Just amazing. I don't know how David Mitchell pulls off the split narrative structure. (The book has several narratives, but you get only the first half of each narrative in the first half of the book, then the second half of each narrative in the second half of the book). Also this has got to be one of the most chilling distopian visions I've ever read. Several scenes from the "techno-future" section are forever seared into my mind.

My all-time favourite book, complex and deeply humane
“Unlimited power in the hands of limited people always leads to cruelty” - Solzhenitsyn

General
Rereading an all time favourite is daunting in a way (what if it disappoints?!), but already on the first page of Cloud Atlas I noted something I hadn’t before, making the experience not just a warm bath, but also new and fresh.

Adam Ewing meets Henry Goose on a cannibal beach on the Chatham islands, far of the coast of New Zealand. And here Henry is collecting human teeth to go into Victorian mouths, harvesting literally the remains of the weak being preyed on by the strong.

I didn’t remember that the central Cloud Atlas themes of exploitation, power, betrayal and morality already came back so quickly in the starting pages of the first story. Also I am happy to have read parts of the book for the first time in English.
Finally, after having read Nietzsche for the first time this year, I noted how Cloud Atlas is a humane answer to the "Will to Power" themes in his work, casually quoted by characters in various part of the story.

You need to be into science fiction and interconnected stories, but than Cloud Atlas is very rewarding in my opinion.

Structure and plot
The structure of Cloud Atlas is famously experimental, like a Russian doll. Five stories, in various times and styles, are cut in the middle (making this sentence in the second story rather tongue in the cheek: "A half-read book is a half-finished love affair.”), all leading to a sixth central story that is told fully, after which we get to know the conclusion to the other five stories.

The first story revolves around the diary of Adam Ewing, a notary on his way back to San Francisco after finishing business in Australia. He reflects on the rapid societal and ecological collapse of the indigenous population of the Chatham islands, triggered first by the Westeners and then Maori who move in as slavers to the peaceful Moriori. It seems that the civilised are powerless versus this demise:
“Imagine a bleeding calf is trashing in sharkinfested shallows. What to do - stay out of the water or try to stay the jaws of the sharks? Such was our choice.”
Also racism and greed are rampant on the ship he is travelling on, partly due to the gold rush of the 1850’s getting started in California, and the appearance of a surprise passenger.

The second story starts with the flight of the empoverished Robert Frobisher to Belgium in the interbellum. A music student, disinherited aristocrat and more then a bit of a conman, he narrates through letters how he helps the famous composer Vyvyan Ayrs create the Cloud Atlas Sextet. He soon also strikes up relationships with the other residents in Chateu Zedelghem and turns out to be bisexual:
“Why is it I never met a boy I couldn’t twist around my finger (not only my finger) but the women of Zedelghem seem to best me every time."

The third story jumps to the 1970’s with Luisa Rey, a investigative journalist who meets an elderly Rufus Sixsmith, the recipient of the letters of Frobisher. Its written as a thriller and my least favourite part of Cloud Atlas since it really conforms to the genre in both story (with a tragic backstory for Luisa’s father as a police officer annex reporter with a heart of gold) and in rather plain language.
However also here Mitchell slides in some philosophical ponderings about power and morality, like:
“But a film that shows the world is a Bates Motel, well, that’s... the stuff of Buchloe, dystopia, depression. We’ll dip our toes in a predatory, amoral, godless universe - but only our toes.”
Or:
“Like Grimaldi says, every conscience has an off-switch hidden somewhere.”
And:
“Too cowardly to be a warrior, but not enough of a coward to lie down and roll over like a good doggy.”

Timothy Cavendish, an elderly and indebted publisher, his early 2000’s story is hilarious and starts with a bang. Literally. A book he published becomes an overnight hit when the author grabs a literary critic and throws him to his death at a cocktailparty.
Because his author is clearly not afraid of law and order, and due to the large demand of money, Timothy is forced to run. He is hindered by the privatised train network of the UK and unbeknowst to himself lands at an elderly care home as a hiding place. Its like The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared but with a much more politically incorrect main character. As a publisher he also has the manuscript of the thriller of Luisa Rey with him.

