Station 11/11

Why have I chosen to begin my final Station Eleven post with the first words of the story?

This I will answer, but first, what does the opening phrase mean?

The king is Arthur Leander, the blue light is the artificial, yet beautiful brilliance of the spotlight. To be unmoored is to be loosened from restraints (typically for a vessel, but who is to judge whether or not one is worthy of comparison to the majestic creature known as the boat?).

Do these words carry a premonition of what is to come?

The final words of the book are these: "[Clark] likes the thought of ships moving over the water, toward another world just out of sight."

Both contain references to a ship, but how precisely are they related?

Why am I asking so many questions?

I will answer but one. I have actually begun the post, not with the first words of the book, but with a question about them. I have then, aggravatingly, continued on with many more questions, which I will not answer. This is one of the rare times where there is reason to my madness.

I may be ending my series of blog posts about the novel, but the case is not closed. There are still many more questions, answers, quotes, moments, ideas, words, tiny spiders, secrets, mysteries, and epiphanies within the pages of the book.

So now it is your turn to pick up where I've left off. Use my insights as a beginning, or disregard them completely. Learn something from the book. Answer the questions that I have not. Be inspired and awed and amused all at once. And, if you have not already done so, READ THE BOOK. Though, I suppose I have already removed any surprises from its contents (insert a belated spoiler warning here).

Farewell, gentle travelers. Remember what you've learned (if anything) and forget what you have not. There are too many mysteries in this world to search for them only in one novel.

- A.M. Ham