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Cloud Atlas

4.07 of 5 stars 4.07 · rating details · 69,299 ratings · 9,916 reviews

Now a major motion picture starring Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Susan Sarandon, and Hugh Grant, and directed byLanaand AndyWachowski and Tom Tykwer

Includes a new Afterword by David Mitchell

A postmodern visionary who is also a master of styles and genres, David Mitchell combines flat-out adventure, a Nabokovian love of puzzles, a keen eye for character, and a taste for mind-...more

Paperback, Movie Tie-in Edition, 514 pages

Published October 2nd 2012 by Random House Trade Paperbacks (first published August 17th 2004)

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Aug 14, 2012 Ken-ichi rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: escape, snoot, favorites

On re-reading in 2012...

I admit, the surpringsingly-and-terrifyingly-not-awful trailer for the upcoming movie adaptation of this book sent me plunging back into its hexapalindromic universe to re-solidify my own mental renditions of Frobisher's bicycle, Sonmi's soap packs, and Lousia's imaginary California, among other things. I emerge even more impressed with Mitchell's mimetic acrobatics, the book's deft allusive integument ("Is not ascent their sole salvation?" p. 512), the acrimonious satire...more On re-reading in 2012...

I admit, the surpringsingly-and-terrifyingly-not-awful trailer for the upcoming movie adaptation of this book sent me plunging back into its hexapalindromic universe to re-solidify my own mental renditions of Frobisher's bicycle, Sonmi's soap packs, and Lousia's imaginary California, among other things. I emerge even more impressed with Mitchell's mimetic acrobatics, the book's deft allusive integument ("Is not ascent their sole salvation?" p. 512), the acrimonious satire ("if consumers are satisfied with their lives at any meaningful level [...] plutocracy is finished" p. 348), and, ultimately, the nakedly deliberate messages about humanity's will to power and our capacity for empathy re-re-re-re-re-reiterated in the second half. I kept wishing Lousia or Cavendish or someone one would say "Be excellent to each other. Party on, dudes!" but not wishing in a snarky cynical judgy kind of way! Because I actually think Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure is pretty... excellent (and come to think of it, is also a story set in multiple time periods with strong musical undertones and a message of peace, love, and happiness...). This book grants me one of the greatest pleasures a book can: it restores profundity to a hackneyed truth. If you're not into Mitchell's prose, characters, or fancy-schmancy structure, though, you might just end up with the hackneyed bit.

(view spoiler)

Old review from 2006

This, Sir, is a Novel. I don't think I've read anything so surprisingly excellent since Jonathan Strange Mr Norell. Actually, I have. What I meant to say is that I've read nothing so marvelously epic since then. As usual, my attempts to explain it to people have met with polite nods and changed subjects, but let me try: the book is like 6 perfect little novellas, arranged as Russian matroyshka dolls, and as you read, you bore in, and bore back out. Each doll is a different period in time, the outermost being in the early 19th century, the latest being somewhere around 2200 (I think). Four of the six are out and out genre pieces: historical maritime fiction, crime novel, dystopian scifi, and post-apocalyptic scifi, with all their various tropes rendered with loving affection. But they are just written, so, well that they are simply irresistible. I only wish I could find single genre novels that were as perfectly crafted as a single portion of this book. The pieces placed in the 1930s and the present day are also wonderful, but certainly aren't the type of fare I normally seek out.

But yes, exceedingly well written. What's it about? Well, there's the the journal of an American notary returning home from the Chatham Islands aboard a morally suspect ship in the 1830s; a young quasi-rake of a composer cuckolding an older colleague while helping him write new works, who documents his dalliances and mishaps in letters to his former lover; there's a true-story thriller about a Californian journalist in the 1970s attempting to out a corrupt and deadly energy company for squelching a safety report damning their new nuclear energy plant; the soon-to-be-filmed chronicles of a publisher in the present day whose attempts to escape the extortionist cronies of his gangster star author land him in a Draconian nursing home from which he cannot escape; there's the not-too-distant future testimony of a Korean clone bred for service in a fast food joint but who, via the machinations of forces many and penumbral, gains full consciousness; and finally (in the sweet and creamy middle) the Huck Finnish tale of a post-apocalyptic Hawaiian "primitive" and the "civilized" researcher sent to study his society. Whew! The characters of each story find themselves reading their predecessor, and sometimes characters overlap a very, very little. Each story features a character with the same birth mark, and they all seem to experience deja vu from characters in other stories. See? Now it sounds corny. But I swear to you, it is cool.

I guess the book is primarily about the will to power. Slavery and subjugation, small personal cruelties, corporate greed. It's sort of like the anti-Fountainhead, except much more fun to read. I don't know. Dissecting fiction about giant apes comes much more naturally to me. Please read this book so, at the very least, you can explain it to me.(less)

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Jun 25, 2012 B0nnie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favourite-books

This book proves David Mitchell can be any writer he chooses. The six novellas that comprise Cloud Atlas are forgeries - and they are original. Each adopts the voice of a distinct author. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts, but all of the parts are superb. It is a sextet, like the one found within the novel, with piano, clarinet, cello, flute, oboe, and violin - every individual instrument pleasing, but when played altogether becomes something different and brilliant - the Cloud Atl...more

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Aug 31, 2012 Jason rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: for-kindle, 2012, reviewed, thrill-me-chill-me-fulfill-me

At the Museum of Science in Boston, there is an exhibit just outside the doors of the Planetarium that demonstrates—through a series of adjacent panels—the scale of the Earth in relation to the universe at large. The first panel shows the Earth’s location in the Solar System (as a microscopic dot, mind you), which is followed by a second panel showing the Solar System’s location in the Milky Way (also microscopic). The third panel is of the galaxy’s location in its Supercluster or whateverthefuc...more At the Museum of Science in Boston, there is an exhibit just outside the doors of the Planetarium that demonstrates—through a series of adjacent panels—the scale of the Earth in relation to the universe at large. The first panel shows the Earth’s location in the Solar System (as a microscopic dot, mind you), which is followed by a second panel showing the Solar System’s location in the Milky Way (also microscopic). The third panel is of the galaxy’s location in its Supercluster or whateverthefuck it’s called, and so forth and so on, concluding with a final panel depicting the entire observable universe. Reading Cloud Atlas is like zooming out from a point on the Earth to the edge of the universe and then back in again, as represented by those aforementioned panels. Do we need a visual aid?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzYHWI...

This novel, of course, has little to do with the cosmos, but the analogy is fitting for describing the vastness of its scope. It is a hugely ambitious novel connecting characters through space and time, from Adam Ewing’s mid-nineteenth century voyage from the Chatham Islands to Sonmi~451’s ascent to sentience at an indeterminate period in Korea’s future, and several places in between. The novel then goes even further into the future, so far in fact that it becomes indistinguishable from the past, and like the reverse zoom in the video above, the novel collapses back in on itself, ending exactly where it began.

“Yay, Old Uns’ Smart mastered sicks, miles, seeds an’ made miracles ord’nary, but it din’t master one thing, nay, a hunger in the hearts o’ humans, yay, a hunger for more.”

Cloud Atlas is about human slavery and captivity as it exists in all its forms, at all points in time. Throughout history, humans have enslaved each other on the basis of skin color and racial background, religious beliefs and cultural or ethnic differences. The weak have been enslaved to the strong, the old to the young, and the poor to the well-to-do. This novel goes a step further by exploring the concept of knowledge and how it relates to the socioeconomic hierarchy of the future. Knowledge is all that separates us from savagery, and yet it is our most transient asset. I am probably making this book sound like a course in sociology, though it is anything but. Cloud Atlas is a brilliantly constructed novel delineating the cyclicality of human civilization and it is written by someone who has immediately become one of my favorite authors. In fact, David Mitchell’s only flaw is that he is indecisive. Unable to choose among the various genres of fiction available, he ends up...writing them all! Cloud Atlas is historical fiction, it is a dark comedy, it is a crime thriller, it is science fiction, it is a post-apocalyptic dystopia.