Sonmi-451 her futuristic dystopian interrogation is my favourite from the Cloud Atlas parts. She is a genetically engineered server in a kind of Korean McDonalds, working 19 hour shifts on a drug called Soap, to get to retirement after 12 years. Her world is very small and restrictive, initially only dreams and later the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen are an escape of her reality:
“... my dreams are the single unpredictable factor in my zoned days and nights. Nobody allots them, or censors them. Dreams are all I have ever truly owned.”
As an experiment her and an other server their intelligence is allowed to grow, and she discovers the horrors of her world, which she narrates to a historian in an Orison (a metal egg with a holographic projector).
And as always awareness does not bring happiness, illustrated elonquently by her co-server Yoona-939:
“Happy you call us? I would end my life now, but all the knives in this prison are plastic.”
And:
“Is happiness the absence of deprivation? If so, servers are, as purebloods like to believe, the happiest stratum in the corpocracy. But if happiness is the conquest of adversity, or the sensation of being valued and fulfilled, then of all Nea So Copros’ slaves we are surely the most miserable.”
Her story of a rise to knowledge, coupled with the casually blatant cruelties to (genetically engineered) people, touched me. As do her careful words, from her quoting Seneca against her executioners, to sounding like Yoda and Marx within a few pages.

Sloosha Crossing is a story even further in the future, where on Hawaii a few civilised tribes, after the collapse of civilization, trade with more scientifically advanced seapeople. Zachary the goatherder narrates his story in broken English and needs to face three prophecies and challenges to his character. Along the way he is guided by his belief in Sonmi, who is now seen as a goddess and her orison that survived the Fall. Also he wrestles with a (imagined?) devil while climbing Mauna Kea, where the beautiful observation “Souls cross the skies of time, like clouds cross skies of the world” comes to him.

Off course then we are then only halfway through the book and we still need to get the conclusion of all the other five stories.

Interrelations
The stories within Cloud Atlas grip together tightly theme wise, and in each of the narratives it is clear what the link is with the preceding and following story.

But also in more casual references, each story has multiple links to the other stories.
A few I noted are listed below, it felt like a “find Wally puzzle” to me, with a little pang anytime I noted one:
- Vyvyan Aurs dreams up the basis of Cloud Atlas Sextet while dreaming of the restaurant Sonmi-451 works in, while Luisa listens to the music in 1975.
- Frobisher, Luisa Rey, Sonmi-451 and Meronym from Slusha’s Crossing have the same comet shaped birthmark, hinting at reincarnation being at play.
- On Swanneke, the place of the powerplant from Luisa’s time, a tribe of horsemen live in Zachary’s time.
- When travelling, Timothy Cavendish his train comes close to the parental home of Frobisher.
- Both Sonmi-451 and Frobisher feed ducks at a pivotal moment in their life.
- Cavendish his brother meets a carp in a rather unfortunate way while for Sonmi-451 the carp is a pivotal part of her escape.
- The Prophetess from Ewing’s time can be visited in the harbour of Luisa’s town.
- The powerplant of Luisa Rey’s time and the wombtanks of Sonmi-451 have the same name.

Quotes
I always admire David Mitchell his wordcraft, even more apparent in the English original text then in the Dutch translation. His writing is snappy, sassy and clear.
Some of the quotes that stuck with me are:

"The greatest trepidation: I was not genomed to alter history I told the Unionman, who responded that no-one ever was."

"But what you allege is... Nightmarish.
It is, but the nightmarish is not necessary impossible."

"Do you regret the course of your life?
How can I? Regret implies a freely chosen, but erroneous action; free will plays no part in my story."

"Once any tyranny becomes accepted as ordinary, according to Veronica, its victory in indomitable"

"The Weak are Meat the Strong do Eat"

"He who would battle with the many-headed hydra of human nature must pay a world of pain & his family must pay it along with him! & only as you gasp your dying breath shall you understand, your life amounted to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean but a multitude of drops?"

The book and the film
Book versus film, always a major contention area.
Actually I liked the film a lot, especially the soundtrack by Tom Tywker. The Frobisher storyline in the movie is in my opinion rendered in a much more emotional way than in the book, with the beautiful scene with all the falling china and the bathtub scene as highlights. My favourite story is less complex in the film, Sonmi-451 has much more time to grow as a character in the book (loved Bae Doona as actor I must say!).

But overall I feel the film captures the ideas of the book quite well, especially the reincarnation idea with actors playing various roles in the six stories, with a bit more of an overt happy ending then the book.

