Cloud Atlas

by David Mitchell

Learn from this, Sixsmith. When insolvent, pack minimally, with a valise tough enough to be thrown onto a London pavement from a first-or second-floor window. Insist on hotel rooms no higher.

Kentish Queen slid into Dover’s snaggletoothed twin sister over the mucky water, Ostend, the Lady of Dubious Virtue. Early, early morning, Europe’s snoring rumbled deep below bass tubas. Saw my first aboriginal Belgians, hauling crates, arguing, and thinking in Flemish, Dutch, whatever.

“Are you mad?” Always a trickier question than it looks. “I doubt it.”

The forest left as abruptly as it had arrived, and the topography grew hillier. We traveled east, the Woraksan Range to our south and Ch’ungju Lake spreading north. The lake water stunk of effluent from its salmon net ponds. Crosswater hills displayed mighty corp logos. A malachite statue of Prophet Malthus surveyed a dust bowl.

She was widely read enough to appreciate my literary wit but not so widely read that she knew my sources. I like that in a woman.

Mme. v.d.V., who also summered in Switzerland, gave laborious accounts of how Marie-Louise had been eulogized in Berne as “the Flower of the Alps” by Countess Slãck-Jawski or the Duchess of Sümdümpstädt.

A pi-jawed ass of kingly proportions, so busy planning his next boorish interruption that he never listens properly.

The Great Patriarch excused himself—had a pile of chits to sign as high as the Matterhorn. May he die in an avalanche.