I had a friend when I was a kid who was a very talented pianist. One of the fun things he could do was take the Budweiser beer jingle and play it umpteen different ways. The first might sound like Bach; then he’d switch to Chopin. After that maybe it’d be a ragtime version, or blues, or bebop. His versatility went hand in hand with his virtuosity. After Cloud Atlas, I put David Mitchell in that same category. Nearly every review of this book talks about how innovative the structure is. The stories are told in different styles with different settings (including the future), first in chronological order, with each one referring to the one before it, then in reverse order until he’s back to the original tale. It’s long and sometimes dense, especially the future parts where it takes time to process the evolved (or devolved) dialogue, but it’s never boring.

And please don’t think of this book as only a gimmick. It has fresh ideas, recurring themes, and plenty of truths to tell. Plus, despite all the different voices and styles, the writing is always first rate. Unlike Christina Aguilera’s National Anthem, there were just the right number of notes. Literary merit often comes from not overdoing things, doesn’t it seem?

I suppose I run the risk of praising too effusively. To be honest, I liked some segments better than others. But I enjoyed them all. Even the sci-fi parts – typically not my thing – were done in an enlightening, entertaining way. It strikes me that most stories set in the future take vaguely disturbing trends from our own recent history and extrapolate them to unreasonable extremes. We’re then led on a rail to read into this what the cultural and moral implications are for this current path. Though you do get a bit of this in Cloud Atlas, it’s more subtle, and it touches on human issues that seem more foundational. It felt less manipulative, less deterministic.

He gave us another taste of genre fiction in the form of a rather standard crime thriller set in California in the 70’s. As a stand-alone, this would have been good but not exceptional. But as a riff, it was a great complement to the rest. I’m telling you, this Mitchell guy is dead clever; the consummate guide. There’s never a wasted word, much less a wasted story line.

This is only my second book of his. (Black Swan Green was my first and I really liked that one, too.) Now I want to read the whole set, plus any interviews he’s done that might shed further light on this new creative force in the world, harnessed for his growing fan base to enjoy.

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

Once in a while every reader crosses path with a book that seems to be a friends' favorite, highly acclaimed, and you are just unimpressed. You try your best to like it and to find what exactly make it such a great book and you are just struggling to get past some events/characters. This is that kind of book for me. Even the end made me feel like, "Finally, it's over. I can move on now." The friend that I read this with is still singing praises of this and here I am thinking what went wrong. But in the end I accepted that this was not for me. I loved Black Swan Green and Ghostwritten (whatever I have read of it), so I guess its the book and the author and I can be good friends.

Don't get me wrong I liked it initially and then unthinkable happened and I just couldn't get past it. It was a big struggle to finish that chapter and move on. And I think it just ruined the whole experience for me. Also, I appreciate author's approach to tell this story in matryosha dolls style but I confess it proved to be as complex as a math problem to me. Phew, there I said it.

I will still be reading his other works and hope he just does not try too hard.

According to the Bible, man was created on the sixth day. It is the day that starts his labor for spiritual completeness. Six represents man’s spiritual imperfection. Six is a spiral, a flowing infinite curve, a recursion cycle. Cloud Atlas is a novel composed of six nested tales, with five of the six halved on either side of the only undivided tale, Sloosha’s Crossin’ an’ Ev’rythin’ After. The halves start from 1849 to a post-apocalyptic far future, then reverts back to finishing their stories. A visual imagery would be:

1(2(3(4(5(Sloosha’s Crossing)5)4)3)2)1

The main character in each tale is the same reincarnated soul marked by a birthmark which resembles a comet, a solar system body that cyclically makes its appearance over Earth. The soul in each cycle goes through a suffering and redemption. The first tale starts around 1850 with Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing, as Adam Ewing, an American notary, returns home to Hawaii from New Zealand after locating an Australian beneficiary of a will that was executed in California. His experience is recorded in a manuscript. The second tale is Letters from Zedelghem, which takes place in 1931 Belgium. Robert Frobisher, a bisexual English composer, records his experience via letters from Belgium to his lover Rufus Sixsmith, a physicist. He’s on the lam from his gambling debts and finds employment to a famous composer. The third tale is Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery in 1975 California. This thriller follows Luisa Rey, a journalist, as she investigates the cover up of shoddy safety at the nuclear reactor. The fourth tale takes place in contemporary England, The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish. Timothy Cavendish, a 65 year old publisher, flees for his life from gangster brothers of his author client, over a contract dispute. The fifth tale, An Orison of Sonmi~451 is a dystopia that takes place in the Korea of the near future. In this world, corporate culture rules and fabricants, bioengineered clones, are used as slaves for the consumer populace. The fabricant Sonmi~451 gives testimony to her “ascension”, the achieving of consciousness. The fulcrum, Sloosha’s Crossin’ an’ Ev’rythin’ After takes place in the far future, post-apocalyptic Hawaii. After the apocalypse, civilization reverted to tribal state. An old man named Zachary recounts his tale of his pairing with the woman Meronym, a left over from the former advance civilization, who helps fight the attack on his tribe by the Kona tribe.

Besides the birthmark clue that links the characters, each tale is referenced in the next story. The destitute Frobisher finds Adam Ewing’s manuscript while looking for items to steal and sell from his employer’s library. Rufus Sixsmith, Frobisher’s physicist lover, shows up in the Luisa Rey segment as a key scientist in the investigation. She ended up with Frobisher’s letters to his lover. The publisher Timothy Cavendish received a manuscript titled “Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery” for consideration. “The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish” was mentioned as “one of the greatest movies ever made” by Sonmi’s mentor, Hae-Joo. Zachry prays to Sonmi, who have attained an earth goddess status among the Valleysmen. The references continue with the crumbs leading back to Adam Ewing.

Nietzsche’s ideas are core to Cloud Atlas, referenced in the book as Ayrs’s “bible.” While the book explores the predatory nature of selection, it also embraces Nietzsche’s “amor fati”, or the acceptance of everything, beautiful and ugly. This is similar to the Zen philosophy of non-dualism. The theme of Cloud Atlas contains his idea of “eternal return”, which had its influence from ancient beliefs. The characters of this book go through a cycle of birth and death, sometimes with renunciation and insight that comes from the elevation of consciousness, as represented by Somni’s “ascension”. However, this soul passing is unlike the Buddhist cycle, which involves the karma and not the soul, with the goal of eliminating karma by achieving enlightenment. The splitting and forward/backward movement of time represents the illusory nature of time, of timelessness. Nietzsche’s idea was eloquently stated by Frobisher in his letter to Sixsmith, “...Nietzsche’s gramophone record. When it ends, the Old One plays it again, for an eternity of eternities.”

The inevitable part of the cycle is the survival of the fittest. Survival comes not from high ideals, but from adaptability and the brute predatory nature. Eat or be eaten. Adapt or perish. Adam Ewing witnessed the enslavement of the peaceful Moriori people by the Māori. The Moriori have an ahimsa code to do no harm, which led them to mass destruction and enslavement by the Māori. Luisa Rey investigates a corporation’s criminal cover up of the safety of a nuclear reactor. Sonmi~451 lived her life as a slave fabricant for consumer use. The cycle leads back to the Pacific with the Kona attacking the Valleysmen, reminiscent of the Māori preying on the Moriori. As Dr. Henry Goose the physician in the Adam Ewing tale said, “...The weak are meat the strong do eat.” This was humorously illustrated when Cavendish discovered a “library”. The route was blocked by stacks of war memorial plaques with the heading “Lest We Forget.” The literary finds included Zane Grey’s books on the conquering of the wild west (and implicitly the preying on of Native Americans), the war novel All Quiet on the Western Front, and, most hilarious, No Meat for Me Please! However, while the first half of the tales illustrates a cruel fact of natural selection, the second half wraps up the tales with the power of redemption, as each of the characters come to a personal realization in this cyclical predatory game.

Cloud Atlas, however, is not a book that takes itself seriously. As I’m reading the book, I get a feeling that David Mitchell is paying homage to various tropes, genres, and literary styles in a playful way. An interview with David Mitchell in The Washington Post confirms that:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/...

