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

Friend-read with Donna! <3 Here's a link to her amazing review: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

This book is vastly overrated. Mitchell spins a tale of reincarnation with no real punch and no real endgame. I kept waiting for the mindfuck, none was forthcoming.

This book is like a sandwich:
Bread: 1850 Adam Ewing, story cut off mid-point.
Mustard: 1931 Robert Frobisher, story cut off mid-point.
Onion: 1975 Luisa Rey, story cut off mid-point.
Lettuce: 2025(?) Timothy Cavendish, story cut off mid-point.
Cheese: Let's say 2125(?) Sonmi, story cut off mid-point.
Meat: Only complete story in the book, 2325 (?), Zachry, full story.
Cheese: Sonmi's story concludes.
Lettuce: Timothy's story concludes.
Onion: Luisa Rey's story concludes.
Mustard: Robert Frobisher's story concludes.
Bread: Adam Ewing's story concludes.

Is this a unique and innovative way to write a book? Yes.

Do I really care? No.

Mitchell does employ a gimmicky method of storytelling, but brings nothing new to my brain with his ramblings. I think he's trying hard to be deep and mindblowing, but it is a miserable failure.

Mitchell 'tackles' race and race relations head-on in this story, starting with Ewing living in a world (1850) where Aryan races are deemed 'naturally' superior and destined to take over Earth, and "ending" with the far post-apocalyptic future in which the ruling class, the class with technology - are all dark-skinned because more melanin means more resistance to plague. White people run around in "tribes" down on Earth, where they hunt and gather and kill each other in tribal wars, while the black ruling class flies around on ships and sends their scientists to study the "primitives."

One, this was fucking heavy-handed and not very enjoyable to this reader. No subtlety and nuance here. Secondly, Mitchell was severely pissing this reader off due to his insistence that while racism and race hierarchies could be eliminated (most explicitly in the Sonmi section in which the MC marvels that humans once judged each other by melanin levels in the skin), patriarchy and the subjugation of women will never go away. Women are raped, seen as sexual objects, and made to be the beasts of burden no matter how far ahead in the timeline Mitchell has created you travel. It's really quite depressing. And he insists on - whether in the past or the future - not only making women sex objects, but if no women are available during a situation, the men will rape and subjugate young boys and teenage boys. (Male on male rape is featured in two stories, the farthest past and the farthest future, both stemming from a situation in which no females are around to serve as sexual objects.)

I can't say that I'm surprised that Mitchell has his eyes on race and seems to boldly say that skin color doesn't matter or make up an innate core of a person, but is a social construct - while at the same time seems to just accept the "fact" that women are the weaker sex, who can either choose to fuck (or not choose, as the case may be) in order to move up the social ladder and save their lives, or choose (again, not really choose) to die. "Naturally" men are rapist scum, and women are their victims. "Naturally" if men have no women or girls around to rape, they will rape younger or weaker men because, you know, that's how men are. That's just the way life is. Accept it.

What a bunch of fucking bullshit. Science fiction-fantasy books always highly annoy me because despite being a genre in which an author can DO anything, make ANY reality possible, bend time and space and send people to new worlds, the future, the past, ANYTHING - rarely do I find a science fiction or fantasy book that TRULY revolutionizes our world or our way of looking at our world. Authors just CANNOT seem to escape whatever "truths" they already know, whether it be the 'truths' about human nature, the 'truths' about race, the 'truths' about sex and gender, or the 'truths' about human sexuality. It's so sad. Books that truly challenge your mind and the status quo (for example, Nexus or vN) are rare and far between. Stuff like this book, which is apparently trying hard to be daring and mindblowing, is actually sadly mundane and mired in uneducated ideas that are going to be left behind in the past.

It's ludicrous, Mitchell is saying, that once we enslaved people and hated them and thought them inferior due to their skin color. How primitive. How revolting. However, he gleefully has women acting as slaves, sex toys, and love interests with no apparent clue in his head that perhaps the shackles of sex and gender can also be discarded and left in the past. It's eerie, because he has absolutely NO IDEA that he is even doing this. It's completely unconscious on his part. Every time I thought we were going to get a female MC that would have a storyline with no sex in it... and trust me, sex is not needed... she would end up having sex or being sexualized in some fucking ridiculous way for no reason whatsoever. I was rabid.

The women in this book act completely as if they were written by a man. Insult intended. They have sex for no reason with men whom they would have zero sexual interest in. If a woman is a MC in Mitchell's story, she is of course attractive and sexy. And ends up banging male characters for no reason whatsoever. Men, no matter what century they are in, can't stop themselves from being rapist pieces of shit. Because Mitchell believes that this is somehow an innate feature of manhood. Wild sexuality that can't be tamed. Women are victims. Men are dominant.

Even women who are created with NO genetalia end up performing sex acts because ostensibly 'they fell in love' (with a man whom I had NO inkling she was romantically or sexually attracted to, after witnessing something NO person would ever want to have sex right after seeing, for no reason imaginable). Other women who seemingly are going to sidestep Mitchell's insistence that they fall in love with and have sex with men end up being talked about ad-nauseam in regards to their "big breasts" and having men moon over them non-stop.

This kind of relentless gender stereotyping and 'sexual roles are innate' crap is non-stop throughout the novel. Even Mitchell's bisexual man who is extremely sexually active with countless people is boringly shunted into a typical "normative" male role with no room for actual boundary-breaking or innovation.

This is a quote from the most far-reaching future of the book, let's say 2300s. Zachry, a tribal white man, and Meronym, a technologically-advanced Prescient, are discussing the differences between what is a "savage" and what is a "civilized person."

"So is it better to be savage'n to be Civ'lized?"

"What's the naked meanin'b'hind them two words?"

"Savages ain't got no laws," I said, "but Civ'lizeds got laws."

"Deeper'n that it's this. The savage sat'fies his needs now. He's hungry, he'll eat. He's angry, he'll knuckly. He's swellin', he'll shoot up a woman. His master is his will, an' if his will say-soes "Kill" he'll kill. Like fangy animals."

"Yay, that was the Kona."

"Now the Civ'lized got the same needs too, but he sees further. He'll eat half his food now, yay, but plant half so he won't go hungry'morrow. He's angry, he'll stop'n' think why so he won't get angry next time. He's swellin', well, he's got sisses an' daughters what need respectin' so he'll respect his bros' sisses an' daughters. His will is his slave, an' if his will say soes, "Don't!" he won't, nay."

At this point I just gave up all hope in life. If Mitchell is expecting me to believe a black woman is explaining to a white man in the year 2400ish that men are still naturally rapist shit, and the only reason men don't rape women is because they might not like it if their women were raped, well. Fuck. I might as well give up on humanity now. Forget the possibility that men might be human beings who care about other human beings and not want them to suffer. Forget the possibility, even, that men will ever see women as human beings at all. Mitchell seems to think this will never happen, and woman are going to be raped and shat on until the end of time. Because, you know. That's how men and women's natures ARE. Which is a fucking repulsive attitude to have.


So, your feminist ranting aside, how is this book otherwise?

Well, as you can see, Mitchell chooses to write in the most annoying way possible. The Ewing section and the horrendous Zachry section are particularly eye-bleeding due to Mitchell trying to be clever and butchering the English language in order to make people talk in a dialect. It's horrible and a nightmare to read. Heaven help you if English isn't your first language. You might have to give up on the book in frustration and disgust. I have no idea why authors insist on pulling this crap.

Genres

One could claim that Mitchell is playing around with different genres in this book. Ewing's is a seafaring adventure. Luisa Rey is living in a thriller novel. Zachry is living in a post-apocalyptic Hawaii. However, if you are expecting Mitchell to transport you into any of these genres with any skill, you would be horribly mistaken. Luisa Rey is a watered-down thriller at best. Zachry's post-apocalyptic world lacks the punch and innovation one finds in other interpretations by more interesting authors. Ewing's seafaring adventures are at times nigh incomprehensible.


Tl;dr - This book is vastly overrated. I've never seen the film (and never plan to) so I can't comment on that, but in regards to the book: don't waste your time. Mitchell thinks he's being clever, and in a way he is - but it's a shallow way of being clever. He doesn't do anything even approaching being actually revolutionary, and that's a huge disappointment. I predicted the majority of his 'plot twists.' There's no actual meat in this sandwich.

