Madeline
Sea Of Tranquility was written by Emily St. John Mandel, who also wrote Station Eleven. Station Eleven was written prior to COVID-19 and yet it is about a killer flu that wipes out a large population of the world. Sea Of Tranquility is the book that was written as an aftermath of COVID-19 and Station Eleven. Add in the theory of life as a simulation and time travel, and that is Sea Of Tranquillity.
Premise Of Sea Of Tranquility
The book opens with a man crossing the Atlantic Ocean and migrating to the west coast of Canada in 1912. Next we meet a women looking for her friend Vincent and contacts Vincent’s brother who is a composer in 2020. Then we meet author, Olive Llewellyn, who wrote a fiction book about a pandemic and is now on book tour on earth to talk about pandemics.
Finally we meet Gaspery, a man named after a character in Olive’s book, who decides to become a time traveller to research the possibility of life being a simulation. He jumps throughout history interviewing various people and passes his reports on. From Gaspery’s point of view, we learn how all the previous stories are woven together and provide the possibility that we do, in fact, live in a simulation.
Proving We Are In A Simulation And What It Means
The theory of the simulation in this book stems from suspecting corruption in the file that runs this simulation. There is a glitch at certain points in time that have been pin pointed and it is up to Gaspery to interview the people who have experienced these glitches and to experience them for himself. There is a video created by Vincent and her composer brother that records this glitch.
But what does it mean if we are in a simulation? Does that change anything? If there is no way to remove yourself from the simulation, you may as well enjoy it. Enjoy the people who surround you and the things that give you pleasure, regardless if it is real or not.
Final Thoughts
Sea Of Tranquility is a book about an author who writes a book about a pandemic, just as the author of this book had done. Add in time travel and the theory of living in a simulation and that is the basic summary of this book. It was a quick and easy read yet very thoughtful in its execution.
