Cloud Atlas in Crazy Challenge Connection

Jul 16, 2012 Bucket rated it it was amazing

Shelves: culture, many-perspectives, 1001-read-all-editions, time, experimental, literary, philosophy, history, war, reviewed

"Souls cross ages like clouds cross skies, an' tho' a cloud's shape nor hue nore 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?"

So it is for the souls in Cloud Atlas, a novel of nested stories. The time period and characters are different in each story, but it's clear that many of them share souls with each other - they ARE each other, reborn. The first story takes place in the late 1800s and we enter it li "Souls cross ages like clouds cross skies, an' tho' a cloud's shape nor hue nore 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?"

So it is for the souls in Cloud Atlas, a novel of nested stories. The time period and characters are different in each story, but it's clear that many of them share souls with each other - they ARE each other, reborn. The first story takes place in the late 1800s and we enter it like a powerful drill digging into the crust of the earth. Each story - there are six - takes our drill deeper, and forward in time, until we reach the core, a story set several hundred years in the future. We don't stop there, but on the other side of the core we continue on through the same layers in reverse, until we arrive back at the surface, in the 1800s, where we started.

The six stories are connected in many ways. Not only do the characters share souls, but each protagonist reads or hears the story of the one who came before them. Additionally, the stories together serve as a history of human greed and desire for power, ultimately leading to the end of civilization as we know it. One character writes: "In an individual, selfishness uglifies the soul; for the human species, selfishness is extinction. Is this the doom written within our nature?"

I was fascinated by this novel. It wasn't the individual stories exactly - they are strong and well-written, but not mind-blowing - it was the interconnection between them. Mitchell captures and builds his themes in these very, very different stories in an astounding way. I can honestly say he does this better than any other novel in stories I've read before. The threads are woven beautifully and almost magically - the book IS the fictional symphony (one character composes a musical masterpiece called Cloud Atlas Sextet) that gives it its name. His experiment absolutely succeeds.

I also enjoyed the thread of repeated events or experiences - as one character says, "we cross, crisscross, and recross our old tracks like figure skaters." - coupled with the ongoing revelation that there really are no patterns. It's so easy to find patterns in history and turn them into theories and laws after the fact, but that can never ensure a certain outcome in the future. ("History admits no rules; only outcomes.") This reminds me of Tolstoy's discussion about how we view history in War and Peace.

"Souls cross the skies o' time... like clouds crossin' skies o' the world."

Themes: clouds, souls, technology, history, time, "corpocracy," human greed, selfishness, war, short story, connections with others, repetition and patterns, randomness, music ...more

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Jun 30, 2014 Nancy Brady rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: first-read, goodreads-giveaway

Full disclosure:I received this novel as a Goodreads giveaway, but this in no way affects my review.

Six different styles of writing of stories are linked together. At times, it is a bit crazy as the styles and languages are bizarre, yet intriguing. Even a bit of Alice in Wonderland's "curiouser and curiouser." Some of the stories were more enjoyable to read than others. Noticing the connections between each section was one of the more enjoyable aspects of reading this novel. ...more

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Aug 12, 2013 Carol rated it really liked it

Shelves: david-mitchell

If you want to reading something different, then this is the book! Mitchell takes the reader through six different stories which the reader is only allowed to read the first part and then move on to the next story -- in this order 1 2 3 4 5 6 and then return to the books in this order 5 4 3 2 1. Personally I have to say that I enjoyed all of the stories except the dystopian one entitled An Orison of Sonmi, which made me think that Mitchell was influenced greatly by the 1973 film - Soylent Green, ...more

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