The middle chapter, while the most difficult to read, is easily my favorite. In Sloosha’s Crossin’ an’ Ev’rythin’ After, humanity’s perpetual quest for domination provides the very spark needed to create and sustain civilization. However, this quest is a double-edged sword that becomes its own downfall, since domination is a self-defeating goal, and it is this downfall that ultimately causes civilization to collapse. But despite its bleak forecasts, Cloud Atlas inspires a glimmer of hope for our future, for as insignificant as one person may be, as much as one fathoms his life to have no impact greater than that of a single drop in a limitless ocean, the question is posed: “Yet what is any ocean but a multitude of drops?”

The Milky Way’s Galactic Center
© 2009 Serge Brunier, The Sky of the Earth (less)

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Sep 24, 2012 Jenn(ifer) rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: i wouldn't

Recommended to Jenn(ifer) by: they didn't

Shelves: read-in-2012, gr-group-coreads, my-reviews-that-dont-suck

Dear David Mitchell,
I’ve been trying to figure out the nicest possible way to tell you what I’m about to tell you. I sort of feel like I’ve failed you as a reader, but I just couldn’t suspend my critical mind for long enough to enjoy your book (“how I envied my uncritical…sisters” – I hate it when my own words come back to bite me in the ass, don’t you?). Don’t take it personally though. I’m the girl who didn't like The Matrix. I know, right? How could anyone dislike The Matrix? All of the neat-...more
Dear David Mitchell,
I’ve been trying to figure out the nicest possible way to tell you what I’m about to tell you. I sort of feel like I’ve failed you as a reader, but I just couldn’t suspend my critical mind for long enough to enjoy your book (“how I envied my uncritical…sisters” – I hate it when my own words come back to bite me in the ass, don’t you?). Don’t take it personally though. I’m the girl who didn't like The Matrix. I know, right? How could anyone dislike The Matrix? All of the neat-o keen-o special effects, the super cool concept of the world actually being run by sentient machines, the homage to Baudrillard (If you haven’t read Simulacra & Simulation, read it. It’ll blow your mind.)(By the way, Baudrillard said the siblings Wachowski completely misinterpreted his work, but I digress), and the kick-ass soundtrack (okay so it wasn’t really all that kick ass). Unfortunately at the end of the day, Keanu Reeves can’t act his way out of a paper bag, and this girl just couldn’t get past that fact.

For the first half of the novel, I kept trying to psych myself up by reminding myself how much I disliked the first four episodes of season one of The Wire: “This is just another contrived crime drama!” “Dominic West really needs to work on his American accent." "Not enough Idris Elba.” Then we meet Omar Little and BAM! It all starts to click. (Don’t you just love Omar?)(shhhh, no spoilers, I’m only on season three). I kept waiting for that BAM! moment, but it just never came. Instead I found myself more and more frustrated, finding fault with every gimmick. E.g., If language has devolved in the future, you really need to commit to your chosen alterations. If you decide flight will be ‘flite’ then sight should be ‘site,’ etc. Go all the way, I say! Oh what, you think that would be too annoying? Ur rite. It would b. So y chanj da spelng at al? It just ends up being distracting. Think of another way to say "THIS IS THE FUTURE!!!" without being so obvious about it. Similarly, when you wanted the audience to know it was the 70's, you could have found a more subtle way of doing it than saying "THEY'RE AT A PARTY LISTENING TO DISCO AND DOING COCAINE!" It's the 70's man, I get it.

It seemed to me like you didn’t have enough faith in the intelligence of your audience to get the gist without spoon-feeding it to us. If the reader didn’t pick up on the “nested dolls” analogy all by themselves (or by having Chabon tell them on the back cover) you make sure Grimaldi spells it out for us: ‘One model of time: an infinite matryoshka doll of painted moments, each “shell” (the present) encased inside a nest of “shells” (previous presents) I call the actual past but which we perceive as the virtual past.” Etc. “Revolutionary or gimmicky?” I’ll take gimmicky for 1000, Alex (damned if your words don’t keep biting you in the ass, eh Davey boy?).

If you’ve read the book, than you know that each chapter or story is in some way “read” by a character in another story (journals, letters, film). A clever idea for sure. The thing about clever ideas is this, you really need to trust that your reader is as clever as you! We can pick these things up without you telling us. I mean come on (view spoiler) the look of disgust on my face must have been a sight to see.

Let's talk about the Sloosha chapter for a moment (but just for a moment because I’m trying to repress the memory). I'm sure you were going for something really important and profound there, but it was completely lost on me because that 'style' you came up with was ridiculously irritating. I was unable to become emotionally invested in the relationship between Zachry & Meronym in the slightest. It’s the fall of humanity for chrissakes and I could not have given a shit less.

At least you have a sense of humor about it all, right pal? You saw the criticisms coming, and you gave them a swift kick in the ass (well, your character did, literally) right from the get-go. "The Ghost of Sir Felix Finch whines, “But it’s been done a hundred times before!” – as if there could be anything not done a hundred thousand times between Aristophanes and Andrew Void[sic]-Webber! As if Art is the What, not the How!” Oh man, you said it. Art is not the what, it’s the how; and in this instance, for me, the how is, well, not great. From the Mrs. Robinson romps to the three stooges escape hijinx, and let’s not forget the lovable ~~Erin Brockovich~~ Luisa Rey chapters. If you were experimenting with genres, take note, pulp is not your thing. I could go on and on (honestly I could) but I really don’t think it matters.

Anyway, I’m sure one little dissenter doesn’t matter much, right? Millions of people love this book, just like Dan Brown’s! Hey, they even got the same actor to star in the film! AND you got Wachowski directing (isn’t it serendipitous how my Matrix side story is actually relevant now?). You’re going to rack in the Euros buddy. If it means anything, I thought Black Swan Green was ace in the face!

Hug?
(less)

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Feb 13, 2013 Kris rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary, fiction, 1001, favorites

All autumn, with the release date of movie adaptation of Cloud Atlas fast approaching, interest in the novel among my Goodreads friends has been high. I have not seen many subdued reactions. Fans of Mitchell discuss his ability adeptly to assume so many different voices and styles, the intricacy of the novel’s structure, and the relevance of its themes for today. Detractors have dismissed Cloud Atlas as gimmicky, a work by a much-hyped writer who is showing off his style but neglecting to anchor...more

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Oct 27, 2012 brian rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

so… here we have a kind of inherent and unearned value determined by structure alone: pile story atop story, set them at different time periods, offer up a thin connection b/t each, and everything seems a bit more than it is. for me cloud atlas is exactly the sum of its parts. perhaps less. (i'd love to hire 6 authors to independently write 6 stories set in different time periods, throw the whole mess together as one work, and watch people find all kinds of connections and deeper meanings. they...more

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Oct 10, 2012 Nataliya rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Nataliya by: Kris

Shelves: hugo-nebula, 2012-reads

I was a third into this book and I could not care less about it. It didn't seem we were meant to be.

Then suddenly my heart was aching for the characters and their stories, and it did catch me by surprise.

And now it's been a week since I finished it, and I still find myself thinking about it. 'Okay, you win, book!' I have to admit grudgingly. You've wormed your way into my heart and I'd better make my peace with it.

Why did I resist liking it so much? Why did this book and I have such a rocky sta...more

120 likes · like · see review

Sep 15, 2012 Megha rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: reviews

(DISCLAIMER: This review was my knee-jerk reaction right after reading the book. Since then my admiration for CA has diminished. I will let the original review stay as it is. I disown this review though.)