How do I even begin to review a book like this? This book is one of the most incredible books that I have had the pleasure of reading. David Mitchell not only managed to write 6 unique and fantastic stories that I would love to read on there own, but he managed to connected them almost seamlessly making one mind-blowing story.

Like I said I would love to read each story as an individual for each one is so dynamic in itself. It is almost hard to believe that the same author wrote each story since each has its own unique writing style. You go from a sailing journal, to comedy, to mystery, to science fiction, and even a post apocalyptic world. He threw in all of my favorite genres and the best elements of each.

When I started reading this book I instantly enjoyed it and liked each story and then loved when I started to realize all the parallels between the stories and characters, and how all the themes came together I was even more in love with the story and flew through the second half.

It is hard for me to pick which story I loved the most but if I had to choose it would be between the mystery story featuring Luisa Rey and the science fiction story featuring Somni. The Luisa Rey story was an intricate mystery filled with all the best elements, the heartless assassin who enjoys killing, the investigative journalist trying to prove herself, and all in all the conspiracy of the mystery that goes higher up than believed. The Somni story was brilliant science fiction where there are clones and the world has become dependent on technology and Big Brother is watching you.

One of the very interesting elements of the book was the language throughout the novel. Once the story about Somni started there was an extreme difference in the use of language. Words were forgotten and things such as movies were all clumped together and called Disneys and all cars Fords. In the last story the language we know was gone. The story itself was hard to read because of how the people talked. Even though this element was on of my favorite themes throughout the book it also was a reason why the last story was my least favorite.

This book will keep you guessing up until the end and even then you will still sit there afterwards just observing everything. The end of each of the stories is amazing and mind-blowing. As soon as you start reading this book you will not be able to put it down and you will be a better person for it. This book will give you a different outlook on the people around you and wonder how everyone’s actions actually effected your own, because one thing this book taught me is that everyone is connected and even the smallest things can impact someone in the future.

Well there is my review I would give this books as many stars as possible. But if you would like to read a fantastic review of this book I would like to send you here:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
My brother and his review are the reason I read this book in the first place. ☺

**okay - i have actually written a "review" for this book, all you early bird voters! feel free to take back your picture-votes if you hate my words (and by "feel free," i mean "don't you dare!!")**

why have i never read this book before??

observe:



do you see how it is wedged into a teetering, lode-bearing stack of books??



removing it was a tricky business, indeed, but i succeeded, and i am finally reading it. so thank you for badgering me about it, internet, because so far, i am really enjoying it!!!

*****************************REVIEW***********************************

the other day, when i was still a whopping 60 pages from finishing this book, greg shoved me out from in front of my work-computer to revisit his review of the book.he muttered aloud "why does anyone even read my reviews. karen, don't ever let me compare a book to a mobius strip again."

and he is both correct and incorrect. because it is a good review, but the book ain't nothing like a mobius strip.

finnegan's wake is a true mobius. infinite jest is a motheaten mobius, with key scenes lost along the way. this is more of a parabola, or the first hill in a rolly coaster. if the rolly-coaster ride-as descriptor weren't so trite, i would explore that here: how at first, you didn't quite know what you were getting into, as you made your ascent, but then, once you got to the top and could see what was coming, you just couldn't read through it quickly enough, and there was excitement and screams and probably some of the weaker readers vomited into their laps. but it is indeed trite, so i won't make the comparison at all.

i can understand the accusations of gimmickry. although as we are learning here on goodreads, gimmicks pay off, no? even the ones with no substance. and if this was just structure without substance, i would completely agree with mitchell's detractors. if it were just a series of short stories, butterflied and stacked on top of each other to form a book, it would be less appealing than it is in reality.

because they do bounce off of each other, the stories. they sneak into each others' worlds both thematically, and more overtly, like foraging little mice on mouse-missions. sometimes they are each others' stories. calvino, borges, arabian nights, david lynch - i can trot out all the expected names if you aren't tired of reading them.but this is something all its own. and i am sure that a second reading would do me a world of good at identifying even more of these echoes. this is a book that pretty much demands a second pass, which i will gladly give.

mitchell addresses the accusations of gimmickry before they are even made, in the novel itself:

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.

and i love that - his anticipation of his own critics. yummy.

so - yeah - absolutely read this book if you have been dragging your feet over it. but beware - some of the stories are going to be much more captivating than others. i would read an entire book about frobisher, for example.

people are obscenities. would rather be music than be a mass of tubes squeezing semisolids around itself for a few decades before becoming so dribblesome it'll no longer function.

agreed.

i will definitely read this book again.

come to my blog!