Tuesday, 16th June--

"I come to my journal as a Catholick to a confessor." The ache in my head was too grievous to ignore & proves that this experience though conjured by Literature enacted themselves upon me as real events. "I shall describe what befell me this day, steering as close to the facts as possible." I attempted such and began to Read, hoping that the cleverness contained in these Words might bestow comprehension & enlightenment upon me, but Alas! As I endeavored to comprehend, my eyelids were like a heavy burden & scraped against the eggshell skin of my eyeballs & instead I emerged into the heavy sleep of the savage neath the heavenly eye of the sky.

*****************

CHATEAU CAROL
17th--VI--2015

Reader,
It was with pleasure I began the section set in Zedelghem. The writer erudite, v. passionate about music. Composing for a symphony evoked phrases that sang. Penniless, on the run from creditors, R.F. inserts himself into a syphilic-ridden composer's household.

"Now, pay attention while I talk books." I suspect R.F. to be co-written by a critic; how else could one explain lines like, "Something shifty about the journal's authenticity--seems to structured for a genuine diary, and its language doesn't ring quite true--but who would bother forging such a journal and why?"

It is as if the writer is reading my mind. I tell you, this part was v.good. Am captivated by writer's passion for his music, reminds me of a fair-haired muse from my years at the college--recommend you find a muse of your own.

******************

3
Luisa Rey and Sixsmith are in a discussion about Hitchcock films. Again I think that Mitchell is staring as his own navel when Sixsmith says, "A contrived puzzle, yes, but all thrillers would wither without contrivance."

*****************

"As an experienced editor, I disapprove of flashbacks, foreshadowings, and tricksy devices; they belong in the 1980s with M.A.s in postmoderinsm and chaos theory. I make no apology, however, for (re)starting my own narrative with my version of that shocking affair. You see, it paved my first good intention on the road to Hull, or rather Hull's hinterland, where my ghastly ordeal is fated to unfold."

This is truly the current version of doctor Ewing, full of himself in every sense of the word and convinced of both his importance and with a general air of intolerance for the less enlightened around him, yet crippled by a streak of cowardice. Again with the naval-gazing, and let me not begin on the contrived disaster. I had no idea I was really reading Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life.

*****************

"A more metaphysical question... were you happy, back in those days?"
As I was reading, you mean? "If, by happiness, you mean the absence of adversity," well, yes, I was the happiest reader in the society as was insisted by all the reviews giving this book five stars. "However, if happiness means the conquest of adversity, or a sense of purpose, or the xercise of one's will to power," then I admit that I was enduring this read for the mild curiosity of the puzzle presented. But I did not realize I would be reading Brave New World. I gleaned, however, that my xperience would not be welcomed among the Souled.

****************

"This ain't a smilesome yarnie, but you asked 'bout my life on Big Island, an' these is the mem'ries what are minnowin' out."

I memberin' readin' dialeck makin' me annoyed, unless yr name b'un Alice Walker


****************

I end, convinced that Mitchell is trying to be both the lecturer and Fool(critic) both writin' and readin' the work:

"Spent the fortnight gone in the music room, reworking my year's fragments into a 'sextext for overlapping soloists'... each in its own language of key, scale, and color. In the first set, each solo is interrupted by its successor: in the second, each interruption is recontinued, in order. Revolutionary or gimmicky? Shan't know until it's finished, and by then it'll be too late."


I know which camp I fall into.




much, much obliged to Mimi for sharing a copy of the book with me.

n  How vulgar, this hankering after immortality, how vain, how false. Composers are merely scribblers of cave paintings. One writes music because winter is eternal and because, if one didn’t, the wolves and blizzards would be at one’s throat all the sooner.n

Ingenuity married eloquence and David Mitchell was the fruit of their love. Many have tried to do what Mitchell did in Cloud Atlas but only few have managed not to get drowned in the vast ocean of their own majestic ideas. One major storyline divided into six individual ones that unravel in the form of a pyramid. Each is told in two parts (the first ones forming the ascending side of the pyramid, while the second ones the descending one) except for the one that sits on the top, which is told as a whole.

I've talked before about Mitchell's way with wor(l)ds and how they seem to numb one's mind with their enchanting flow which, when combined with brainy witticisms is even more enchanting (here's an example: "Guy the Guy introduced me to a cocktail called “Ground Control to Major Tom.” Time’s Arrow became Time’s Boomerang, and I lost count of all my majors."), so I'll move on to some other points regarding his masterpiece. Mitchell's concept is so grand, that it's hard to believe it doesn't lack consistency. The oneness of mankind through ages past and those that are yet to come can't be a stroll in the park for any author, yet Mitchell makes it look surprisingly easy. Each story belongs in a different age, thus having its own style, taking Mitchell's linguistic abilities to the limits, while at the same time challenging the reader to take part in a study of the evolution of language throughout the factual and hypothetical cultural changes. I imagine the chapter "Shloosa's crossin' an' ev'rythin' after" was even harder to write than it was to read.

From the aboriginal slaves to a future where neo-corporatism has replaced people with consumers and workers with "fabricants" that are more humans than robots, Cloud Atlas is soaked in philosophical questions about humanity, society and revolution. Mitchell draws a map of the human progress throughout centuries for all of us to see and noone can deny that the future he portrays is frighteningly plausible. All this combined with the notion that nothing is ever really lost and no matter how different the present may look from the past, it's not that different afterall. In Cloud Atlas, life is a cycle and the phrase "history repeats itself" is taken to a whole new level.

n  Fantasy. Lunacy. All revolutions are, until they happen, then they are historical inevitabilities.n

To be honest, I don't know what it's like to read Cloud Atlas without having previously been introduced to its philosophy. I'd already watched the film twice prior to reading it, so it wasn't hard for me to follow. However, it strikes me as a rather demanding novel that needs the reader to pay close attention in order to grasp all the subtle nuances and not lose the point. Yet, its complexity shouldn't be regarded as a discouraging factor, but rather as one more proof of its author's talent. It really isn't hard to read. Just multi-layered and deep.

n  The I’s we were yearn to breathe the world’s air again, but can they ever break out from these calcified cocoons? Oh, can they hell.n

Whether you will appreciate its spiritual allusions or perceive it as something more abstract (like I did), I think it's a novel worthy of your time and devotion. Mitchell has made his way into my top 5 contemporaries and my decision to read all his works in chronological order, seems to be one I will not regret.

n  Yet, what is any ocean but a multitude of drops?n

P.S.: I could fill whole pages with Mitchell's quotes, it's so hard to choose! Last one, I promise...

n  In a cycle as old as tribalism, ignorance of the Other engenders fear; fear engenders hatred; hatred engenders violence; violence engenders further violence until the only “rights,” the only law, are whatever is willed by the most powerful.n

image:

I have mixed feelings about Cloud Atlas. It is certainly an original idea, and generally well-executed, but I haven't been able to shake my cynicism and embrace the novel wholeheartedly.

At first, each story appears unconnected to the next, with only a notional link. That is until the novel's two central chapters (which in my view are its high point) - An Orison of Sonmi-451 and Sloosha’s Crossin’ An’ Ev’rythin’ After - which together, slowly and surprisingly reveal a combined, roughly linear narrative: a warning about humanity’s potential future. After reading these chapters I was expecting that in the back half of the novel, each story being revisited would add to this narrative by establishing a similar causal chain between past events and future. This, I think would have been an impressive resolution. Instead, the connections between the stories in the second half continued to be more or less as tenuous and incidental as they were the first time around. The main problem is that aside from a few moments, these stories were not that compelling in themselves, and rather than being drawn into them I found myself searching for the next tidbit that would link them together. And though I respect what Mitchell has done in writing his novel in six very different styles, I found the experience of reading many of these styles more distracting than enjoyable.

There are really three different methods the author uses to link these stories into a cohesive narrative. The first are the plot elements, which as I have said, are generally tenuous with the exception of the two central chapters. The second is through the use of various symbols: a birthmark in the shape of a comet, an artefact (letters; a book), or a sense of déjà vu. I found these the least interesting as they were both blatant and meaningless (yes, the fact that several characters share a birthmark draws your attention to a commonality, but the link carries no weight). The final method is through the stories’ shared themes, and this is the most successful and the most compelling of the three. Some of the major themes being the human “will to power”; its effects, its counter-reactions, and the role (or lack thereof) of individual conscious will in this seemingly inevitable cycle. The lack of real narrative connection forces the author to be heavy-handed in his exposition of these themes in order to establish a thematic connection, often forcing his characters into uncharacteristic moments of philosophical reflection to get his point across. There are moments of self-awareness, and at times the author seems to be winking at us (Letters from Zedelghem, p463):

n  “Spent the fortnight gone in the music room reworking my year's fragments into a 'sextet for overlapping soloists': piano, clarinet, 'cello, flute, oboe, and violin, each in its own language of key, scale, and color. In the first set, each solo is interrupted by its successor; in the second, each interruption is recontinued, in order. Revolutionary or gimmicky? Shan't know until it's finished, and by then it'll be too late… ”n

However, despite its often shaky footing, I think that Cloud Atlas does achieve some significant measure of what it seeks to do. It is thematically consistent, and each story succeeds in exploring a different element of its themes, while at the same time pointing towards a commonality. By the end, one is left with a sense that something substantial has been said about the human condition. And though it has been said in an overdrawn manner and without a lot of subtlety, hey – at least it’s ambitious, and at least it's original. That’s got to count for something.