WOW. With my vocab-deficit, I can't find the perfect word to express how reading Cloud Atlas felt. I will put spectacular as a placeholder. It has been quite some time since I read something this exciting.

So. The thing about Cloud Atlas is that everything explaining the central theme of the nove...more
(DISCLAIMER: This review was my knee-jerk reaction right after reading the book. Since then my admiration for CA has diminished. I will let the original review stay as it is. I disown this review though.)

WOW. With my vocab-deficit, I can't find the perfect word to express how reading Cloud Atlas felt. I will put spectacular as a placeholder. It has been quite some time since I read something this exciting.

So. The thing about Cloud Atlas is that everything explaining the central theme of the novel is embedded, in very clear words, within the novel, but rather in-conspicuously. Mitchell does not try to expound his theory anywhere, he does not hold a laser pointer attracting the reader's attention to the heart of the matter.
I can easily pull out a couple of quotes from the novel, which would perfectly summarize what, for me, is the essence of the book. Most of those quotes appear to be just another thing that one of the characters said. Seen within the scope of the individual stories where these quotes appear, they wouldn't amount to much. It is only when you look at the complete map that Mitchell has laid out, that they begin to be meaningful. However, unless the reader has already developed a vague understanding of what Mitchell is trying to tell us, one could walk by those sentences/dialogues unsuspectingly. You need to know what you are looking for, to be able to notice them. And figuring this out makes the reading experience entirely wonderful and intellectually engaging. Which is why I am refraining from including any quotes giving away the theme.

I suppose everyone has already heard enough about how Cloud Atlas consists of six different stories and how it is structured in an innovative manner. These six stories are very different from each other, yet they belong very much together. Mitchell connects these stories in various ways and at multiple levels. There are some direct connections which Mitchell spells out for everyone. He even mentions a few things which mirror the form of the novel itself. Then the stories are sprinkled with numerous subtle hints which give one delight if discovered, but do not take away much if not. And at last there are connections at a conceptual level which bind and unify the entire thing.

Sadly, an undiscerning reader may not notice much going on beyond the structure of the novel and perhaps label it as gimmicky. One of the characters in the novel itself brings up the question about whether this form is revolutionary or gimmicky, with respect to a musical composition that he is writing. In my opinion, the form is well justified and does a marvelous job at putting the point across. However, this form itself could also be held responsible for obfuscating the main point by diverting a reader's attention.

Each of the six stories is largely plot-driven. As Mitchell moves from one time period to another, the story's setting, tone, language, characterization etc. changes drastically. There are authors who sound the same in their different novels. And here we have Mitchell who sounds like six different authors within one novel. Each story can be read and enjoyed as a stand-alone novella. But the whole is definitely more than the sum of the parts, by an astonishing amount.(less)

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Oct 26, 2012 Scribble Orca rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: I wouldn't not recommend it.

Recommended to Scribble by: everybody, I think

Shelves: thriller, suspense, romance, psychology, political, mystery, murder, historical, crime

No. Those three stars are because this book has not read me. This book is utterly, if adroitly, contrived. It is belletristic masturbation of astounding proportions.

The three stars are an acknowledgement of Mr Mitchell's deliberately smug composition....see remainder of review at www.abookwithaview.com and the comments for a raise-the-eyebrows and dimple-the-cheeks discussion.

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Jun 04, 2010 Neil Powell rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Several short stories, that on their own are relatively weak. The author has linked them together tenuously with some mistakenly profound pseudo-religious nonsense and a tattoo. An interesting idea, let down by the poor quality of the writing. Pretentious twaddle of the highest order

This book seems to be one of those hoaxes to call out hack reviewers. I'm slightly puzzled by the fact that Mitchell hasn't come forward yet six years after publication.
He hits all the usual clichés that are the hal...more Several short stories, that on their own are relatively weak. The author has linked them together tenuously with some mistakenly profound pseudo-religious nonsense and a tattoo. An interesting idea, let down by the poor quality of the writing. Pretentious twaddle of the highest order

This book seems to be one of those hoaxes to call out hack reviewers. I'm slightly puzzled by the fact that Mitchell hasn't come forward yet six years after publication.
He hits all the usual clichés that are the hallmark of the "great" modern novel. The whole thing is a pretentious construction of six separate stories, with the protagonists in each being incarnations of each other, and ending up in possession of the story of the previous one in some way.

The first one is the story of some American lawyer on a ship in the Pacific some time in the 1850s. It's supposed to be a journal, but it's a hideously unconvincing one. If it wasn't intentional, I don't know why these pretentious cockpouches never seem to be able to manage a decent pastiche; it's as if actually reading anything they didn't write themselves is beneath them. Replacing every instance of "and" with "&", trying to use outdated vocabulary (incorrectly, most of the time; in the four pages where he repeatedly uses the word "kerchief" (before forgetting it exists again; some word-of-the-day calendar is probably responsible for that one), he inexplicably seems to be under the impression it's short for "handkerchief", and spells it with a prepended apostrophe), and just sprinkling racism over everything isn't good enough.
The fact that it's rife with anachronisms doesn't help.

The second story takes the form of letters written by an English twat in the 1930s, who moved to Belgium to escape debt. It's probably completely forgettable to non-Belgians, but a special kind of annoying to me. Mitchell managed to spell "Zedelgem" as "Zedelghem", which was indeed the correct spelling before the spelling reform of 1946, but uses the modern spelling for everything else. I don't know enough about the spelling reforms of French in the 20th century to say if he made the same mistake there, but I'm guessing he did.
Somewhere along the way this English twat finds the diary of the American twat for no good narrative reason, because that's what passes for plot coherence.

The third story is an attempt at an action spy thriller type novel set in 1975, the link with the previous one being the addressee of the letters, who passes them on to the protagonist of this one. It's as forgettable as the fourth one, which is something about some old guy who's sent the manuscript of this novel in the mail. Somewhere along the way a writer throws a reviewer off a balcony, I don't know.

The fifth is where he really shines: it's set in the unspecified future, and the world has turned into the tritest, most derivative dystopia imaginable. It has everything! Corporate overlords, genetically engineered slaves, cannibalism, giant totalitarian conspiracies, cutesy spelling gimmicks and neologisms, anything you could want! It's so horrifically transparent it makes Snow Crash look like a masterpiece. It's even set in Corea.

The final one is obviously the obligatory post-apocalyptic one, where the protagonist of the last one is worshipped like a goddess. It would be merely tedious if not for the ridiculous and completely unnecessary apostrophes everywhere, which render it actively obnoxious and pretty much unreadable. Initially, at least, because Mitchell doesn't have the attention span needed to keep it up for a whole chapter.

After that he goes through the entire list in reverse order again (because he *hates* you), and then at the very end he tries to make the obligatory vapid point (I forget what it was; something about drops in the ocean), slaps a suitably pretentious title onto the whole thing, and ships it off to his publishers and watches the money roll in.

So yes, if this isn't a deliberate hoax, it's a violently shit novel and a new low in post-modern self-indulgence. I'm not at all surprised at the reviews it's received either way.(less)

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Nov 02, 2012 Ian Graye rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: exert-yourself, read-2012, reviews, reviews-5-stars, mitchell

In Memory of Double Bills

When I was a student, in the heyday of independent cinemas, I saw a lot of double bills.

They weren’t just two current release films that had been packaged to eke out some extra dollars for the exhibitor.

They were carefully curated films that shared a theme and formed part of a whole season of similarly matched films.

Usually, the season was promoted by a poster that illustrated each film with a fifty word capsule review.

For many years, I kept these posters in a folder, a...more

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Mar 19, 2013 Cecily rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: miscellaneous-fiction, sci-fi-or-futuristic

This is definitely a book that is richer with rereading.

