Just got around to reading this today, puts my crummy review to shame. I missed half the metaphors you mentioned, make me wonder if I was reading the book in my sleep (especially the key one about the titular sextet).

I treasure your reviews. For this one, you plumbed you reactions and make it very clear why you liked it, and you made a great roadmap for what a reader can expect. Apatt the apt!

For this book, I was so shaken up with a disorienting journey across space and time that I was starved for clues on what the hell was going on. When Mitchell has the musician ask "Revolutionary or gimmicky?", it sure felt like he was referring to his own creation.

Michael wrote: "I treasure your reviews. For this one, you plumbed you reactions and make it very clear why you liked it, and you made a great roadmap for what a reader can expect. Apatt the apt!

For this book,..."

Thanks Michael, have you read any other Mitchell books?

No--how about you? What can you recommend? One Thousand Autumns sounds promising.

Michael wrote: "No--how about you? What can you recommend? One Thousand Autumns sounds promising."

Me neither, we have to do synchronized reading may be ;)

Very insightful review, Michael. Does " “The weak are meat the strong do eat" sound Dylanesque?

Ian wrote: "Very insightful review, Michael. Does " “The weak are meat the strong do eat" sound Dylanesque?"
Both Bob and Dylan Thomas, his namesake. And Dr. Suess. And Peachy Nietzche. :-)

I wonder whatever happened to the approach of looking at history as a progression of ideas rather than people and power.

TV.

Excellent review, Michael. I loved this book also and find your review so revealing and thought provoking. You have a wonderful way with words.

I've read and very much enjoyed "The Thousand Autumn's of Jacob de Zoet". I highly recommend it.

Thanks, Sue.

And, Ian, yes our PBS has a tradition of treating history like a succession of ideas--Bronowski and more recent "Evolution" series. But Lovejoy's approach I see still has its adherents, with many PhD programs and a few journals devoted to "history of ideas". The threads you've pulled out that cut across all of Cloud Atlas' segments in some sense pays homage to ideas having a life and history of their own separate from the people. The "meme" The weak are meat the strong do eat is one such. "We stand on the shoulders of ogres" as much as "giants". Was Dylan the medium or the massage?

Love the first sentence of this review!
And the rest of this review.
But - the 1st sentence!

Linda wrote: "Love the first sentence of this review!...
I guess it would be okay for "The Time Traveller's Wife", but in retrospect any mention of interrupted stories for this is a spoiler. I had avoided reviews before reading, so it was a fresh frustration for me.

I started this novel and was enjoying it. Then I saw the movie. Big mistake. I've put the book aside for a while. Need to forget the movie. Did you see the movie?

Anne wrote: "...Need to forget the movie. Did you see the movie?"
Am in no hurry to see it. I'm nt sure what could be gained to have my imagination bound up with the risk of a particular vision. Sometimes that works, as how I can never recall "Lonesome Dove" without an image of Duvall and Jones as the lead characters or "To Kill a Mockingbird" without seeing Peck as Atticus Finch.

So girl interrupted on the book. Am sure you can reap the rewards with coming back to it. The compelling language forms can help you dispell the cinematic literality the movie has planted in your mind.

I think eventually I'll be able to read it. I have had the experience several times of reading a book after seeing the movie and, while reading, the movie plays in my brain.