, dominating at first and then fading into the shadows, but never disappearing.
«Sea of Tranquility» is a short novel, so its 224 pages «can be swallowed» literally in a day or two. At the same time, the story turned out to be exactly as it should be — not too small and not crumpled, but at the same time not drawn out and not overloaded with events and characters.
And what an ending it has. It hits the reader on the head and leaves a strange, pleasantly bizarre aftertaste. Your brain might short-circuit a bit because you’ll have to sit and think about some of the chrono-fantastic features and gags related to time travel. But it’s worth it. I promise you.
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