STRUCTURE

Imagine six very different short books, each open at roughly the middle, then pile them up - and that is the structure of Cloud Atlas (story 1a, 2a, 3a, 4a, 5a, 6, 5b, 4b, 3b, 2b, 1b). The structure is echoed in this clever and very brief review: http://www.fromnought2sixty.com/final....

(The structure of the film is entirely different: it cuts between all six stories repeatedly, which emphasises the parallels in the different sto...more

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Sep 01, 2012 Kemper rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012, modern-lit, sci-fi, favorites

I have no idea if the movie version of Cloud Atlas will be any good, but it was worth making just so we could get that excellent trailer. In fact, they probably shouldn’t even release the movie. Just use the trailer to promote the book. It worked on me because once I saw that thing I couldn’t get this read fast enough.

An American notary crosses the Pacific and encounters many unsavory characters in the mid-1800s. In 1931 a young man fleeing his creditors cons his way into the home of a respecte...more I have no idea if the movie version of Cloud Atlas will be any good, but it was worth making just so we could get that excellent trailer. In fact, they probably shouldn’t even release the movie. Just use the trailer to promote the book. It worked on me because once I saw that thing I couldn’t get this read fast enough.

An American notary crosses the Pacific and encounters many unsavory characters in the mid-1800s. In 1931 a young man fleeing his creditors cons his way into the home of a respected composer. A female journalists tries to expose a dangerous conspiracy involving a nuclear reactor back in 1975. In the early 21st century an aging publisher finds himself in hot water after his biggest professional success. The near future has an Asian society based on corporations using genetically modified fabricants as slave labor, and the far future finds a young man in Hawaii living a primitive tribal lifestyle playing tour guide to a woman from a place that still has technology.

These are the six stories that David Mitchell links together. They’re nested one within another and also mirrored in the first and second half of the book. If that’s all that he accomplished here, then it’d just be a really clever way to structure a novel, but it’s the way that Mitchell hit six completely different tones yet uses the same themes in each that the book really shines.

I’m beyond impressed with the way he made each story feel like it’s own separate tale. If someone had told me that this was a book written by six different authors, I would have believed it, and each is intriguing in it’s own right. Themes of slavery and people being controlled in one way or another along with depictions of misused or corrupted power come up again and again, but whether it feels like serious dystopian sci-fi or a beach read thriller, Mitchell makes it all hang together until it really does feel like one epic tale. And the thoughts at the conclusion lead to one of the greatest ending lines I’ve ever read.

I don’t even think I need to see the movie now. (less)

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May 06, 2013 Ian Graye rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mitchell, read-2013, reviews, reviews-3-stars

DJ Ian's Sunday Evening "Tell Me What You Really Think"

Mitchell's Hollow Horn Plays Wasted Words

I’ve tried to understand this novel.
Let me tell you how very much I've strived,
But from my humble little hovel,
It seems to me horribly contrived.

Like, what about the self-conscious display
Of inordinate lit’ry prowess?
Applied for amusement and for play,
It’s the ultimate in high-browness.

He’s in Haruki’s artistic debt,
High up there defying gravity
And recursive time without a net,
Oh what gimmicky depravi...more

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Apr 30, 2013 Kalliope rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction-english

Given that to review Cloud Atlas has become a perilous activity in GR, since it can elicit all kinds of backlashes, from a variety of stands, I will only include an innocent declaration of intent.

In respect to the book and to the following incumbents: the author David Mitchell, the publisher, the editors, the printers, any reading groups, any member readers in GR, whether friends or followed or followers, any member of Management in GR, and even, yes! even the new owners of GR.

I, Kalliope of Goo...more

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Apr 30, 2011 K.D. Oliveros rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to K.D. by: 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (2004-2006); Booker Prize Finalist

Shelves: 1001-core, challenging

A basket case when it comes to storytelling form: six interrelated stories (in different narrative style and different genres) happening centuries in between. If you list the chapters in sequence, this is how the relationship looks like, main themes, and how the main characters are related to each other:

1a The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing (1st part) - diary - sea adventure; racism - 16th century - in a vessel Prophetess afloat the Pacific Ocean
2a Letters from Zedelghem (1st part) - epistolary...more

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Jan 21, 2012 karen rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: distant-lands

**okay - i have actually written a "review" for this book, all you early bird voters! feel free to take back your picture-votes if you hate my words (and by "feel free," i mean "don't you dare!!")**

why have i never read this book before??

observe:

do you see how it is wedged into a teetering, lode-bearing stack of books??

removing it was a tricky business, indeed, but i succeeded, and i am finally reading it. so thank you for badgering me about it, internet, because so far, i am really enjoying it!...more

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Aug 18, 2012 Michael rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, historical-fiction, science-fiction, 1001-books-you-must-read-before-you, belguim, california, dystopia, england, hawaii, music, philosophy, post-apocalyptic, postmodern, racism, genocide

All my fears that this book would be a pretentious head-trip were initially reinforced when the first segment of the book ended abruptly. Right when I felt myself getting attached the main character, a Englishman aboard a merchant ship in the South Pacific circa 1830, I was moved into the mind of an unrelated character about 90 years later, a man escaping nefarious schemes in London to pursue an assistant position with a prominent modern composer in declining health. But once I came across myste...more All my fears that this book would be a pretentious head-trip were initially reinforced when the first segment of the book ended abruptly. Right when I felt myself getting attached the main character, a Englishman aboard a merchant ship in the South Pacific circa 1830, I was moved into the mind of an unrelated character about 90 years later, a man escaping nefarious schemes in London to pursue an assistant position with a prominent modern composer in declining health. But once I came across mysterious and resonating links between the stories, I was able to relax and enjoy the ride. And a ride it is, skipping forward to stories in more contemporary times and eventually to a time of a dystopic society followed by a post-apocalyptic period where civilization is barely holding on.

Each of the six story settings represents a robust free-standing novella with engaging characters and distinctive (and marvelous) writing styles. Yet each repeats and elaborates themes central to human culture and history and each connects forward and backward with the other stories. If that reminds you of music, Mitchell lets his hair down at one point and has his musical character write to a friend about his work on a “sextet for overlapping soloists” which is a clear analogy to his book’s structure: “each in its own language of key, scale, and color. In the first set, each solo is interrupted by its successor; in the second, each interruption is recontinued, in order.” His character’s humility about his experimental approach seems likely to reflect Mitchell’s own attitude about his creation: “Revolutionary or gimmicky? Shan’t know until its finished, and by then it’ll be too late…”

I gather that the stories all have a lot to do with the nature of history and the history of human nature, with an overriding concern on the misery and devastation wreaked by the minority of wealthy societies and classes and races within cultures. This seems to mirror the current squaring off of the 1% haves and 99% have nots in the West and the thrust of Jared Diamond’s work on how disparities in control of resources arise and how their squandering contributes to collapse of societies. In the 19th century scenario, a venal character who benefits from colonialism quips that there are two laws of survival, the first being: “The weak are meat the strong do eat” and “The second law of survival states that there is no second law. Eat or be eaten. That’s it.” In the early 20th century story, the lead character predicts: “Our will to power, our science, and those v. faculties that elevated us from apes, to savages, to modern man, are the same faculties that’ll snuff out Homo sapiens before the century is out!” In the dystopian future, a revolutionary intellectual returns to the first theme: “in a cycle as old as tribalism, ignorance of the Other engenders fear; fear engenders hatred; hatred engenders violence; violence engenders further violence until the only ‘rights’, the only law, are whatever is willed by the most powerful.” By the postapocalypic movement, a wise elder recognizes with simple clarity that: “human hunger birthed the Civ’lize, but human hunger killed it too” …”hunger that made Old Uns rip out the skies an’ boil up the seas an’ poison the soil with crazed atoms an’ donkey ‘bout with rotted seeds so new plagues was borned…”

Another key metaphor for the structure of the book and Mitchell’s exploration of history is that of a set of Russian matryoshka dolls, the ones with multiple figurines successively encased. A character in the 1970’s concerned with stopping implementation of an unsafe nuclear power system notes down a model of time as “an infinite matryoshka doll of painted moments, each ‘shell’ (the present) encased inside a nest of ‘shells’ (previous presents) I call the actual past but which we perceive as the virtual past. The doll of ‘now’ likewise encases a nest of presents yet to be, which I shall call the actual future but which we perceive as the virtual future.” This fascinating distinction between actual and virtual pasts and presents is explained by this character’s notes. Suffice it to say here that their divergence has to do with an individual or a society's beliefs, which can empower them to swim against the tide of disparity and destruction. Each lead character in the novel represents such a hero, and their combined stories make for a very satisfying and uplifting symphony.