Tomorrow I will never see, though I have no wings I fly free. Of what I dream no one can know, I am but a container for a rainbow.
Stories are clouds… The same story told by a different raconteur changes form and it may also change a meaning.

I watched clouds awobbly from the floor o’ that kayak. Souls cross ages like clouds cross skies, an’ tho’ a cloud’s shape nor hue nor 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? Only Sonmi the east an’ the west an’ the compass an’ the atlas, yay, only the atlas o’ clouds.

As every watermelon contains seeds out of which new watermelons can be grown so every story contains seeds of other stories… And the present contains seeds of the future…
Yet what is the world if not the multitude of stories?

Synopsis: A good 'epic' drama on the basic principles of Karma. A lecture, illustrated through the rebirth of a certain cast of characters, each birth altered by past birth, inextricably linked - a repeating microcosm; a beautiful composition playing out within the cosmic grand symphony. David Mitchell does manage to convey the beauty of the concept... a bit grandiloquently, but then the concept demands it.

Gimmicky? Yes.

Cool? Again, yes.



Postscript: This reviewer could have attempted a greater examination into the operation of Karma and Dharma. Postponed for the time being. Other aspects, such as the rhetorical/narrative devices and historical conception, has been well analyzed by other reviewers.

The only disagreement that this reviewer has with some of these analyses is that they have been insufficiently thorough in exploring the techniques of narration/rhetoric. In particular, they seem to have neglected stylistic matters, concentrating too much on parataxis, or the balance of elements in an argument, rather than on true syntaxis, or the composition of extended arguments whose elaborate and constantly varied structure should echo the turns taken by the core idea being expressed.

In Cloud Atlas, what we see is a unique blend of the theoretical and the practical, for the stories are virtuoso pieces designed not for a particular plot alone but to serve as models to be variously employed towards illustrating the single grand idea of Karma (as well, no doubt, as to stand in their own right as autonomous works of fiction). Hence this reviewer's preoccupation with the concept of Karma in the short synopsis above. Since this postscript is now much longer than the review, I leave the rest of this too for later. For clarification, the book is no longer a 5-star read for this reviewer, but will let the original rating stand.

I finished the book 10 days ago, and I still hesitate to start this review. The first reason is that I loved the book so much, I am left with a feeling of inadequacy :


The second reason is the nature of the story. I can't begin to explain why I think this is important to me without going into the message / the core of the narrative. All the stories assembled into this map of clouds/beliefs/attitudes are variations on a given theme, and the interrupted nature of the narrative is important in maintaining tension and in cloaking the philosophical foundation of the ensemble. So discussing the hidden message can be consider slightly spoilerish. My preference is to read the books first and come to the discussion forums after I formed my own opinion.

This said, the first comment is that very little in the Cloud Atlas is accidental or irrelevant. If the six stories appear initially random of pointless, I would counsel patience : it will all be made clear, eventually. I cannot claim credit for the following analogies - they are part of the text: the author uses the Matryoshka doll style of embedding one story into another in order to illustrate how the present encompasses the past and is in turn enveloped by the future, while the classical sextet composition explains how each of the six characters (piano, clarinet, cello, flute, oboe, and violin) picks up the main musical theme, give it the instrument's specific tonality and introduces variations and soloist cadenzas.

The books opens with The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing - a narrative of the voyage of an American accountant in the Pacific, cca. 1850. A pious, timid and undemonstrative man, he witnesses the effects of modern civilization on the natives of the Polinesian islands and the harshness of life aboard a sailing ship. The precarity of his health turns him toward introspection in morality disertations in his journal, a journal that will be discovered by the protagonist of the second story ( a plot device that will be repeated with each new main character)

Letters from Zedelghem is set in Belgium in 1930 and follow the picaresque adventures of Robert Frobisher, a young rake spurned by his rich family and forced to abandon his musical studies and live outside the law. Penniless, he flees England and tries to find redemption in the sumptuous estate of a celebrated composer whose poor health may prompt him to accept an assistant (amanuensis - a new word I learned today) . As proof of Mitchell's talent in masking the true intent of this second installment, I didn't care much for Frobisher amoral attitude, despite his humorous snarky comments in the letters, but he became my favorite character of all six after reading the second half of his story.


Composers are merely scribblers of cave paintings. One writes music because winter is eternal and because, if one didn't, the wolves and blizzards would be at one's throat all the sooner.

For a cynic and a crook, Frobisher shows quite a lyrical streak once he encounters love:

Because her laughter spurts through a blowhole in the top of her head and sprays all over the morning. Because a man like me has no business with this substance - beauty - yet here she is, in these soundproofed chambers of my heart.


A character from these letters features in the third story : Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery . This one is set in California around 1975 and is another change in form. After an intimate journal and an epistolary exposition, the story is told as an eco thriller of one idealistic journalist fighting the big business bent on destroying the environment and putting thousands of lives at risk.

The unpublished manuscript of Luisa Rey reaches the hands of a contemporary London publisher in the fourth story : The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish . This is another thriller, with a strong flavor of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" . Cavendish is in his 60's, and forced here to admit his age and act accordingly, even if the pill is bitter:

We - by whom I mean anyone over sixty - commit two offenses just by existing. One is lack of Velocity: we drive too slowly, walk too slowly, talk too slowly. The world will do business with dictators, perverts, and drug barons of all stripes, but being slowed down it cannot abide. Our second offence is being Everyman's memento mori. The world can only get comfy in shiny eyed denial if we are out of sight.

With the fifth story we arrive finally at the science-fiction part of the novel. An Orison of Sonmi~451 was my favorite initially, with its portrayal of a dystopian society dominated by consummerism and at the mercy of super-corporations that use genetically altered human clones (fabricants) as indentured laborers while the purebloods enjoy unlimited merchandise and entertainment. As a funny commentary of how fast things change in the world economy, the author mentions among the corporations of the future Sony and Kodak, both of which are in dire straits in 2012, only a couple of years after the novel was written.
The story of Somni reminded me strongly of The Wind-Up Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi, among other classics of SF literature.  and it got a lower rating in my preferences because it was too similar in the end to Soylent Green and Stranger in a Strange Land.

The dystopian tale of Somni is followed by the sixth and final installment Sloosha's Crossin' an' Ev'rythin' After a post-apocalyptic story of the survivors of a global holocaust trying to survive among the Hawaiian islands. This is the core, the innermost Russian doll, and the ambitious plans of the author begin to be revealed. The form of this final tale is the one that gave me some slight problems because the apocalypse brought not only the collapse of the economy, but also the degradation of language. The format is the oldest form of storytelling, orally around a campfire. One aspect of the story that initially bothered me was the inclusion of the supernatural in the form of prophecy (I'm developing an allergy to it as a plot device in most of my fantasy books) , but I believe it is quite a smart move of Mitchell used to illustrate the circular nature of history.

After this point, the author ramps up the philosophical discussion and turned most of my expectation on their head. Every page written turns out to be a debate on the Meaning of Life: the nature of civilization, the human nature and the survival of mankind. According to David Mitchell, the battle between good and evil, right and wrong, is fought not in the war rooms of superpowers or in the secret hideouts of secretive organizations bent on world domination, but inside each and every one of us, choosing to give in in the face of aggression or to stand up and affirm the belief in a better option. Starting with the central story, and going back to the first, here are what I consider the relevant quotes:

So, is it better to be savage'n to be Civlized?
What's the naked meanin bhind them two words?
Deeper'n that its this. The savage satfies his needs now. Hes hungry, hell eat. Hes angry, hell knuckly. Hes swellin, hell shoot up a woman. His master is his will, an if his will say-soes, Kill! hell kill. Like fangy animals. [...]
Now the Civlized got the same needs too, but he sees further. Hell eat half his food now, yay, but plant half so he wont go hungry morrow. Hes angry, hell stop'n think why so he wont get angry next time. Hes swellin, well, hes got sisses an daughters what need respectin so hell respect his bros sisses an daughters. His will is his slave, an if his will say-soes, Don't! he wont, nay.
So, I asked gain, is it better to be savage'n to be Civlized?
Listn, savages and Civlized aint divvied by tribes or bliefs or mountain ranges, nay, evry human is both, yay.