Ewing’s naïveté of the predatory events occurring on the ship reflects Herman Melville’s Captain Delano’s ignorance of the control of the ship by the slaves. The narration of both tales takes the reader along for the ignorant ride and the resultant revelations. The Luisa Rey story was mediocre but is reflective of the subpar paperback thrillers of the 70s. The brilliant Sonmi story has everything science fiction and dystopian thrown in, along with the bolts and wrench. The funniest section, the Timothy Cavendish story, is where Mitchell shows his tongue in cheek, with its satire on predator/prey as Cavendish was ashamed to be mugged by three teenage girls. The book even has the word “six” generously sprinkled throughout the book, the most prominent being the name of Frobisher’s lover, Sixsmith.

Cloud Atlas is a book that may be confusing to some, affected to some, or brilliant to others. Since my favorite postmodernist novel is House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski, which is highly complex in its structure, Cloud Atlas seemed simplistic to me. Also, the individual stories do not make terrific writing on their own. However, the parts created an entertaining, original and thoughtful whole that I have to agree is brilliant, like the musical movements of Frobisher’s masterpiece, the Cloud Atlas Sextet.

David Mitchell has written a profoundly impressive mosaic novel, the 7 distinct stories of which display an almost unimaginably diverse range of tone, style, approach, and narrative voice. Ultimately, though, it is a tough novel for me to fall all the way in love with. While its breadth and scope are born out of a compelling and urgent exploration of important themes — the dangers of colonialism, authoritarianism, corporatism, eugenics, class structures, and war (to name a few) — I can’t help but shake the feeling as I was reading this of being privy to a very talented craftsman conducting an elaborate, flashy, showy, enjoyable exercise. The moments when I really felt for and with the characters’ inner lives were too few and far between for me to ever be completely swept away by their exploits.

I’m glad to have read it, and I remain deeply impressed by how skilled Mitchell is at having pulled off such an unlikely feat. I’d love to see him drop more deeply into his character’s hearts in his other work, though.

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

One of the most outstanding, hugely epic literary sagas ever. There seem to be six distinct writers in "Cloud Atlas"--distinct, original, "where the heck did these EVEN come from?"-type tableaux: their compilation suggesting that the boundaries of writing are endless. Mitchell is authentic in every story. These really are "found objects" placed in blatant, cunning contrast with each other. But that they were all borne from one fountainhead--from one single and chameleonic (probably the most chameleonic I have encountered since Peruvian Mario Vargas Llosa's) mind--this is the reason the novel is now a classic.

The movie is a very adequate companion piece, as the myriad loose ends are genuinely brought forth & rendered poetic. Really truly & madly love 'em both!

*Cada vez que vuelvo a mi libro favorito sigo siendo testigo de que es mi libro FAVORITO.*

Este libro me ha enganchado de una forma única. El libro nos narra una mezcla de historias en distintas épocas temporales que tienen un nexo en común entre todas ellas. Pasaremos por 6 historias diferentes, con un notario del siglo XIX que va a través del Pacífico; un músico brillante en periodo de entreguerras en Europa, una periodista intrépida de los años 70, un editor con su propia editorial independiente en un mal momento, un clon que es camarera del futuro y un superviviente del fin del mundo.

La novela narra diferentes relatos dentro de una trama general, en los que va variando muchísimo el tono, el estilo, la orientación, el ritmo y por decirlo casi todo; ya que pasamos de un diario a cartas, de cartas a una novela de misterio, luego a una autobiografía y luego a una supuesta grabación de una entrevista. Lo que a mí me ha fallado de la novela, ha sido un par de relatos, que se me han parecido bastante lentos o insulsos mismamente, como son el que comienza la novela, del notario a través del Pacífico y el de el hombre que sobrevivió al fin del mundo. Pero sin embargo, el resto de relatos compensan toda la novela, el del músico Robert Frobisher es absolutamente genial como se mete en la época, la historia detectivesca de la periodista Luisa Rey me tuvo muy enganchado, con el editor Timothy Cavendish me eche unas cuantas risas con sus desventuras alocadas y por último, mi favorita fue la entrevista entre el Archivador y Sonmi 451, por ese mundo tecnológico futurista tan asombroso que relata el autor.

Así a través de las seis historias vamos tejiendo una historia basada en las relaciones humanas. Además tiene una estructura un tanto especial, una especie de muñecas rusas donde una historia va dentro de otra. Nos presentan primera las historias más antiguas hasta llegar a la más futurista en el tiempo, cortándolas todas en un punto clave, tenemos una historia central completa del máximo futuro y vamos regresando de nuevo hacia el pasado, estableciendo esas pequeñas conexiones que suceden de forma directa o indirecta, pero que han sido prometidas por el subtítulo de la novela.