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Dec 12, 2012 Megan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, mind-blown

How do I even begin to review a book like this? This book is one of the most incredible books that I have had the pleasure of reading. David Mitchell not only managed to write 6 unique and fantastic stories that I would love to read on there own, but he managed to connected them almost seamlessly making one mind-blowing story.

Like I said I would love to read each story as an individual for each one is so dynamic in itself. It is almost hard to believe that the same author wrote each story since...more How do I even begin to review a book like this? This book is one of the most incredible books that I have had the pleasure of reading. David Mitchell not only managed to write 6 unique and fantastic stories that I would love to read on there own, but he managed to connected them almost seamlessly making one mind-blowing story.

Like I said I would love to read each story as an individual for each one is so dynamic in itself. It is almost hard to believe that the same author wrote each story since each has its own unique writing style. You go from a sailing journal, to comedy, to mystery, to science fiction, and even a post apocalyptic world. He threw in all of my favorite genres and the best elements of each.

When I started reading this book I instantly enjoyed it and liked each story and then loved when I started to realize all the parallels between the stories and characters, and how all the themes came together I was even more in love with the story and flew through the second half.

It is hard for me to pick which story I loved the most but if I had to choose it would be between the mystery story featuring Luisa Rey and the science fiction story featuring Somni. The Luisa Rey story was an intricate mystery filled with all the best elements, the heartless assassin who enjoys killing, the investigative journalist trying to prove herself, and all in all the conspiracy of the mystery that goes higher up than believed. The Somni story was brilliant science fiction where there are clones and the world has become dependent on technology and Big Brother is watching you.

One of the very interesting elements of the book was the language throughout the novel. Once the story about Somni started there was an extreme difference in the use of language. Words were forgotten and things such as movies were all clumped together and called Disneys and all cars Fords. In the last story the language we know was gone. The story itself was hard to read because of how the people talked. Even though this element was on of my favorite themes throughout the book it also was a reason why the last story was my least favorite.

This book will keep you guessing up until the end and even then you will still sit there afterwards just observing everything. The end of each of the stories is amazing and mind-blowing. As soon as you start reading this book you will not be able to put it down and you will be a better person for it. This book will give you a different outlook on the people around you and wonder how everyone’s actions actually effected your own, because one thing this book taught me is that everyone is connected and even the smallest things can impact someone in the future.

Well there is my review I would give this books as many stars as possible. But if you would like to read a fantastic review of this book I would like to send you here:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
My brother and his review are the reason I read this book in the first place. ☺
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Jan 21, 2012 oriana rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-2009, why-werent-you-better, too-smart-for-their-own-good

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. There's no doubt that David Mitchell is incredibly talented, and Cloud Atlas is a superior achievement. It was stylistically inventive, intellectually daring, etc etc, just like all the critics and reviewers promised. But ultimately it sort of left me cold, and I found myself wondering (often) what all of that effort was really for.

There are two unfortunate things that at the onset contributed strongly to this book not knocking me on my ass. The first was the insane amount of anticipation I had...more There's no doubt that David Mitchell is incredibly talented, and Cloud Atlas is a superior achievement. It was stylistically inventive, intellectually daring, etc etc, just like all the critics and reviewers promised. But ultimately it sort of left me cold, and I found myself wondering (often) what all of that effort was really for.

There are two unfortunate things that at the onset contributed strongly to this book not knocking me on my ass. The first was the insane amount of anticipation I had going into it, as I had been told by countless people that this book was amazing, astonishing, etc., and so I think it was set up to be unable to live up to all that. The second is the impossibility of ignoring comparisons to Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveller. I know that it's a little unfair, but Mitchell simply cannot compete with Calvino, and I couldn't stop thinking about Traveller while reading, and so my whole experience of Cloud Atlas was tarnished by that.

Let's go back. This book, like Traveller, is written sort of like a set of interlocking parentheses, with six totally separate storylines beginning one after the other, going for a while, and then breaking off at climactic points. Then, at the end of the sixth storyline, the fifth is brought back, starting at the previous cliffhanger and continuing until its conclusion, then the same with the fourth, the third, etc. Each of these storylines is extremely different in tone, style, and character – we have the travel journal of an American in Australia in like the 1600s (maybe; I'm awful with history); then letters from a British composer in Brussels to his former lover; then a sort of thriller about a young journalist in California in the sixties trying to unravel a dastardly corporate cover-up involving nuclear testing facilities; then a present-day caper story; then a dystopian-future piece told over the course of a long interview with a woman who has been sentenced to death; then a crazy post-apocalyptic oral history.

So two things here: First, let me again stress that Mitchell is extremely skilled. He does each of these drastically different things with aplomb, and is equally imaginative and able to completely immerse the reader in each one. Each has not only its own setting and story type and narrator and characters, but also its own complete language (the latter two using completely different made-up sci-fi speak). That is utterly astonishing, and Mitchell deserves due respect for it. And second: a book of this nature is excellent for helping one crystallize one's preferences, by which I mean that as someone who dislikes post-apocalyptic sci-fi nearly as much as historical fiction, it's no surprise that I liked the British composer and the American caper far more than the rest. (And I did like them, lots; if I could rate those sections alone, they'd get five stars easily.)

And it is true that Mitchell does a bit of work connecting these vastly varied stories – in storyline two, for example, the letter-writer finds half the manuscript of storyline one in an attic, and at the end of the end of his story, he plans to read the second half, which he'd found much later. But here is the crux of the non-external reason I didn't like this book as much as I wanted to: these connections were tenuous at best. It's true that there are feeble attempts to weave things together a bit further, such as a recurring comet-shaped birthmark and some vague hints that a character from one story remembers a piece of music from another story (which even this is meta-ly discredited, actually), but that wasn't nearly enough for me. I just never really understood what made Mitchell stick these specific stories together, other than to be very very clever.

And this is where the comparison to Traveller hurts Cloud Atlas the most, IMO. With Calvino, every story is constantly reinforcing and augmenting (or obfuscating) the others, everything woven tighter and tighter, not to mention threaded throughout and tied firmly with an overarching ur-story. But Mitchell does none, or barely any, of this, and so the whole thing begins to feel just like an intellectual exercise, rather than an emotionally connected whole, and lord knows I need my literary meta-experimentation to be emotional. (less)

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Sep 29, 2012 Lou rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: july-read, to-be-movies-or-tv

David Mitchell writes in a really masterful style of writing with an excellent command of the English language. This story is split into different interlacing parables. There are six different testaments that span several centuries each one breaks a period of time and space. The stories are very interesting but I found as the stories went by nearer to second half of the book I was not fully immersed into the story. So if it lacks in anything this novel is some gripping and immersing element, som...more David Mitchell writes in a really masterful style of writing with an excellent command of the English language. This story is split into different interlacing parables. There are six different testaments that span several centuries each one breaks a period of time and space. The stories are very interesting but I found as the stories went by nearer to second half of the book I was not fully immersed into the story. So if it lacks in anything this novel is some gripping and immersing element, sometimes I found I did not care enough for the characters due to the changing of testaments, where in one straight testament you would build the audience and glue and bond them to certain characters. But then again that was probably the authors set out task to write in this way, a technique used by Italo Calvino, actually this story written in a similar fashion to one I have read called Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino.
I loved the character Timothy Cavendish a very English old school character had very funny insight into the world. I loved his take on the underground and London.