-------

Rights are susceptible to subversion, as even granite is susceptible to erosion. [...] In a cycle as old as tribalism, ignorance of Other engenders fear; fear engenders hatred; hatred engenders violence; violence engenders further violence until the only rights, the only law, are whatever is willed by the most powerful.

-------

What sparks war? The Will to power, the backbone of human nature. The threat of violence, the fear of violence, the 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.

------

the weak are meat, the strong do eat.

------

Scholars discern motions in history and formulate these motions into rules that govern the rises and falls of civilizations.
My belief runs contrary, however. To wit: history admits no rules; only outcomes.
What precipitates outcomes? Vicious acts and virtuous acts.
What precipitates acts? Belief.
Belief is both prize & battlefield, within the mind & in the mind's mirror, the world.
[...]
Why fight the natural (oh, weaselly word!) order of things? Why?
Because of this: one fine day, a purely predatory world shall consume itself. Yes, the Devil shall take the hindmost until the foremost is the hindmost. In an individual, selfishness uglifies the soul; for the human species, selfishness is extinction.

------

I will end my review with a commentary on the title. I see Cloud Atlas as the antithesis of Atlas Shrugged , probably not intentional on Mitchell's part, but this here is the ultimate argument against selfishness. One of the six characters, looks back at his younger days and muses on the volatility of happyness and meaning:

Three or four times only in my youth did I glimpse the Joyous Isles, before they were lost to fogs, depressions, cold fronts, ill winds, and contrary tides. I mistook them for adulthood. Assuming they were a fixed feature in my life's voyage, I neglected to record their latitude, their longitude, their approach. Young ruddy fool. What wouldn't I give now for a never-changing map of the ever-constant ineffable? To possess, as it were, an atlas of clouds.

My recommendation - read this and don't give up before the final page because, like Robert Frobisher says, A half-read book is a half-finished love affair

Firstly, let me just say that Cloud Atlas is one of my favourite books of all time. It was the book that introduced me to the wonderful world of David Mitchell. It is a novel, particularly at the time of publication, unlike any other. In truth it is six novellas that are all connected in a multitude of differing ways.

The structure, again, was quite unique upon first reading. The six different storylines are broken up into halves. So that there are twelve chapters, or sections. The first will stop abruptly and then will not continue until the very last chapter. The second will pause and not continue until the second-last chapter. It sounds quite bizarre, but it works brilliantly. You may find yourself forgetting characters and plot points with this unique structure, but the story is so engaging, so rewarding, that it is no chore to go back and reference the first half, or indeed read it again. And Mitchell usually exits the first half in the fashion of a good old cliff hanger, creating a desire in the reader to read the second half. He even ends the first half of the first story mid-sentence.

A major factor in the enjoyment is to reread sections, discover the connections that are everywhere. Some easily found. Most are objects of interest in one story, discovered by the protagonist in another. But others are furtively hiding, waiting for discovery.

Each section is not only its own storyline but its own genre as well.

The first storyline is structured in the format of a Journal. The journal belongs to an American, Adam Ewing. Ewing is returning to his homeland, America, but he is currently marooned on the Chatham Islands, an archipelago about 800 miles east of New Zealand, waiting for the ship he is travelling on to be repaired and victualled. In his first entry he finds a Dr Henry Goose who is collecting human teeth left over from an ancient cannibal’s feast, which he is planning on selling. The teeth are made into sets of dentures, but he is not doing it for money, rather revenge and redemption on a certain Marchioness who, five years ago, destroyed his reputation, shunning him from society. Ewing thinks the doctor a little mad.

The doctor is waiting for a ship to return to London, however when Ewing’s ship is ready and sets sail Dr Goose decides to travel with Ewing and the seeds of a friendship start to sprout. But is the good doctor really his friend? Perhaps Ewing’s first impression was true.

This first story is historical fiction, and we learn of the peaceful indigenous Moriori, who were all but wiped off the face of their island in an act of genocide by the belligerent Mauri.

The second storyline switches structure again and takes an epistolary form. The protagonist, Robert Frobisher, a music student, is insolvent and has a myriad of collectors after him. He starts the story escaping from a group of them, climbing out his hotel window and shimmying down a pipe. Of course, he has not paid his bill. He also has a rather inflated ego, and is bitter at his state of penury,

“What value are education, breeding and talent if one doesn’t have a pot to piss in?”

His plan to solve his problem and escape his penurious state is to become an amanuensis for a famous composer, Vyvyan Ayrs. Due to illness Ayrs’ eyesight is failing, and he has not written anything new, barely able to hold a pen. Frobisher, upon meeting him for the first time finds a frail old man in a wheelchair and smells blood in the water and turns on the charm. He convinces Ayrs that he needs an amanuensis and to start writing again. It is Frobisher who composes the Cloud Atlas Sextet, the music that flows through the storylines. The beauty of the sextet is that it is written in the same structure as the novel.

The third story introduces us to Luisa Rey, and Sixsmith, the recipient of the letters that Frobisher is writing to in the previous story. Luisa Ray, who is writing 300-word fluff columns for a magazine called Spyglass, would very much like to follow in the footsteps of her father who was a famous foreign correspondent who covered the Vietnam War. When she gets stuck in an elevator with Sixsmith, she may just get her chance. Rufus Sixsmith is a scientist overseeing a new nuclear power plant. He knows that it is not safe and wants to go public with his findings. But before he can tell his story to Luisa, he is found dead at his hotel, a suspected suicide. Luisa smells foul play and a prize story. But now she is in danger herself.

The fourth story is darkly comical and takes a new structure again. The protagonist is a publisher, Timothy Cavendish. He is writing his memoir in longhand, and what a memoir it is. When he titles it “The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish”, you know it’s going to be interesting. Cavendish’s troubles start when one of his author’s decides to throw a critic, known for his scathing reviews, to his death, from a twelve-story rooftop garden award ceremony. This murder results in the author becoming instantly infamous, and sales of his latest book, a memoir which had not even been on a shelf yet, skyrocketing. Cavendish’s problems begin when the author’s brothers come looking for the money the book has made. His brothers are little more than crooked thugs and Cavendish’s life is in mortal danger. The problem is there is no money to pay them. The money was used to pay off long standing debts.

The fifth story changes genre and structure again. Science Fiction the genre, and an interview the structure. The reader is propelled into a dystopic future where consumerism is God. Brands and products prayed to like deities. In this future, clones are grown to serve. The protagonist here, Sonmi-451 is a clone produced to serve at a fast-food restaurant. Her whole existence is serving and sleep. Twelve years they spend serving in the restaurant without ever leaving its walls. After their twelve years finish, they are promised they can retire to Hawaii and live a beautiful dream life. But the dream is in fact a nightmare.

The sixth and last story is also set in a dystopic future. A virus has wiped out most of the population and mankind has entered another dark age with technology lost. Not just technology but language itself, resulting in concentration needed to understand the vernacular at times. Small groups of people have survived, but they have no means of travelling long distances and are scattered across the globe. There is a group who travel via a ship, the Prescients, who still have the old world’s technology, but they are outrunning the virus, looking for survivors and sanctuary. The story takes place in the Pacific Islands, precisely where the very first story takes place.

A wonderful touch is that in each story there is a character who has the same birthmark, on the same area of their body, in the shape of a comet. Does this mean that the protagonist in each story is actually the same soul or spirit reincarnated? It boggles the mind.

The novel draws the reader to the infinite connections that exist between everything on this planet. People, families, objects, thoughts. Infinite connections that many times remain through generations and the passage of time. These connections are all around us, again, many times without us realising. In essence, our world is an ongoing story. Countries and cities, chapters in the story. Episodes in history affecting periods in the present. An event in the present that will connect and affect a period years in the future. And that is why I love this book so much. It’s incredible to think that as you sit in a park having lunch under a tree, that it’s possible that an ancestor, two, three hundred years ago may have been fighting a duel or writing a poem under the very same tree. More than possible, probable. Unlimited connections.

