Chinchudo answers “What was your favorite section? Least...”

Christian asked this question about Cloud Atlas:

What was your favorite section? Least favorite?

Chinchudo My favourite character is Timothy Cavendish (and that one out-of-place name-drop in Sonmi‘s orison is hilarious!), but I realize that many readers on …moreMy favourite character is Timothy Cavendish (and that one out-of-place name-drop in Sonmi‘s orison is hilarious!), but I realize that many readers on goodreads seem to think his ordeal is the weakest part of the book…

Adam Ewing‘s and Robert Frobisher‘s stories and the two parts set in distant futures are also interesting in their own ways, and Mitchell‘s craft in writing them is worthy of praise. I think the Frobisher story is my personal number two, although it could take top spot depending on what mood I‘m in on any given day.

To me, the Luisa Rey story is the weakest part of the book: it does indeed feel too much like the script for an action movie (as Mitchell postmodernly addresses elsewhere in the book), there’s not enough humour, it features the least interesting characters, and the constant twists and surprises (?) suffer from ever more diminishing returns. Although it is set in 1970s‘ California, during reading it felt less real to me than Zachry‘s story in postapocalyptic „Ha-Why“. I do get that this part is a spoof of certain genre literature, but I still was impatient for it to end.(less)

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