Cloud Atlas

by David Mitchell

Ewing? A half-read book is a half-finished love affair.

People knelt in prayer, some moving their lips. Envy ’em, really I do. I envy God, too, privy to their secrets. Faith, the least exclusive club on Earth, has the craftiest doorman.

Time is the speed at which the past decays,

human hunger birthed the Civ’lize, but human hunger killed it too.

there ain’t no journey what don’t change you some.

Books don’t offer real escape but they can stop a mind scratching itself raw.

‘Wars do not combust without warning. They begin as little fires over the horizon. Wars approach. A wise man watches for the smoke, and prepares to vacate the neighbourhood, just like Ayrs and Jocasta. My worry is that the next war will be so big, nowhere with a decent restaurant will be left untouched.’ Was he so sure another war was coming? ‘Another war is always coming, Robert. They are never properly extinguished. What sparks wars? The will to power, the backbone of human nature. The threat of violence, the fear of violence, or actual violence is the instrument of this dreadful will. You can see the will to power in bedrooms, kitchens, factories, unions and the borders of states. Listen to this and remember it. The nation state is merely human nature inflated to monstrous proportions. QED, nations are entities whose laws are written by violence. Thus it ever was, so ever shall it be. War, Robert, is one of humanity’s two eternal companions.