“Your life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean but a multitude of drops.”

There is so much going on with this novel, that my review does not come close to doing it justice. It is truly a masterpiece.

This was the third book in the David Mitchellathon, with the wonderful Nat K and I reading all of David’s books in chronological order. Please check out her review when she posts it. Once again, it will be much better than mine.

I am very much impressed with the innovation of David Mitchell in "Cloud Atlas" insofar as he invents a new timeline for his articulate narrative style. Rather than a straightforward time line like most novels or a flashback style like Proust or Faulkner, or even the reverse timeline of "Time's Arrow" by Martin Amis, Mitchell offers us a pyramid of time for his narrative perspective. The first chapter is finished by the last; the second chapter ends in the second to last chapter; the third chapter completes itself in the third chapter from the finish and so on. Initially, the book seems to be a random sequence of short stories and I recommend that you patiently read it as such if you are frustrated in search of the story line: I assure you that it's there. For me the story line is always secondary to a compelling writing style, particularly one distinguished by narrative invention, which to me is usually the mark of an exceptional writer who seeks to improve the genre through innovation. Isn't this how the novel evolves as a genre, after all? After a couple hundred pages the story lines more clearly intertwine and we see the connections among the tales. They seem as random as clouds drifting like the souls of men and women whose lives encounter fitful storms, violent hurricanes, periods of sunshine and tranquility, building in their foreboding and forbidding billows. The connector is the anti-thesis of the cloud: the will to power of men and women. Nietzsche's philosophy becomes the foil to the ethereal drift of spirits whose passage Mitchell maps in his atlas. For it is the will to power of some who create human misery, suffering, pain, disease and poverty on a grand scale. "Another war is always coming. 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. Nations are entities whose laws are written by violence. Thus it ever was, so ever shall be. War is one of humanity's two eternal companions." (The second is diamonds, it seems.) So the sins of the egomaniacs who rule us often drive the balance of humanity mad with senseless pursuits, arrogance, wealth and unfettered egomania. We cannot escape it, even now: never. The senselessly selfish act of one person with a will to power brings pain and even death to those who don't possess or seek it: those with lesser technology, money, weapons, assets. Yet this process drives humanity and the history of the long suffering human race. "Because of this (the will to power): -- one fine day, a purely predatory world shall consume itself.. Yes, the Devil shall take the hindmost until the foremost is the hindmost. In an individual, selfishness uglifies the soul: for the human species, selfishness is extinction." It is an eminently sensible observation. But there's more: "If we believe that humanity may transcend tooth and claw, if we believe divers races and creeds can share this world peaceably... if we believe leaders must be just, violence muzzled, power accountable & the riches of the Earth & its Oceans shared equitably, such a world will come to pass. I am not deceived. It is the hardest world to make real. Torturous advances won over generations can be lost by a single stroke of a myopic president's pen or a vainglorious general's sword." Seem familiar? Tough stuff this. Mitchell's pyramid of tales serves to illustrate his point about the futility of violence and its painful lessons which humanity can never seem to outgrow and which ultimately places both humanity and civilization at risk of extinction. This is an important novel: I encourage you patiently to read it as your patience will be amply rewarded.

1. Counting
I don’t remember exactly when I learnt to count. It feels like one of my earliest memories, and one of my most profound. Things started to make sense right there and then. That mountain of peas on my plate felt a lot less menacing when I could count that there were only 36 of them. My collection of Dinky Toys was all the more impressive when I realized I had a whopping 24 miniature cars to play with. My enjoyment of candies increased when I realised 5 became 4 and 4 become 0 real quick. I enjoyed counting. I would count cars, trees, birds, buildings, pens, clouds, ants, marbles, blades of grass and the freckles on my father’s arm. I counted 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and beyond. And I counted on a world of possibilities that are as infinite as they are manageable.

2. Drawing
The holidays were over and the grey clouds of September carried the overpowering smell of the school’s soup with them. It’s a smell that was embedded in the classroom’s walls, in my books, in my clothes. A smell that could only be shaken off by a warm summer breeze and rolling around in the grass. Presently I found myself in a school made of concrete, holding down the grass and keeping out the breeze. The first assignment the teacher gave us was to look back on that beautiful summer and draw our best memory. The smell of soup filled my nostrils. Pea soup. It wasn’t always pea soup but it always smelled like pea soup. And the thing with soup is that there’s no telling how many peas were in there. How could I recall anything of summer in this environment of grey walls and brownish green soup? The teacher was hovering over me when I had just started drawing. I had begun like I always began: a smiling sun in the top left corner. “The sun doesn’t have a face.”, the teacher told me flatly. The foundation of every drawing I had made crumbled and so did my childhood. But I had a drawing to finish. A drawing of happier times where the sun was still allowed to smile, a drawing of times that suddenly seemed miles away.

3. Caring
Summers in my childhood street were beautiful. The street was a loop, shaped very much like a “b”, with houses on all sides. Only cars who had to be there would pass by, so the street belonged to us, us being me and a friend who was visiting. We had met each other on holidays in Rhodes, and given that we were the only two Flemish kids there, at an age where our differences didn’t matter as much as the games we could play together, we got along really well. His parents dropped him off for a week every summer since then. Christopher was a lot more adventurous than I was and whenever he came around we explored new areas, climbed trees, built camps and stole apples. One summer we were at a little creek, at the tip of the “b”, and heard the sound of frogs. “Did you ever catch a frog?”, Christopher asked. I hadn’t. I didn’t like little living things. They scared me, as I pictured them jumping into my eye or crawling under my skin. I had seen Christopher catch huge bugs in Rhodes that were resting on trees, insects that terrified me and would haunt many of my nightmares. But I never wanted to show him my weakness in this regard. “I’ll show you how to catch a frog.”, he said. And I told him “ok”, with a heart that felt like the size of a pea.

4. Joking
Language camps were my parents’ favourite thing to send me off to. It was a great way for me to make new friends, learn another language and get out of the house without them needing to worry. The first language camp I went to was on a farm that was called “The Falcon”. The idea was to have the children speak in English to each other all the time, and thus learn new vocabulary as they were playing. So getting out of the house? Check! Learning another language? Check! Making new friends? Kcehc… I had just started wearing glasses and was still pretty insecure about them, with camp being the first time I’d be wearing them in public. I thought things would be fine because I knew a friend who was going as well, so at least I’d have him to hang around with. Sadly, he abandoned me the first day, even before my parents’ car drove out of sight. He had a really cool cap from the Charlotte Hornets, green and purple, with the visor bent into a “U”. I had a cap too. It was white, aside from the rims that were yellowed by months of perspiration, and had the logo of a cheap beer brand. The visor was as flat as an ironing board. Who could blame him for looking for other friends with cooler caps? I was mocked and ridiculed within the first hour of being at camp, even before rooms were appointed. Eventually I got to share my room with an asthmatic kid, who was my only competitor for being the camp’s social outcast. While I sympathised with his condition, his loud snoring at night made it difficult for me to be genuinely warm to him. And after he pulled down my pants in the middle of a football game, with the entire camp (girls included) watching, difficult became impossible.
One of the highlights of the camp was the camp fire. At that time the children were asked to prepare something, like a dance or a sketch, to show in front of the others. Groups were eagerly formed and as the other kids were practicing their singing and their acrobatics, I found myself alone and without ideas. Until I saw an empty bucket with the label of a brand of mayonnaise.

5. Writing
High school was pretty good to me. I had a nice group of friends, my grades were okay, and I didn’t have to exert myself too much in order to obtain them. One teacher tried to change all that. Mr. Vekeman, who gave courses for Dutch, didn’t like me. In fact, he hated me. He had noticed that I was lazy and that I didn’t pay attention. While that was true, the problem was that he took all of this personally. As if my lack of devotion for Dutch somehow brought to light his own failure at being an interesting person.
One day he gave us an assignment: to write an essay on the topic of “responsibility”. He showed an example of a particular type of essay, the one where a fictional story is interspersed with social commentary, both feeding in to each other. It looked pretty cool. Finally an assignment I liked!
I started writing about a guy left home alone, his parents leaving on a holiday. He organised a big party instead of doing his homework. This story ran parallel with some remarks on how responsibility is obtained or bestowed and the ways in which one can wriggle out of them. Of course, the whole thing blew up in that guy’s face, allowing me the conclusion that the vomit of his drunken friends in the pool was what brought home the importance of responsibility. The lesson that it was only when you took your responsibility that the luxury of swimming without finding a stray pea in your course would be yours. I handed in the essay with confidence and discussed it with my friends. They smirked. They told me I hadn’t understood the assignment correctly. We were supposed to write a normal essay, without all the fiction that our teacher deemed ridiculous. He had given us an example in class, not because he liked it, but to show us how it should never be done. An example which I followed. A style that my teacher despised and would find in an essay with my name on it.