"Yet what is any ocean but a multitude of drops?"

Another book of David Mitchell's where my thoughts are running in a thousand different directions. And yes, another one where my mind has exploded 

Some have claimed this to be a masterwork. Others say it’s unreadable. For my part, I have more sympathy with the latter view. Before reading the book, I deliberately hadn’t read any reader reviews, but I had seen the film trailer that seemed to promise a helter skelter race through the ages with the hint of reincarnation and sci-fi shootouts abounding. Well, disappointingly, that's not quite what I found between its pages.

I don’t mind having to do some thinking when I’m reading and, as a fan of Haruki Murakami’s books, I’m willing to suspend belief and go with the flow, even when I’m not sure where it’s going – or later, where it is I’ve arrived. My problem with this book was that I just didn’t enjoy the journey, or rather, I didn’t enjoy most of the journey.

Of the six stories – all told in a different style and each tale using a vocabulary of its own – I only really warmed to the account of the British composer evading creditors in 1930’s Belgium. I found all of the others a bit of a struggle. It is very clever in the way the stories interrupt each other and flow chronologically to halfway and are then completed in the second half of the book in reverse order. And they all are fully completed, with common references popping up and an overall picture forming… if you’ve managed to stay with it long enough. But was it worth the effort? And that's where it fails for me - my answer is no, not really.

I’m pretty sure I’m not really clever enough to have fully appreciated this complex offering. I also believe a second reading would (if I could face it) increase my appreciation of the book and allow me to draw out elements I’ve missed. But I’ve subsequently read in-depth reviews from people far more erudite than me, and I’ve yet to glean much more than I had already managed to absorb.

Readers will clearly have their own reaction to this book, and some will take more from it than others. I didn’t take very much, but I’m sure others will have a very different experience. Good luck to them, I’m filing this on my ‘too fanciful by far’ shelf.

What a pretentious overwritten book! Mitchell indulges in overblown language and a gimmicky structure that does little in furthering the plot and themes of the book while significanlty slowing the reader. The stories often drag as the author seems more interested in revelling in his own virtuosity than creating a lean, subtle piece of literature. The recurrent motifs are handled in an exceptionally heavy-handed manner, so much so that the reader feels a bit bludgeoned by the end. Further, the characters for the most part fail to make a serious emotional connection to the reader to the point that the reader finds himself not caring about the outcome of any given story. I found the whole thing boring and exceptionally trite. As one other reviewer put it - the more you have read the less impressed you will be with this book. Truly shocked that it made the short list for the Man-Booker Prize. Definitely not worth another read.

DJ Ian's Sunday Evening "Tell Me What You Really Think"


Mitchell's Hollow Horn Plays Wasted Words

I’ve tried to understand this novel.
Let me tell you how very much I've strived,
But from my humble little hovel,
It seems to me horribly contrived.

Like, what about the self-conscious display
Of inordinate lit’ry prowess?
Applied for amusement and for play,
It’s the ultimate in high-browness.

He’s in Haruki’s artistic debt,
High up there defying gravity
And recursive time without a net,
Oh what gimmicky depravity!

Such "belletristic masturbation"
Served in mind-expanding proportions
Invites a surgical truncation,
So foxy ladies get their portions.

Mitchell smacks of hippopotamus
When one would expect an elephant.
His homonyms are synonymous.
Does that make him sound intelligent?

When it comes to writing, I prefer
Economy and austerity,
Not for me smug buffoonery or
Polysyllabic dexterity.

Now you've heard this missive for a while,
It’s true he has so much greater fame,
Though I don’t envy his success, I’ll
Crawl upon the author to exclaim:

Foresake all your post-modernist tricks
For pseudo-intellectual dicks!
David Mitchell, "you’re prolix, prolix,
Nothing a pair of scissors can't fix!"



IAN GRAYE'S REVIEW

DJ Ian disagrees with Ian Graye's far more positive, pseudointellectual five-star review of "Cloud Atlas", which is here:

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...



