Summary
Sea of Tranquility is a novel by Emily St. John Mandel, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2022. It is a science fiction novel that explores time travel, the nature of reality, art, and love, as well as pandemics. The title is a reference to the cartographic feature of the moon, and the moon plays a key symbolic role throughout the novel1
Sea of tranquility follows a time traveler, Gaspery-Jacques Roberts, and the people he encounters in different times and places. The novel begins in 1912, when Edwin St. John St. Andrew, a young British immigrant in Canada, witnesses an anomaly that briefly transports him to a futuristic space where he hears a violin. He meets Gaspery, who pretends to be a priest and questions him about the anomaly. The novel then switches to 2020, when Mirella Kessler, a friend of Vincent Smith, attends a concert by Vincent’s brother, Paul Smith. Paul shows a video of Vincent experiencing the same anomaly as Edwin in Caiette, a town on Vancouver Island. Mirella is shocked to see Gaspery again, who looks exactly the same as he did when she saw him at a murder scene in Ohio when she was a child. The novel then moves to 2203, when Olive Llewellyn, a novelist from the moon colony, is on a book tour on Earth. She has written a novel about an imaginary pandemic, unaware of the real viral outbreaks that are happening around her. She also meets Gaspery, who tells her that he is from the future and that he loves her. The novel then jumps to 2401, Gaspery’s time, where he works for the Time Institute and is sent to investigate the anomaly that he himself caused by meeting his younger self in 2195. He travels back to 1912, 2020, and 2203, trying to fix the anomaly and find Olive again. The novel ends with Gaspery becoming Alan Sami, a violinist who plays at the Oklahoma City Airship Terminal where Edwin and Vincent saw the anomaly.
The novel is a complex and intriguing exploration of how different animals perceive the world through their diverse and amazing senses. Yong takes the reader on a journey across the land, sea, and air, revealing the hidden realms of smells, tastes, light, color, pain, heat, contact, vibrations, sound, echoes, electric fields, and magnetic fields. He shows how animals use these senses to navigate, communicate, hunt, mate, and survive in their environments. He also tells the stories of the scientists who have uncovered these secrets of animal perception. The book is a fascinating and eye-opening account of the richness and diversity of life on Earth.
About The Author
Hailing from the western shores of British Columbia, Canada, Emily St. John Mandel’s journey began. She immersed herself in the world of contemporary dance at the School of Toronto Dance Theatre, and her path led her from Montreal to the bustling city of New York.
An accomplished novelist, Emily St. John Mandel has penned five compelling works. Among her creations are “The Glass Hotel,” released in the spring of 2020, and the acclaimed “Station Eleven,” which debuted in 2014. This latter work achieved remarkable recognition, earning a spot as a finalist for the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award. It further triumphed as the victor of the Morning News Tournament of Books. Across the globe, “Station Eleven” has found resonance, having been translated into an impressive 34 languages. In her current chapter, Emily resides in the vibrant heart of NYC alongside her husband and daughter.