"Over an hour later London shunted itself southwards, taking the Curse of the Brother Hoggins with it. Commuters, these hapless souls who enter a lottery of death twice daily on Britain's decrepit railways, packed the dirty train. Aeroplanes circled in holding patterns over Heathrow, densely as gnats over a summer puddle. Too much matter in this ruddy city."

Excerpts
"Three or four times only in my youth did I glimpse the Joyous Isles, before they were lost to fogs, depressions, cold fronts, ill winds, and contrary tides … I mistook them for adulthood. Assuming they were a fixed feature in my life’s voyage, I neglected to record their latitude, their longitude, their approach. Young ruddy fool. What wouldn’t I give now for a never-changing map of the ever-constant ineffable? To possess, as it were, an atlas of clouds."

"He who would do battle with the many-headed hydra of human nature must pay a world of pain & his family must pay it along with him! & only as you gasp your dying breath shall you understand, your life amounted to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean!” Yet what is any ocean but a multitude of drops?"

"Faith, the least exclusive club on Earth, has the craftiest doorman. Every time I’ve stepped through its wide-open doorway, I find myself stepping out on the street again."

“We—by whom I mean anyone over sixty—commit two offences just by existing. One is Lack of Velocity. We drive too slowly, walk too slowly, talk too slowly. The world will do business with dictators, perverts, and drug barons of all stripes, but being slowed down it cannot abide. Our second offence is being Everyman’s memento mori. The world can only get comfy in shiny-eyed denial if we are out of sight.”

http://more2read.com/?review=cloud-at...
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Mar 21, 2012 s.penkevich rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Humanity

Shelves: metafiction, literary-pulp, favorites

“One may transcend any convention,” writes Mitchell’s 1930’s composer Robert Frobisher, “if only one can first conceive of doing so.” Cloud Atlas, the third novel by English novelist David Mitchell, is the author’s bare-knuckled blow to standard conventions and literature itself. Here you will encounter six stories, linked across time, that, like individual notes of a chord, each resonate together to form a greater message than just the sum of their parts. Using a style inspired by Calvino’s If...more

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view all 134 comments

Fionnuala Just read your entire review, Spenk, having finally read the entire CA.
You've really analyzed this sprawling work in great detail and yet your review...more
updated May 06, 2013 01:04am

s.penkevich Fionnuala wrote: "Just read your entire review, Spenk, having finally read the entire CA.
You've really analyzed this sprawling work in great detail a...more
May 11, 2013 11:38am

May 05, 2013 Traveller marked it as temporarily-stalled · review of another edition

I enjoyed the film that was spawned by this book. I haven't had time to read the book, partly due to time constraints, and partly because I disliked the style in the first chapter.

Something worries me more than the divisiveness of this particular book, though. It is the idea that some people seem to have here on Goodreads, that they have the last say on what is "allowed" to be said about a book, and that, if we are Goodreads friends, we have to all agree about how we feel about a particular book...more

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Sep 06, 2012 Stephanie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012, favorites, fiction

I can find no fault with Cloud Atlas.

Because of that I have had a difficult time coming up with this review. This book could have gone all wrong, its premise could have easily tipped this book over the edge into gimmick but David Mitchell pulled this off seamlessly. It blows my mind.

This book is six very different stories, occurring in different time periods that on the surface have nothing to do with each other. Yet they have everything to do with each other.

In 1850, a lawyer crosses the paci...more I can find no fault with Cloud Atlas.

Because of that I have had a difficult time coming up with this review. This book could have gone all wrong, its premise could have easily tipped this book over the edge into gimmick but David Mitchell pulled this off seamlessly. It blows my mind.

This book is six very different stories, occurring in different time periods that on the surface have nothing to do with each other. Yet they have everything to do with each other.

In 1850, a lawyer crosses the pacific during which he falls seriously ill and is treated by a doctor on board with unusual methods.

In 1931 a young composer of questionable morals works his way into the house of an old, formerly great composer who, due to late stage syphilis has lost his edge. During his time there he writes his masterpiece.

In 1975 an ambitious reporter working for a gossip rag goes after a big story that makes her a target.

Present day, an older gentleman working in publishing finally finds success, after working his entire life, with a book with ties criminal types. He soon finds trouble as well. In an attempt to find a safe place to lie low he ends up in a retirement home against his will.

In the near future, people are cloned and are genetically engineered for slave labor. They are called fabricants, and one fabricant, Sonmi 451 starts to think outside of the box. When she does all hell breaks loose.

Far into the future, we find Zachry living in Hawaii just as people did in the distant past, in tribes and in huts and with zero technology. Language itself is even breaking down. He meets a young woman that shows up on a ship that still has technology.

Zachry’s story is the center of the book and is the only one that is told completely without a break. All the rest are told up to a certain point and then they break and start with the next story in order. Once we hear Zachry’s tale we move backwards and hear the conclusion to the earlier stories to end up where we started, on the ship crossing the Pacific. It’s an onion.

All of these stories could have been written by different authors. You have an historical novel, a crime mystery, a comedy, a sci fi and an apocalyptic novel all mashed up and connected.

Superb.
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Aug 20, 2007 Larissa rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2007, read-by-recommendation, epistolary

First and foremost, this is a book about form. Four of the five stories are broken in half, each one ‘nesting’ (thanks, Chabon) inside the other until we get to the apex of the novel in one complete, contained story. It’s an intriguing project for many reasons. Firstly, there are the more formal experiments that are taking place: Mitchell sets up his stories to question a reader’s sense of how a story is told—how we deal with chronology, the ways in which readers organize elements of plot and ch...more First and foremost, this is a book about form. Four of the five stories are broken in half, each one ‘nesting’ (thanks, Chabon) inside the other until we get to the apex of the novel in one complete, contained story. It’s an intriguing project for many reasons. Firstly, there are the more formal experiments that are taking place: Mitchell sets up his stories to question a reader’s sense of how a story is told—how we deal with chronology, the ways in which readers organize elements of plot and character, and what obligation the author has to guide the reader through new information. (Mitchell tends to drop us in headlong—no preface for what sort of world we are entering or how it is related to the one which preceded it.)

But what is really interesting about the way Mitchell sets up his book is the way the characters and stories end up relating to each other. Each story makes an appearance in the next one, becoming a minor element in an ever-expanding, ever-widening plot arch. Mitchell has a lot of freedom with this given that his subject matter is somewhat fanciful and blankly fictional all the way through. Where in a stridently ‘factual’ and ‘realistic’ novel readers may find the process of one story becoming a book in the next, which then becomes a movie in the one after that, a bit convenient and cheesey—the feeling of invention in Cloud Atlas allows for such literary devices without seeming cheap. (I did think the final stretch was a bit silly—a little too Brave New World dystopia-laden for me, but otherwise was rather pleased with the linkages.) This is something that I believe fantasy and sci-fi writers generally are allowed more freedom with—look at the Harry Potter series—the woman literally pulls plot devices out of a hat, and more power to her. Because that is (at least to me) what really puts the spark in truly ‘fictional fiction.’ You don’t have to constantly tell yourself to Suspend Your Disbelief because you did so at the beginning.

