![]() ![]() The statement isn’t as tautological as it appears: does the creation of any order amount to something rational? Visions “Sanity depends on order,” says an omniscient narrator. The style prevents the larger-than-life ideas from falling off balance. Mandel’s prose is restrained, beautiful for its observation and precision rather than its flourish. It reads evenly and the gaps feel intentional Paul disappears for much of the story, but this is justified by theme and structure, the sensation of circling forward and back. At times the many structural divisions-titled sections within chapters, chapters within parts, seem to be a map for the writer more than the reader, but generally the scaffolding supports the spectacle without obscuring it. One of the triumphs of the book, then, is that the reading experience isn’t heavied by concept. Spinning another fictional universe for her character adds a meta level to the question of parallel existences. Leon Prevant the character is a conceptual shadow – Mandel has brought him back from Station Eleven. His new vagabond life takes place in “the shadow country,” an unstable realm he vaguely suspected when he lived at a monied distance. One of the victims of the scheme, a shipping executive named Leon Prevant, loses his retirement savings and ultimately his home. These daydreams bleed into and corrupt his memories, memory itself becoming an escape and a fantasy. ![]()
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