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Cloud Atlas

David Mitchell

Start date: August 2, 2013

Finish date: August 31, 2013

Discussion: Club de lectura

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What Members Thought

Sep 26, 2012 Xandra rated it really liked it

Shelves: british, sci-fi, big-books, z-m, booker-wp, dystopia-utopia, european, thriller-mystery-crime-horror, favourites, 2000-present

Cloud Atlas is a fascinating odyssey that plays with transcendence of space and time, interconnectedness of cause and effect and predacity as a ubiquitous reality in human history. Jumping from 1850 Pacific Ocean to 1931 Belgium to 1975 California to present day England to futuristic Korea to post-apocalyptic Hawaii (Ha-Why), the story is a mastery of language and a display of virtuosity with genres. The six interwoven narratives allow Mitchell to inhabit a wide range of voices and the result is Cloud Atlas is a fascinating odyssey that plays with transcendence of space and time, interconnectedness of cause and effect and predacity as a ubiquitous reality in human history. Jumping from 1850 Pacific Ocean to 1931 Belgium to 1975 California to present day England to futuristic Korea to post-apocalyptic Hawaii (Ha-Why), the story is a mastery of language and a display of virtuosity with genres. The six interwoven narratives allow Mitchell to inhabit a wide range of voices and the result is spectacular. I particularly think that Sloosha's Crossin' an' Ev'rythin' After is where Mitchell’s genius truly shines. The made-up and easily readable language in Slooshas’s Crossin’… brings a desolate post-apocalyptic Hawaii to life in images so vivid that I still feel now, sitting on my ass and typing this sort-of review, that they already happened in the “real” future. Maybe if you’ve read the book, you get my drift and this isn’t complete nonsense.

So, do these stories hold together? Well, barely. They don’t fall apart due to the slightly annoying effort on Mitchell’s part, who goes almost out of his way to make sure we “get it”, but the themes of interdependence and historic recurrence aren’t sufficiently strong and well presented to tie it all together. And this is where the movie comes in. That indefinite “something” missing from the book is present in the movie. I’m not sure if this should be a critique of over-ambitiousness addressed to the author or if it’s just an observation on the constraints of the written medium. Clear thing is, added visual and auditory aspects, Cloud Atlas becomes a perfect whole. Putting a face to the characters, hearing Sixmith’s Sextet, being able to truly see An Orison of Sonmi-451, I almost fell in with the “the movie was better” crowd. But they’re both individually very good. Bring them together and you have something incredible. (view spoiler)

Both the book and the movie are time-consuming. It’s not only the many hours they require to spend with them, but also the time spent afterwards, thinking about them or daydreaming about a character or a story (this can’t be only happening to me, right?). Was it worth it? Certainly.
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Mar 11, 2018 Bogdan rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: brits

Absolutely brilliant idea and very well written. The only fault of this novel it is the number of pages, but you can't tell such a story(ies) in less number of pages. ...more

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Jan 17, 2012 Roxana rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: read_in_english, favorites

I'm at a loss of words now that I've finished Cloud Atlas. David Mitchell is a wonderful story-teller and I'm impressed of how many voices he managed to borrow, how he went through history and yet how one third of the book is anticipative fiction. So many quotes linger, so many images do so as well. The book was way better than the movie, yet I feel the movie did it justice and I intend to re-see it now that I'm done reading the book. ...more

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Feb 02, 2016 M rated it really liked it

Read Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. An amazing work of a book. Never seen such style, such force. It 19s the second or so book that made me think wow, I didn 19t know you could do that with literature. It 19s really a lesson in writing, a lesson in story-telling. The way the six stories meet & complete one another, together with their all over complexity & symbols make it a book that leaves you satiated.

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