A BREATH AWAY

WHAT IS CLOUD ATLAS? According to Wiki, Cloud Atlas is “a pictorial key to the nomenclature of clouds.” And the first to make the nomenclature (list of names) of clouds was the English chemist and meteorologist, Luke Howard.

What compelled me to browse the internet for this bit of information was Zachary’s last narration in Sloosha’s Crossin’ An’ Ev’rythin’ After:

“I watched clouds awobbly from the floor o’ that kayak. Souls cross ages like clouds cross skies, an’ tho’ a cloud’s shape nor hue nor size don’t stay the same, it’s still a cloud an’ so is a soul. Who can say where the cloud’s blowed from or who the soul’ll be ’morrow? Only Sonmi the east an’ the west an’ the compass an’ the atlas, yay, only the atlas o’ clouds.”

THE MOVIE IS ALMOST UPON US. So, what did we do? Hunt for copies, and went down into devouring the pages the moment we laid our hands on them. Of course, everybody was curious what the hype all about is.

Patterned alike Italo Calvino’s If On a Winters Night A Traveler, Cloud Atlas has 6 intertwined narrations, segregated into 11 chapters. Divided by the 6th chapter, the narration was brilliantly concluded by means of palindrome effect. Moving through the narrations was like a time leap from one generation to the next, from one genre to another –Historical, Romance, Action-Thriller, Sci-Fi, and Dystopian.

Aside from Mitchell’s great fascination with the number six, which was scattered across the book, the reader will have to hunt for the bits and clues that bridged the whole book into one. It was both fascinating and exciting finding them. And I cannot help putting tabs to every interesting quote I encounter. Some readers even noted important literary allusions of the narratives. But let us not delve into that here.

WHY I GAVE IT FIVE STARS? Oh, it’s not entirely because of what I mentioned above. The stories alone, individually, were not that extraordinary. We’ve read something similar before, no? Some even made a whole series with such style. It was because of this that I gave it the full five stars:


Please do read it carefully. I may be the only one among the buddy readers who consumed 3 different unabridged versions of this book –paperback, e-book, and audiobook. When I listened to the audiobook I thought I may have bought an abridged version, but I did not. Then why are there certain quotes mentioned in audio not printed the same on the paperback. I then checked the e-book version, true enough the quote was not printed the same as either of the previous 2 versions. Perplexing, right? Then, Aldrin posted the above photo. The realization dawned on me. The book is as brilliant as its writer. Every book version is different from the other, but conveyed the same message; just as each main character is different from their predecessor, but shared the same soul.

CLOUD ATLAS IS THE BOOK AND THE PEOPLE INSIDE IT… and maybe it meant us too. Every cloud we see looked different from the other, heck, even their names are different; but they are made up of the same stuff –a multitude of water droplets. Humans of different races, nationality, loyalty, and belief have this in common –that our life is but one dying breath away from another’s birth.

Same thoughts on A Thought On Each Page