6. Reviewing
I’m on Goodreads, present day. I’ve just read Cloud Atlas, a wonderful achievement by a gifted author. A book that is difficult to summarize because of its scope. It’s a tale that spans six different times, places and genres . There are many lines that connect these tales, but the first one worth noting is the brilliance of David Mitchell. It takes daring to write a book like this, and skill. He’s got both. First of all, there’s his mastery of English language. Just consider the following quotes:

”A ringing phone flips Luisa’s dreams over and she lands in a moonlit room."

I wouln't be surprised if David Mitchell has a similarly shaped birthmark as Charles Dickens had.

”The cold sank its fangs into my exposed neck and frisked me for uninsulated patches.”

Not convinced?

” Hot glass office buildings where the blooms of youth harden into aged cacti like my penny-pinching brother.”

Okay, just one more:

” The memory cracked on the hard rim of my heart and the yolk dribbled out.”

This book uses many different styles. Some stories are presented in the form of a letter, others are a journal, still others are an interview. Given that it spans different centuries, language itself is transformed. The chapters set in the 19th century made me grab my dictionary once in a while, while the stories set into the future are an experiment much in the same vain as “A Clockwork Orange” or “Riddley Walker” are. The language that Mitchell foresees for the future is less pleasing to both the ear and the eye than Burgess’ Nadsat. The stories set in the future registered a bit less in my mind for that reason.

Aside from his mastery of language and his propensity of delivering powerful aphorisms, Mitchell can enter the mind of any character one can imagine. He knows the workings of an ageing publisher as well as those of a gifted musical composer, he describes the life of a mass-produced clone as well as that of a 19th century notary traveling on the Pacific.

Six stories are contained in Cloud Atlas. The way they are connected is usually very subtle, though the author sometimes can’t help himself and waves a certain birthmark in your face. The blurb at the back says it’s about power, and true enough, many insights from many different perspectives are given on the nature, pitfalls and omnipresence of power and mankind's thirst for it. But I think that the true essence of this book, for me, can better be summarised with the author’s own words:

"Three or four times only in my youth did I glimpse the Joyous Isles, before they were lost to fogs, depressions, cold fronts, ill winds and contrary tides. I mistook them for adulthood. Assuming they were a fixed feature in my life's voyage, I neglected to record their latitude, their longitude, their approach. Young ruddy fool. What wouldn't I give now for a never-changing map of the ever-constant ineffable? To possess, as it were, an atlas of clouds. "

Aside from this central and ethereal theme, the stories in Cloud Atlas each have their own plot. There’s one about an escape from a retirement home, which is my favourite. It’s got the perfect mix of humour, tension and philosophical musings. The protagonist, Timothy Cavendish, is a bit embittered and looks at the world around him with a very sceptical, but nonetheless thoroughly perceiving eye. His ghastly ordeal is the best thing I’ve read this year and that story alone is worth reading this book. The letters from Zedelghem castle, located in a little Belgian town, were also a highlight with the usage of refined language and a rather direct protagonist.

What cost this book a star is the story about the first Luisa Rey mystery. It’s got a good villain and one good line (the one about dreams flipping over), but other than that it brings the book down. First of all: it’s not a mystery. The story, pulled by its hairs as it is, is riddled with plotholes and clichés. The fact that locker n0909 at the airport, wherein Sixsmith hides a version of his report moments before his death, is never again mentioned and is replaced by a report on some yacht, literally angered me.. Was this a conscious choice by the author, employing the superficial, no-attention-to-detail “Hollywood”-style to give yet another flavour to Cloud Atlas? Probably, but that doesn’t mean I should like it.

But the overall experience of Cloud Atlas: Mesmerizing. Inspiring. Amazing. What really makes this book shine is its structure, the prose of an author who swims in English like an otter in a pond, and, of course, the grand idea of trying to make, draw and write an atlas of clouds, and succeeding.

5. Writing
A couple of days had passed and I had almost succeeded in forgetting about that essay. The sword that was dangling above my head had disappeared over the weekend, but come Monday morning that very same sword shot through the stars on a course straight for the top of my head. I could feel its heated presence in the air and was just wishing it would all be over soon when the teacher came into the class with a bundle of papers. THE bundle of papers. My essay, my biggest failure to date, was in there. Mr. Vekeman had a sorrowful look on his face. He was displeased. He started handing out the essays without having spoken a word. Slowly. I looked at my classmates’ reactions and saw despair written on their faces. The only sound in the class was the ruffling of papers and little gasps of disappointment. Of shock. Everyone around me had had their essays handed back to them. Some had gotten zero out of twenty. But where was my essay?
The teacher stood in front of the class with one paper in his hand.
“Now I will read the essay of the one person who managed to get it right. The one person who got the maximum score.”
He started to read.
I beamed with pride.
My classmates looked at me and smiled.
They liked it too.

4. Joking
The preparations for the camp fire were well under way. The firewood had been stacked, the music installation was set up, the tables where the hotdogs would be prepared were in place. Most kids were already returning to their rooms to get dressed for the big night. The shadows were getting longer, the breeze was getting cooler as I set to work on the bucket. I had made the children laugh already once during that football game, and I resolved to do it again, only this time not at anyone’s expense. I felt ready. I giggled at the scenario that played out in my head. I felt ready. I pictured Lea’s blush and playful look as I was gracefully accepting the laughter and applause. I felt ready.
The show was already well underway when I started to get nervous. Kids had been dancing and singing, sure, but there were also some that had been funny. Funny was my plan! And suddenly, after some kids were done impersonating Andrea Bocelli, it was my turn. Me and my bucket of mayonnaise. There I stood, in front of the very same audience who had seen my p-p, an audience that might as well have been a mouth to hell. I began.
“Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present to you this new brand of paint!”
I showed them the side of the bucket that I had covered with a piece of paper, with the word PAINT scribbled on it.
“It is the thing to get in your homes, ladies and gentlemen. It can be used in your living rooms, garages, kitchens, for your garden shacks, for walls and ceilings alike! Get this paint now! It’s water resistant! It’s whiter with a delicate touch of yellow! It’s wonderful!”
Timing was everything. I turned around the bucket, showing people the label of mayonnaise.
“AND IT TASTES SO GOOD!!”

And then, there was silence.
A silence I will never forget.

3. Caring
We went into the creek in search for the frogs. A part of me was hoping the little amphibians would be too quick for us, too clever, but after what seemed like only a couple of seconds Christopher had already caught one. “Look, it’s a big one!”, he said. I looked and expressed my high esteem for his frog-catching talents, hoping he would free the animal soon. He did. But he wasn’t done yet. He would teach me to catch one for myself. I was taught to combine luring with patience and swiftness. The trick is not to grab them, but to just make them jump into your hands. I went about it rather half-heartedly, but that day I learnt never to underestimate a frog’s eagerness to be caught. Without really trying I had caught a frog. Not entirely according to procedure, as it was dangling from my hands with one of its legs stuck between my fingers, but got it I did! I showed it to Christopher and quickly threw it away. “What are you doing? We’re taking them home! To show to your mother! We can build them a little park in a Tupperware box, they’ll have the time of their lives!” Back to square one. I was dreading the return journey with a frog in my hands, so I expertly managed to not catch one. To no avail. Christopher quickly caught two and gave me one to carry. “Be careful so that it doesn’t jump away.” he said. The frog was placed gently on the palm of my hand. I put my other hand over it and thus we walked back home, talking about the things we’d build and the fun the frogs would have. Having a frog in my hand wasn’t all that bad. After a while it stopped feeling so cold and it didn’t move around as much as I expected. I started to feel connected with the little creature. My little friend would be a hero among frogs, with plenty of stories to tell about Tupperwarepark. By the time we got home I felt like a Crocodile Dundee in the making. Excitedly I shouted to my mom to get us a box. She hurried out and asked us what we were up to. Proudly we showed our catch. A beautiful frog in Christopher’s hand. A squished pancake of peas in mine.