THE PSYCHOPATHOLOGY OF EVERYDAY METAFICTON

Why are postmodern
Authors contentious?
When does ambition
Become pretentious?
Why do plays with form
Evoke such a shrug?
Why does confidence
Seem like it's too smug?
Can writers achieve
Beyond their station?
Why doesn't their quest
Inspire elation?
Why do six nested
Stories seem to shake
Civilisation
To its foundation?
All this argument
Seems like such a waste.
There really is no
Accounting for taste.



QUOTATION

"Our lives are not our own. We are bound to others, past and present, and by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future."

David Mitchell, "Cloud Atlas"



SOUNDTRACK

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - "We Call Upon The Author to Explain"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQtsO2...

Rilo Kiley - "Portions for Foxes"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtNV3p...

3.50 Stars — It might not be for everyone and it is a novel of some very potently ambiguous passages, however it must be said, Cloud Atlas is a whimsical thoroughfare into What an absolute powerhouse of a novel! It’s extremely hard to know where to even decipher what a beginning is, post finishing this behemoth. Let alone find then where to place the beginning when discussing Cloud Atlas.

I’ve wanted to read this for years. But I’d always been hesitant and put-off the venture by either someone else whom loved it, hated it or by perhaps hearing far too much commentary to feel confident I could approach it on merit alone. But here we are!

I am nowhere near ready to to give even my briefest thoughts on this, other than to say it’s clearly a work of breathtaking scope and clearly comes from a mind that is perhaps some sort of literary-demon, but one that writes with a blistering intensity that somehow manages to harmonise with the inner-voice of the reader to create a demonic-bird tweeting beautiful tones from a hellish conductor!

Yes, some sorts do feel slightly over-indulgent and perhaps a little too ‘on-the-nose’ in parts. But such is the magnum-opus like structure of this futuristic, adventure, fantasy, drama, magical and poetic monster, you cannot help but in moments take it all in which a degree of unadulterated wonder at how some one could conceive such an elongated, elaborate, deliberate & inspired narrative, and world that embarks on a journey you can’t help but feel as though is really there somehow.

The soul of a person is that intangible, invisible truth we all hope is more than many generationally handed-down custom. It’s what we feel to be even more human than our bodies and minds — Cloud Atlas is — for the most part — A journey of one soul that spans centuries, and despite never really being conscious of its former selves, it is comforting and also wondrous to imagine a truth as powerful as this one and Mitchell does a solid job of installing that little flutter in the reader that ultimately connects us all to its core message.

Overall, there are some tougher parts, it’s not an easy read most of the time — but it has a pay off I feel is worth the effort if you’re a fellow monster-sized-book tragic like myself.

After finally dusting off this book from my shelf, which sat for eight years untouched, I devoured it like an irresistible drug. The spirits of the literature gods, dead and alive, have convened with Mitchell, and Mitchell has embraced the half-seen and the unseen, the lives and half-lives, and the mystical, boundless forces that turn a book into a world, a narrative into a universe. There's as much meaning outside the pages, and between words and passages, as there is in the explicit text--a potent cosmos of orbiting ideas. Mitchell has punched a hole in the sky with this book.

That “everyone is connected” is not an original theme of literature. It has been done as prosaically as Coelho or as lofty as Nabokov. Mitchell’s book of six nested stories is a furious and radiant masterpiece of formal structure and polyphonic elasticity, with the universal theme of connection—between generations, geographies, and centuries; people of vastly different ethnicities, cultures, even fabricated clones!

From the South Seas of the mid-19th century to the post-apocalyptic future on Hawaii’s islands, Mitchell explores the link between people as much as a thousand years apart in time and an incalculable amount of distance. Our undertakings, our destructions, our sorrow, our humanity, and our imperfections reach across the millennia. What communicates our exertions is our recording of things said and done. “Sunt lacrimae rerum,” writes the protagonist of the second story. The world is a world of tears, and the burdens of mortality touch the heart.

The six novellas that comprise the novel are written in ascending and descending order. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. There are great tonal shifts between stories, yet the parts equal the whole. As the narrator of the second novella says about his composition, Cloud Atlas Sextet, for six overlapping soloists (piano, clarinet, cello, flute, violin, and cello), they are “each in its own language of key, scale, and color.” There is much to say about music and the structure of this novel.