The other thing that is interesting about this is that you start reconsidering the ‘What’ of the thing. If Character A is reading letters from Character B, but Character A is a fictional person in another novel—what is the ‘real’ story? Where did these ‘fake’ fictions get generated? As each story expands, it throws the last into question, merely by reframing our sense of ‘real’ and ‘not real.’ The fact that this matters to any of us when we set out to read a fictional novel is, perhaps, one of my biggest literary ticks.

One seemingly small thing that really irked me by the end of the book: I hate it when authors use their characters to make commentaries on the quality of their fiction. At worst, this is a cheap absolution for a writer who isn’t willing to really defend a choice he has made in a work, and at best it’s cute editorial winking that I don’t need. I know that such meta-commentary is part of the dialog, per se, but I fail to see its true usefulness. If you’ve put your story out there, it should stay out there, and it no longer needs your commentary. Don’t patronize me.

Lastly, in a novel that has ‘come unstuck in time,’ where events intermingle and expand and contract with a fluidity that you don’t often see, I was a little disappointed at the sentimentality that this connection seemed to inspire in the writing. Call me a cynic, but I think novels lose their punch when they try to Really Matter. Suffice to say that honing in on the 20/20 hindsight/unacknowledged foresight of history, on the inevitability of humanity’s ironic destruction is pretty unnecessary in a novel that has spent so much thoughtful, patient time and effort doing just that. Once we have the god’s eye view perspective of time repeating, further discussion almost strikes one as prosaic and simplistic. To my mind, just the fact that there is a connection is enough in and of itself.(less)

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Aug 27, 2012 Kirstine rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favourites, e-books, fantasy, sci-fi

"The world is a world of tears, and the burdens of mortality touch the heart."

This book certainly touched my heart, and my mind too. And it made me sad. Incredibly, terribly sad, not the teary kind, but the despairing kind. The kind of sad you keep in your heart, but hope someday to overcome so you soldier on.

... Let's talk about something else.

We begin with Adam Ewing. It's told through diary entries in Adam's journal, and that made it easy for me to read, because I knew he lived through ever...more

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Oct 22, 2012 Jonathan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001-books-to-read-before-you-die, personal-favourites, humorous, mystery, quirky-fiction, science-fiction, fantasy, fantasy-sci-fi-challenge, d-mitch, books-with-films

I can best sum up the brilliance of the novel Cloud Atlas as: a self-contained meta-fictional, layered, narrative of ambitious and epic proportions.

I read that David Mitchell came up with his grandiose plot when thinking about designing a narrative along the lines of a Russian doll. And this is precisely the manner in which Cloud Atlas has been constructed. The novel is constructed of six interlinking stories; each save the sixth is broken into two halves so that we end up with a narrative like...more

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May 04, 2013 Fionnuala rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The other night I had a dream. I dreamt I was floating down a roiling, murky river, tossed this way and that as the waters swirled and eddied, sometimes towards the shore, sometimes away from it, twirling in circles as the river, trees and sky formed a dizzying kaleidoscope of cloudy blues and greens before my startled eyes. Beneath the muddied surface of the water, fish of all sizes swam about, the larger ones chasing the smaller in an endless and vicious dance.
Floating alongside me were a grea...more The other night I had a dream. I dreamt I was floating down a roiling, murky river, tossed this way and that as the waters swirled and eddied, sometimes towards the shore, sometimes away from it, twirling in circles as the river, trees and sky formed a dizzying kaleidoscope of cloudy blues and greens before my startled eyes. Beneath the muddied surface of the water, fish of all sizes swam about, the larger ones chasing the smaller in an endless and vicious dance.
Floating alongside me were a great many objects, some of which sailed so close that I could almost reach out and grasp them. Among the drifting debris were a row of shells, some larger, some smaller, all bobbing about like floats on a fishing line. I managed to grab one of the larger ones and pulled it towards me. It seemed unattached to any line that I could immediately see and I wondered what purpose I could put it to. Being quite thirsty, I dipped it in the cloudy water and drank a mouthful but the water was so oily and unpleasant that I spit most of it out again. Instead, I examined the shell more closely. The exterior was covered all over in symbols and designs as intricate as a Maori’s tattoos.
So entranced was I with the pattern that I was almost knocked senseless by a piece of debris that came sweeping towards me with a powerful rush. A raft was my first thought, and I grabbed at it with my free hand and hoisted myself onto it. But this was no ordinary piece of debris. Instead I found myself lying across the battered body of a concert cello; the softer wood of the top had been smashed but the back and sides which had been carved from a sturdier tree were still intact. I now had a makeshift canoe and holding my tattooed shell close, I hauled my legs aboard and sat clear of the murky water and the scavenging fish beneath.
Using both hands as paddles, I tried to steer myself towards the bank but the current was too strong. The row of floating shells continued to bob close by me so I plucked another from the water. This one was smaller than the first and although it was also intricately decorated, the designs were entirely different. Dots and dashes, some with tails, some without, swooped and dived like little black birds all over its surface but hidden among them, almost invisible, lay one of the symbols from the larger tattooed shell. I was intrigued and reached for another. Smaller than its companions and with a less interesting design, I almost threw it overboard but decided to keep it as it fit so perfectly inside the other two. It also made for a better sized drinking cup and being ferociously thirsty by this stage, I decided to drink from the river again. Oily and slimy as it was, this time I swallowed more and felt my strength restored enough to try again for the shore and escape the roiling river. But the current held me fast in its grasp and I could do nothing but fish for another of the floating shells. Smaller again and covered with a pattern of overlapping circles like the internal workings of a clock, I placed it inside its companions where it nestled snugly. Again I drank from the river and found it strangely addictive. An even smaller shell now lay within my reach so I pulled it in and searched its surface for familiar patterns. Nothing struck me as recognisable at first glance but then I spotted a symbol I had seen several times already and I knew that this shell also belonged in the set. I drank some more river water and fell into a deep coma-like sleep.
When I opened my eyes, the canoe was floating within yards of the shore and I reached out to grab a tree root by which I hoped to pull myself free of the river at last. Just then a most intriguing little object floated not far from me, inscribed all over just like the shells and I had to make a decision, ignore it completely or paddle river-ward to retrieve it and so lose my chance of pulling myself free of the viscous torrent. The temptation of the mysterious object was so strong that I left the safety of the bank in its wake. When I finally reached it and pulled it on board, it proved to be an egg-like shape covered in the strangest markings yet but which fitted perfectly within my nest of shells when I placed it there, inspiring such a protective instinct that I immediately looked about for something to cover it with. Of the remaining shells floating about me, I fished out the one closest in size to the egg and placed it carefully on top. Now I was more intrigued than ever as I could see the pattern of this one resembled exactly the one which matched it in size. I drank once again from the river and reached for another shell. Again the correspondence with the one beneath it struck me forcefully; the same clock like patterns covered it as if this was somehow itself part of the workings of some giant time piece, some cog within a greater cog. Gone were all thoughts of escaping the river now as I alternately drank the viscous liquid and then fished out yet another shell to fit over the last, each covered in symbols, and each finding their match until I had a giant tattooed egg inside which five others lay snugly, each telling a different story. I felt so euphoric from drinking the river water and so impressed by the neatness of this treasure that I raised the egg to the stars in orison and immediately toppled overboard into the murky depths of the river where the fish swam about busily eating each other. Two larger specimens were disputing a third nearby and as I watched the first chased the other away and turned towards its prey. For an instant, I thought it was about to release it but no, its powerfully tattooed jaws swallowed it whole while its gaze turned towards me. Eat or be eaten, I thought and opened my mouth wide to attack. Before I could sink my teeth into its scaly flesh, I woke from my dream in a lather of sweat. When my heart finally stopped racing and my mind unclouded, I felt a huge relief to have finally escaped that viscous river. But I noticed the oddest thing, my mouth tasted most curiously of soap.(less)

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May 21, 2013 Nandakishore Varma rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Is narrative linear?