2. Drawing
I erased the sun’s smile. I drew some faceless clouds and faceless trees, a little house and a breeze. How did I draw a breeze? I just drew some flowers that tilted to the left. I drew children playing with a ball. Not because I played with a ball that summer, but because drawing a kid playing with miniature cars was too difficult. The cars would come out too big or the stance of the kid too awkward, so I decided to just keep it out of the drawing. Looking at those happy kids playing with that ball, I kind of got angry. Stupid kids. Stupid ball. What could ruin their dull everyday day? I pondered. And then I drew a bee. A big, fat bee that was caught in the middle of their ball throwing shenanigans. A big, angry bee that would enact its vengeance on those big blue eyes. A fat, crazy bee that would turn those hapless smiles upside down. The vengeance didn’t take place in the drawing. But it took place in my mind. And on the classroom window. You see, the teacher had the idea of having every kid copy something from their own drawing and paint it on the window. The teacher saw many drawings with children playing with balls, with houses and trees and even flowers in the breeze, but he only saw one with a bee. And so it was me who got to draw a big, fat bee in the summer scenery of the classroom window. A bee that would stay there for the rest of the year. “Who needs a smiling sun, high up in the sky?”, I thought, “When there’s so many reasons to smile right inside my head.”

1. Counting
I don’t remember when I started to tire of counting. The numbers seemed to lose their magic as they got bigger. Three houses seemed so much more interesting than hundreds of buildings. The five apple trees in our garden paled in comparison with the forests I saw on TV. My little world of twenty-sixes, seventeens and fours divided by twos seemed so insignificant. What’s the good of counting if it never stops before it gets boring, or if it never stops at all? What’s the sense of having a number like 76983? There’s just too much to handle. I’ve only got two hands and one head, so how can I be expected to count all those stars above? So I stopped looking up, and I looked down. Down at my hands. I put my hands on the table and looked at the back of my left hand. My pinkie was one. My thumb was five. 1-2-3-4-5. My right hand became 5-4-3-2-1. I made my thumbs overlap. 1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2-1. Who needs infinity? Now this was counting that I could handle. Symmetrical. Harmonious. Leaving for a trip and coming back home. Counting that I enjoyed. Counting that I could never tire of. Counting up towards a crescendo and counting down to a blissful conclusion of peace.

Vincent Vega and Jules Winnfield sit having breakfast in a diner discussing, among other things, Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell.

Jules: Well we'd have to be talkin' about one charming mother*****' pig. I mean he'd have to be ten times more charmin' than that Arnold on Green Acres, you know what I'm sayin'?

[Both laugh]

Vincent: Awright, check this out; I just finished reading this book called Cloud Atlas.

Jules: Cloud Atlas? What the f*** is that?

Vincent: It’s a pictorial key to the nomenclature of clouds. Early cloud atlases were an important element in the training of meteorologists and in weather forecasting, but that’s not the point, I’m talking about a book I read.

Jules: You’re always reading books, even in the john.

Vincent: Yeah, OK, but here’s the thing, this book tells six intricately connected stories that revolves around a central connection.

Jules: Explain.

Vincent: Ok, here’s how it works. It starts out with a guy in the 1800s on a whaling ship, or some s***, and then it just ends, just stops in the middle of the sentence and then jumps to the next story, in 1931 England.

Jules: So what’s that got to do with the dude in the 1800s?

Vincent: That’s what I’m trying to tell you, but listen, OK, then the story shifts to 1975 and this chick who is investigating energy corporation crime and this scientist who gets chased for writing a report.

Jules: Go on.

Vincent: Then it shifts to the future and this old guy in England who’s getting pinched by these small time hoods –

Jules: Stop, just stop, you’ve already f****** lost me.

Vincent: [laughing] I know, I know, but wait, then the story shifts to even further in the future to Korea and where people are made, produced, manufactured, whatever the f*** to be slaves, like working in McDonald’s, except it’s not McDonald’s it like a future Chinese McDonald’s –

Jules: Serving up a Royale wit cheese!

[Both laugh]

Vincent: Right, right, so then it shifts to way far in the future and I think it’s on Hawaii and they speak this pigeon English –

Jules: OK, ok, wait. Hold the f*** up, why does the author keep shifting stories, what the hell point is all this?

Vincent: I’m getting to that, see here’s the thing, I think all the people in the each story might be reincarnated and all really the same person, or soul, or whatever.

Jules: Reincarnated? Goddamn! But … that may be something upon which I can ponder as I walk the earth. I’ve dreamed before that I was a master swordsman in an alien world, like a samurai master, except my sword was shining purple.

Vincent: Right, but then, see, he goes back and finishes all six stories, going back from future Hawaii, to the Chinese girl –

Jules: Thought you said she was Korean?

Vincent: Whatever, then to the old guy, then the girl in California in the 70s to the English musician and then back to the dude in the 1800s.

Jules: Man, that’s some f***** up s***, did you pick this up in Amsterdam?

Vincent: No, but the coolest thing is the structure, it’s where, OK, it’s like he doesn’t tell the story in a lineal pattern like most books, but all mixed up, but they’re all still connected together, really all telling one big story.

Jules: Alright, I can see that. That is pretty cool, kinda familiar too.

Vincent: Right, right, and by doing so the writer creates a dramatic tension between each segment, adding depth and interest to an already cool story. Also, Mitchell changes his writing style to match whichever story he’s doing.

Pumpkin: [Standing up with a gun] All right, everybody be cool, this is a robbery!

Honey Bunny: Any of you f****** pricks move, and I'll execute every mother****** last one of ya!

UPDATE: looking back, this was the first “big” review I ever wrote when I first joined goodreads, and from discussing this book I met a lot of my first gr-Friends that I would go on to read a lot of excellent books with. I’ve always had a soft spot for this book and am thankful of it for being what introduced me to this wonderful book community, especially at a time when I had uprooted to a new place and was very lonely. This is a weird little corner of the internet and I love it, thanks to everyone who interacts and makes this such a fun place to be. I appreciate you all. And I appreciate this book. It was one of the first I encountered a bisexual character as a main character and felt very seen, so thank you David Mitchell. And on to the original review:

“One may transcend any convention,” writes Mitchell’s 1930’s composer Robert Frobisher, “if only one can first conceive of doing so.” Cloud Atlas, the third novel by English novelist David Mitchell, is the author’s bare-knuckled blow to standard conventions and literature itself. Here you will encounter six stories, linked across time, that, like individual notes of a chord, each resonate together to form a greater message than just the sum of their parts. Using a style inspired by Calvino’s If on a winter’s night a traveler…, which I would highly recommend, and a constantly fluctuating set of language, diction, dialect, and form to flood each individual story with nuance, Mitchell delivers a work that is vastly impressive and imaginative without being impassive as each story takes on a life of its own in a perfect blending of literary musings and exciting page-turning plot that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

While explaining this novel to a friend, I labeled it as being “n  literary pulpn”. He protested, saying that you can only have one or the other. I agreed with him that this is typically the case, yet I insisted that Cloud Atlas was the exception to this rule. While each individual story has an exciting plot full of unexpected twists, often incorporating a Hollywood action or sci-fi style, Mitchell manages to elevate the novel into a higher realm of literature. Mitchell, who studied English at the University of Kent, receiving a master in Comparative Literature (thanks wiki!), has learned enough tricks of the trade to pull-off this sort of “literary pulp”. Each one of these stories on their own wouldn’t amount to much beyond an exciting read with a few underlying messages, but when he stitches them all together in an elaborate tapestry of time and space, a larger more profound message comes out as the reader will notice overarching themes and a careful reading will reveal a sense of symmetry and repetition between the stories. There is also a sense of an evolution of language, showing past trends progressing into our current speech, and then passing forward where corporate name brands will become the identifier of an object (all cars are called fords, handheld computers are all called sonys, all movies are called disneys), and then even further forward as language begins to disintegrate. The themes of the novel also seem to move in a cyclical pattern, showing repeating itself.

As stated earlier, Mitchell was inspired by Calvino's If on a winter's night a traveler in which the Reader is exposed to several different novels within the novel, each with a very distinct voice and style, only to be forever thwarted from finishing just as the action rises. Mitchell takes this idea and expands upon it, with each story ending abruptly yet still resonating in the following story, which then leads us to the next and the next until finally we reach the midpoint of the novel. I do not want to spoil too much of this novel, especially his way of each story being a part of the next, but by page 64 you will understand. There will be a paragraph that will drop your jaw and melt your mind as you realize Mitchell has something special here in his method of telescoping stories. Essentially, each major character leaves an account of a crucial storyline of their lives, which in turn is read or viewed later through history by another character during a crucial moment in their lives. An added flair is that many of the characters relate to their current events by comparing it to characters or ideas from previous stories, one character even becoming a deity figure to future generations. At the midpoint, which Mitchell describes as his “mirror”, the novel will then travel back out of the wormhole (or perhaps back in?), revisiting the previous stories in reverse order. There is a good interview with Mitchell in the Washington Post where he explains his methods.