And, in each story is a character with a comet-shaped birthmark, inferring incarnations of the same soul. The first five titles end in “Half-Lives” (which makes sense because they are only half a story) and the narratives end in a cliffhanger, usually an interrupted sentence or moment. The descending order (or latter half of each novella) pick up the Half Lives where they left off in the ascending stories.

Story #1 is written Melville style, about a notary, Adam Ewing, on a ship in the South Seas, who is facing an ugly truth about people and their predatory nature. In story #2, Belgium, 1931, a scheming, disinherited opportunist, Robert Frorbisher, procures a job as an amanuensis to an ailing, syphilitic composer. His narrative is told via letters to his lover, Rufus Sixsmith, Waugh-style. He finds the interrupted journals of Ewing at the composer's house. In the third tale, set in mid-70's California, Luisa Rey, a journalist investigating nefarious activity at a nuclear power plant, is after some sensitive information from physicist Rufus Sixsmith. Luisa also acquires some of the letters that Sixsmith received from Frobisher. Her story has a distinctly Grisham/Chandler style.

Story 4 is about a British publisher, Timothy Cavendish, who has a manuscript of the Luisa Rey story, but ends up imprisoned in a nursing home, trying to escape. Very Amis-y in narrative and characters. In the fifth story, Mievillie-ish, set into Korea’s future, the country is ruled by a totalitarian government, or “Corpocracy;” they clone “fabricants” who function without human sentience. When one fabricant, somni 451, develops human consciousness, her life becomes endangered. This is an era where words like starbucks and disney aren’t proper nouns anymore. Somni is charmed by an archived disney from the 21st century called The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish.

The central story, #6, is whole, and the hardest to read (linguistically), where Somni is revered as a kind of enigmatic god-spirit. It takes place in a post-apocalyptic world far, far into the future, where humans have reversed to a primitive or Iron Age state. The language is a sort of Twain-esque Pidgin. It takes a while for the dialect and colloquy to make sense, but the effort is worth the reward.

Six places, six times, six vocabularies--in one choate, mind-twisting tale. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma (as Churchill would say), and obscured by clouds (as Pink Floyd would sing). There's always treacherous forces coming to annihilate us, manmade and cowardly; there are also moral, stouthearted, everyday flawed heroes with fugitive wings and incorruptible souls. We endure, and we endure, and we endure. We touch one another. Occasionally, we punch a hole in the sky.

Like I said, I have serious doubts about translating my love of this book from its native incomprehensible paroxysms of adoration into, like, words.

So what do we do when words fail us? We drink heavily! defer to photos:
n  n

Αυτό το βιβλίο τεχνικώς ήταν καταπληκτικό, και η ιστορία σχεδόν τέλεια για τα δικά μου πρότυπα.
Έτσι θα προσπαθήσω να κάνω μια ανατομία του βιβλίου χωρίς να αναφέρω major spoilers.

Το βιβλίο είναι όπως ένα σεξτέτο (μουσικό σύνολο για έξι όργανα/φωνές) βλέπε κουαρτέτο (4)
Έτσι από μόνες τους οι ιστορίες είναι λες και κάτι λείπει. Μια ιστορία είναι ωραία (βιολί), άλλη μονότονη (κοντραμπάσο). Αλλά όταν τις ενώσεις φτιάχνεις μια μουσική σύνθεση προς τέρψη όλων των ειδών αναγνωστών.
Έχουμε δηλαδή ιστορικό, επιστολογραφικό, αστυνομικό θρίλερ, κωμωδία, δυστοπικό, μετα-αποκαλυπτικό είδος, όλα σε ένα βιβλίο.

Το βιβλίο μπορεί να χαρακτηριστεί εκτός από σεξτέτο και ως μια ομάδα μπάμπουσκες ή ματριόσκες Ανοίγεις / μοιράζεις τις πέντε πρώτες πριν φτάσεις στην πιο μικρή και τη μόνη που είναι ακέραιη, την 6η. Κάποτε θα τη βάλεις πίσω στη θέση της κλείνοντας τις ματριόσκες μία μία από την 5η μέχρι την 1η και έτσι ολοκληρώνεται η εικόνα.
Έτσι οι πρώτες πέντε ιστορίες είναι μοιρασμένες η μια από την επόμενη. Η 6 βρίσκεται στην μέση άθικτη, Όταν την ολοκληρώσεις αρχίσεις με τα δεύτερα μισά των άλλων ιστοριών και έτσι ολοκληρώνεις το βιβλίο.