We all know that we tell a story in a linear fashion – “begin at the beginning, go on till the end, then stop”-but isn’t the linearity imposed by us? Isn’t history a multitude of narratives taking place simultaneously, like a multi-piece orchestra?

And what about the narrator? Is the external narrative same as the internal one? Is the story paramount, or the teller? What would be Wuthering Heights, say, if narrated by Heathcliff?
Writers and filmmakers across generations have s...more

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Oct 18, 2012 Phoebe added it · review of another edition

Shelves: literary

Cloud Atlas is going to be a hard book to review, because my feelings are all over the place about it and also Mitchell is clever enough to raise most objections one might have and then answer them, too. For instance, it's a derivative book, but he knows it; he has a character rant against common complaints about derivative books. It's a gimmicky book, too, but he has a character endeavoring to create a similar work and mentions that the idea might be gimmicky (or revolutionary--not very humble,...more Cloud Atlas is going to be a hard book to review, because my feelings are all over the place about it and also Mitchell is clever enough to raise most objections one might have and then answer them, too. For instance, it's a derivative book, but he knows it; he has a character rant against common complaints about derivative books. It's a gimmicky book, too, but he has a character endeavoring to create a similar work and mentions that the idea might be gimmicky (or revolutionary--not very humble, are we, Mr. Mitchell?) I can say for certain that this is a conceptually challenging book, fun, like a good crossword puzzle, and while it did cool things to my head--giving me weird dreams, for one--I don't think the quality was consistent enough to be great. In fact, when evaluated individually, each of the component parts was really only "okay," occasionally, "kind of pretty good," but never quite cohesive, immersive, or transcendent. I never forgot that I was playing someone's game, so to speak.

In fact, what I find most interesting in Cloud Atlas is how the repetition forces readers to search for patterns and then reach to derive meaning from those patterns. I'm not entirely confident that meaning is there; I think most of it lies in faint suggestion and a reader's desire to have everything cohere meaningfully. What Mitchell seems to do is work entirely from motifs. In each book, there is a narrator who believes him or herself to be more savvy than he or she really is. This character will, by the end, be shown to be the victim of another. There is a character who is hidden, and an interrogation. There is a birthmark. There is a stranger. There are slaves. There are the privileged classes.

Smaller repetitions, too--images and word choices repeated over and over again. The Oracle at Delphi and hydra and the will to power. Mitchell takes all of these things, rearranges them as he sees fit, and throws a different genre framework over each one. I found this convincing, compelling. I wanted to know, "Who is Henry Goose in this story?" and "Who is Autua?" The novel works best, I think, when these answers weren't supplied contextually but created from the reader interaction in the text.

Less compelling--and more awkward, ham-fisted, ill-fitting--the more obvious connections. The birthmark, and suggestions of reincarnation, for instance, announced themselves awkwardly in stories that mostly didn't need them. Likewise, for the most part, the mentions of each story in the others. This was well-integrated only in one (Sloosha's Crossin'), but really jarring in others. Sometimes it felt like an afterthought, but it never failed to bring me out of the story.

And story is where I had the most problems with this book. None of the individual pieces of Cloud Atlas are long, but each and every one felt--at some point--to be interminable. Mitchell might be working in genre but he adopts the worst excess of literary writers. Each book is indulgently phrased and very, very poorly paced. Boring, really, particularly through the first half. Characters are mostly flat, one-dimensional mouthpieces. This is particularly egregious in the Luisa Rey and Somni chapters. You might argue that this is because Mitchell is writing pastiches of particularly bad genres. I'm reminded of an old statement by a Tin House editor back in 2009:

I think you know genre fiction when you read it. My personal definition goes something like this: fiction that almost purposefully avoids the literary, in hopes of keeping the reader (or the writer, for that matter) from having to “work” too hard. It also tends to employ some stock tricks, like ending very short chapters with cliffhangers, often hopping predictably from one POV to another. Characters tend to be one-dimensional, with the kind of awkward and false-sounding dialog you’d expect.

The thing is, this is a literary fallacy; it's certainly not true for the best of genre fiction. In fact, vivid, easily-identifiable characters; fresh scientific ideas; interesting social commentary--these are all hallmarks of good sci-fi. And absent here. Further, good airport fiction is tightly--even breathlessly paced. And yet the Luisa Rey chapter is plodding, artificially stretched out, and far from gripping. Of course, Mitchell isn't trying for "good" genre fiction. He aims for low. He goes for mediocre. By the time we reached the hackneyed, predictable, painful obvious "twist" of the Sonmi section, I was about ready to give up on the book.

That's not to say that certain sections aren't compelling. Frobisher is a vividly rendered character with an endearing voice; I kept reading just to see what would happen to him. Zachry's section was the closest thing to a good book out of the lot, with the very human relationship between our narrator and Meronym at its core (shame they're making it a romance in the movie) and identifiable, riveting conflicts. But I've read Riddley Walker, which Mitchell is clearly consciously evoking, and it's a far better book even though it's also more difficult. Hoban's able to create a wildly believable world through every word choice. Though that book is longer and also harder, it's far more rewarding. I'm not sure that the individual parts here quite justify the exercise. They are interesting pastiches but they never transcend their source material (Sonmi is a pale imitation of Oryx and Crake--not even the best of Atwood--and a dozen other books but isn't quite as good as any of them).

I'd guess that Mitchell would tell me that it's the endeavor that counts, not the how but the why or whatever. I guess that's true. All six of these books are better for the one book they become. But I guess I didn't really want six okay books that form one interesting book. I wanted six great books that formed something inescapable, perfect, and utterly necessary. And in that, I was disappointed.(less)

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About David Mitchell

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

David Mitchell was born in Southport, Merseyside, in England, raised in Malvern, Worcestershire, and educated at the University of Kent. He received a degree in English and American Literature, followed by an M.A. in Comparative Literature.

He lived for a year in Sicily, then...more Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

David Mitchell was born in Southport, Merseyside, in England, raised in Malvern, Worcestershire, and educated at the University of Kent. He received a degree in English and American Literature, followed by an M.A. in Comparative Literature.

He lived for a year in Sicily, then moved to Hiroshima, Japan, where he taught English to technical students for eight years, before returning to England. After another stint in Japan, he currently lives in Ireland with his wife Keiko and their two children.

In an essay for Random House, Mitchell wrote:

"I knew I wanted to be a writer since I was a kid, but until I came to Japan to live in 1994 I was too easily distracted to do much about it. I would probably have become a writer wherever I lived, but would I have become the same writer if I'd spent the last 6 years in London, or Cape Town, or Moose Jaw, on an oil rig or in the circus? This is my answer to myself."

Mitchell's first novel, Ghostwritten (1999), moves around the globe, from Okinawa to Mongolia to pre-Millennial New York City, as nine narrators tell stories that interlock and intersect. The novel won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize (for best work of British literature written by an author under 35) and was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award.

His two subsequent novels, number9dream (2001) and Cloud Atlas (2004), were both shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. In 2003, he was selected as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists. In 2007, Mitchell was listed among Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in The World.

Mitchell's American editor at Random House is novelist David Ebershoff. He lists John Banville, Muriel Spark, Haruki Murakami, Paul Auster, Don DeLillo, Russell Hoban, Italo Calvino, Peter Carey, George Orwell, Vladimir Nabokov, Jorge Luis Borges, Richard Wright, Mikhail Bulgakov, and Ursula K. Le Guin among his many literary influences.(less)

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