Mitchell employs other metafictional techniques, such as having his characters each reflect on the style of the novel as would make sense for their unique world. For example, Frobisher’s masterpiece composition, aptly named Cloud Atlas, is described by Frobisher as being:
”a sextet for overlapping soloists”….each in its own language of key, scale, and color. In the first set, each solo is interrupted by its successor: in the second, each interruption is recontinued, in order. Revolutionary or gimmicky?
Mitchell himself calls the style to the table, asking the reader if it is really a revolutionary idea, or if it falls flat as a gimmick. There are many instances where Mitchell inserts a bemused reflection on his own work, wondering if he is actually pulling off the magic trick.

Each story visited is as if cracking open the cover of a different book by a different author each time the switch occurs. There is everything from a dusty sailing journal, a hilarious English comedy, a sleek sci-fi thriller and to even an oral account of tribal warfare on the other side of the apocalypse, each with an equally intriguing cast of characters (fans of Mitchell will recognize some of them as they appear in other novels, most notably Ghostwritten which includes Luisa Rey, Cavendish and Ayr’s daughter). Mitchell does his homework and spent plenty of time researching each story to make sure the history, setting and language would all be realistic. As all but the spy-thriller story of Luisa Rey are told in first person, Mitchell has his work cut out for him to craft a unique voice for each narrator. And he pulls it off brilliantly. This attention to detail and nuance is what really sold me on Cloud Atlas. To go from Cavendish’s comical voice filled with English slang (and some hilarious instances of cockney and Scottish diction) to an oral language that shows the deterioration of speech two stories later is impressive. My personal favorite was the loquacious letters of Robert Frobisher, as Mitchell wrote this Nietzsche loving composer with the urgency and depravity of a frantic, brilliant mind that recalls characters such as Dostoevsky’s underground man or Hamsun’s narrator in Hunger. Mitchell toys with his knowledge of literature, molding each story from the recipes of classic literature. Adam Ewing is clearly a product of Melville, Cavendish’s plight echoes Kesey’s One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, and Sonmi-451 will bring to mind Brave New World or Do Android’s Dream of Electric Sheep? Zachary’s islander tale uses a form of sight language drawing on the oral tradition of storytelling which reflects the traditional African American stories such as the Uncle Julius tales or Equiano’s slave narratives where much emphasis is placed on the passing on of stories about ancestors. There are even small events that trigger a memory of classic works; Frobisher is passenger in a car that runs down a pheasant which is described in a way that would remind one of a certain accident involving a yellow car at the tail end of a Fitzgerald novel. He even takes a jab at Ayn Rand in the Luisa Rey story.

Mitchell seems to intentionally build this novel from other novels, and highlights this to the reader most openly through Timothy Cavendish and Robert Frobisher. “You’ll find that all composure draw inspiration from their environments” Ayrs tells R.F. in one of the many passages where Mitchell talks both about his storyline, but also about the novel itself. This honing of metafictional abilities is one of his greatest strengths and the second half of the novel is full of passages that speak on many different levels. Mitchell takes no shame in “drawing inspiration” from his literary predecessors, much as each subsequent character draws on the inspiration of the past characters. He uses this as opportunities to shamelessly quote, allude, and incorporate the ideas of other writers. Nietzsche’s concept of the Will to Power and Hegel’s theories on history make up some of the strongest themes within the novel, and he gives credit where credit is due. While allusions are used for thematic reasons, some are more deeply hidden, sometimes in plain sights as Nabokov titles are used frequently, and occasionally he simply alludes to authors of each stories present time (Luisa Rey's boss was mugged after having lunch with Norman Mailer) to make them feel more rooted to the literary culture of the time much as he does with the language and descriptions. He even pokes fun at the reader a bit, acknowledging that the casual reader will not be able to pick up on these allusions, speaking through Cavendish:
”I could say things to her like ‘The most singular difference between happiness and joy is that happiness is a solid and joy is a liquid’ and, safe in her ignorance of J.D. Salinger, I felt witty, charming, and yes, even youthful”.
He may be using ‘youthful’ as a way of saying that he must come across as fresh and exciting and inventive, which is ironic since he openly admits to borrowing the whole novels concept from Calvino. Mitchell appreciates and rewards the well-read reader with many of these subtle ironic jokes which are sprinkled all through-out the novel. He leaves so many little gems for a reader to find if they only take the time to read in between the lines and pay close attention. One might notice how several different characters “fumigate” a foul smelling room with a cigarette, or how diamonds seem to play an important role, or which characters seem repeated throughout history beyond the main character. Bill Smoke (pure evil) and Joe Napier (an ally) seem to pop up in some form in every story. I have noticed at least four other souls that seem to migrate through time in this novel.

Like a healthy, well-balanced sense of self, Mitchell seems to be aware of his weaknesses as a writer and actually uses them to his advantage, making his weaknesses some of his biggest strengths. It is clear, as the point has by now been driven into the ground, that Mitchell has aims to be taken seriously as a writer of literature, but his plots are such rapid-fire excitement with twists and turns and high climactic conclusions that he felt it necessary to be as literary as possible in all other aspects. He compensates for any other shortcomings in a similar fashion. One of the ways the characters are linked together across time (read it yourself if you want to know!) made me groan the first time I read it. Mitchell accepts that it is a corny technique and has a character flat out dismiss it as ”far too hippie-druggy-new age” and as something that should be taken out entirely. I got a kick out of this and instantly forgave Mitchell for not being subtle enough with this technique of linking characters. There are several other moments when characters question the validity of other characters, often due to the same reasons a reader would criticize Mitchell. This ability to poke fun at himself and openly address his own shortcomings gave me a far greater respect for him. He accepts that his ideas are not entirely original and counters anyone who might complain it has all been done before. Cavendish speaks for Mitchell with
”as if there could be anything not done a hundred thousand times between Aristophanes and Andrew Void-Webber. As if Art is the What, not the How! ”
He wants to direct your attention to his form and writing, not just his plot and originality. He repeatedly bashes critics and the masses, essentially stating that if you don’t get this novel, then you’re not smart enough to deserve to read his work. It made me laugh.

With all his cleverness and metafictional genius, Mitchell does have a few flaws that should be addressed. The main one being subtlety. He does apologize for it and poke fun at himself, but some of the major themes in this novel did not need to be called out directly. They were easily detectable in between the lines, yet Mitchell has each main character spell them out in dialogue. He seems to want to reward the clever reader, yet at times pauses and hits you over the head as if he doesn’t think you can understand. It worked since he had each character do it, applying the message of The Will to Power and the strong killing the weak to each characters situation to create a sense of symmetry, but it was ultimately superfluous, but this being my only real criticism, Mitchell isn't doing too bad. The issue of subtlety is where Calvino gets an upper hand on Mitchell, as his novel was a bit more controlled in its message and layering of meanings. Cloud Atlas is a bit more accessible than If on a winter's... but the latter is a slightly superior work in my opinion. Both novels should enter your "to read list" however.

All in all, this novel is a brilliant puzzle filled with exciting characters, entertaining dialogue, and throws enough loops to keep you guessing. You will find it very difficult to put this novel down. Mitchell achieves his goal of transcending conventions and addressing the broad scope of humanity and is at times bitter, funny, frightening, paranoid, and downright tragic. Cloud Atlas is a must read, and although much of it may come across as “been there, read that”, he still keeps it fresh and unique. Plus this novel really rewards a careful reading and a bit of researching, as many of the jokes will be lost on those who don’t have a good grounding in the classics. Make sure to have a pen handy, as there are plenty of mesmerizing quotes to return to and ponder, especially in the second half of the novel. David Mitchell is most definitely an author to be read and admired.”Anticipating the end of the world is humanity’s oldest pastime” writes Frobisher, and this novel envisions a plausible, horrific future that doesn’t seem all that much different than the past. Mitchell gives us this novel as a warning, and I do hope we take it to heart. I wish this novel had credits like at the end of the film just so Reckoner by Radiohead could blast my eardrums as final lines sunk in. It would be perfect.
5/5