Ένα διάγραμμα του βιβλίου:
1η ιστορία
Είδος: Ιστορικό σε ημερολογιακό στυλ
Χρόνος: Μέσα 19ου αιώνα
Τόπος: Ειρηνικός Ωκεανός.


2η ιστορία
Είδος: επιστολογραφικό
Χρόνος: Δεκαετία 1930
Τόπος: Βέλγιο


3η ιστορία
Είδος: αστυνομικό θρίλερ με αριθμημένα κεφάλαια στυλ Νταν Μπράουν και Μάικλ Κράιτον
Χρόνος: δεκαετία του 70.
Τόπος: Καλιφόρνια


4η ιστορία
Είδος: Χιούμορ Κωμωδία
Χρόνος: σήμερα (αρχές 21ου αιώνα)
Τόπος: Αγγλία


5η ιστορία
Είδος: Δυστοπικό σε στυλ συνέντευξης
Χρόνος: 2144
Τόπος: Φουτουριστική Κορέα


6η ιστορία
Είδος: Μετα-αποκαλυπτικό σε στυλ διήγησης γεγονότων
Χρόνος: 2321
Τόπος: Χαβάη

Αυτή η ιστορία μου θύμισε αυτό που είπε ο Αϊνστάιν
'I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.'
Και εδώ στη Χαβάη του 24ου αιώνα οι άνθρωποι είναι πρωτόγονοι. Ακόντια, σπάθες, άλογα, κανίβαλοι, πίστη στα είδωλα, άνθρωποι χωρισμένοι σε φυλές και μικρά χωριά.

Και εδώ ερχόμαστε στ’ αρνητικά του βιβλίου:
1] Αυτό το 6ο μέρος με δυσκόλεψε πολύ διότι τα αγγλικά ήταν όπως υποτίθεται πώς θ’ ακούγονται τ’ αγγλικά σε 3εις αιώνες και όντως ήθελε κάποια προσπάθεια να καταλάβεις τι έλεγε.

2] Το ότι ήταν οι ιστορίες μοιρασμένες στα δύο με ανάγκασε έτσι να διαβάζω ξανά τις 2 τελευταίες σελίδες του πρώτου μισού κάθε ιστορίας για να ξαναμπώ στο νόημα ξεκινόντας το 2ο μισό, ειδικά των 2 πρώτων ιστοριών που τις διάβασα πρώτες και τις ολοκλήρωσα τελευταίες. Ξέχασα ποιος ήταν ποιος, ξέχασα που με είχε αφήσει και πιστεύω ότι αν ήταν τέσσερις αντί έξι ιστορίες νομίζω δε θα υπήρχε τέτοιο πρόβλημα.

Αυτά τα αρνητικά, τώρα στα θετικά είναι επίσης το πόσο διακριτικά σχετίζονται μεταξύ τους οι ιστορίες. Μαθαίνουμε για την προηγούμενη ιστορία μέσω ενός υλικού, είτε αυτό είναι γράμματα, είτε χειρόγραφό, είτε μια ταινία, είτε ένα προσχέδιο μυθιστορήματος, είτε μια καταγραμμένη τηλεδιάσκεψη και ούτω καθεξής.
Υπάρχει και κάτι άλλο που ενώνει τις ιστορίες κάτι που σχετίζεται με μετενσάρκωση που αν δεν το διάβαζα εδώ κι εκεί (Wikipedia, κριτικές στο Goodreads) δε θα το έπαιρνα είδηση.
Δε θα πω τίποτα άλλο, απλά όταν το βρείτε είτε στα ελληνικά (εξαντλημένο), είτε στ’ αγγλικά διαβάστε το. Απλά να έχετε υπόψη τ’ αρνητικά για να ‘στε έτοιμοιοι πού λέει κι ο Σάκης, άσχετο.

Α, και πριν σας αφήσω θα βάλω τις ιστορίες κατά σειρά προτίμησης από πιο αγαπημένη/ενδιαφέρουσα στην λιγότερο.

Κωμωδία: 21ος αιώνας
Δυστοπία: 22ος αιώνας
Θρίλερ: 20ς αιώνας
Μετα-Αποκαλυπτικό: 24ος αιώνας
Ιστορικό: 19ος αιώνας
Επιστολογραφικό: 20ς αιώνας