Lo recomiendo mucho, me ha parecido una joyita de la literatura de hoy en día, esa mezcla de estilos y esos personajes tan diferentes en diferentes épocas, me ha parecido algo ambicioso y bastante sorprendente y sobre todo, original, no creo que te encuentres otro libro así. Te hace pensar, te hace disfrutar, estarás buscando hilos conductores de la historia, encontraras reflexiones sobre multitud de temas (amor, avaricia, envidia, confianza, caída de civilizaciones, extinción del mundo, racismo, religión, poder…etc) y además de millones de párrafos para subrayas o marcar. Mi nota es un 5/5 por lo adictiva que es, de esas cuesta dejar de leer aunque tenga algunos momentos en donde se estanque un poquito.

Dear David Mitchell,
I’ve been trying to figure out the nicest possible way to tell you what I’m about to tell you. I sort of feel like I’ve failed you as a reader, but I just couldn’t suspend my critical mind for long enough to enjoy your book (“how I envied my uncritical…sisters” – I hate it when my own words come back to bite me in the ass, don’t you?). Don’t take it personally though. I’m the girl who didn't like The Matrix. I know, right? How could anyone dislike The Matrix? All of the neat-o keen-o special effects, the super cool concept of the world actually being run by sentient machines, the homage to Baudrillard (If you haven’t read Simulacra & Simulation, read it. It’ll blow your mind.)(By the way, Baudrillard said the siblings Wachowski completely misinterpreted his work, but I digress), and the kick-ass soundtrack (okay so it wasn’t really all that kick ass). Unfortunately at the end of the day, Keanu Reeves can’t act his way out of a paper bag, and this girl just couldn’t get past that fact.
 
For the first half of the novel, I kept trying to psych myself up by reminding myself how much I disliked the first four episodes of season one of The Wire: “This is just another contrived crime drama!” “Dominic West really needs to work on his American accent." "Not enough Idris Elba.” Then we meet Omar Little and BAM! It all starts to click. (Don’t you just love Omar?)(shhhh, no spoilers, I’m only on season three). I kept waiting for that BAM! moment, but it just never came. Instead I found myself more and more frustrated, finding fault with every gimmick. E.g., If language has devolved in the future, you really need to commit to your chosen alterations. If you decide flight will be ‘flite’ then sight should be ‘site,’ etc. Go all the way, I say! Oh what, you think that would be too annoying? Ur rite. It would b. So y chanj da spelng at al? It just ends up being distracting. Think of another way to say "THIS IS THE FUTURE!!!" without being so obvious about it. Similarly, when you wanted the audience to know it was the 70's, you could have found a more subtle way of doing it than saying "THEY'RE AT A PARTY LISTENING TO DISCO AND DOING COCAINE!" It's the 70's man, I get it.

It seemed to me like you didn’t have enough faith in the intelligence of your audience to get the gist without spoon-feeding it to us. If the reader didn’t pick up on the “nested dolls” analogy all by themselves (or by having Chabon tell them on the back cover) you make sure Grimaldi spells it out for us: ‘One model of time: an infinite matryoshka doll of painted moments, each “shell” (the present) encased inside a nest of “shells” (previous presents) I call the actual past but which we perceive as the virtual past.” Etc. “Revolutionary or gimmicky?” I’ll take gimmicky for 1000, Alex (damned if your words don’t keep biting you in the ass, eh Davey boy?).

If you’ve read the book, than you know that each chapter or story is in some way “read” by a character in another story (journals, letters, film). A clever idea for sure. The thing about clever ideas is this, you really need to trust that your reader is as clever as you! We can pick these things up without you telling us. I mean come on when Cavendish reads the Luisa Rey story and remarks about ‘the insinuation that Luisa Rey is this Frobisher chap reincarnated’ the look of disgust on my face must have been a sight to see.

Let's talk about the Sloosha chapter for a moment (but just for a moment because I’m trying to repress the memory). I'm sure you were going for something really important and profound there, but it was completely lost on me because that 'style' you came up with was ridiculously irritating. I was unable to become emotionally invested in the relationship between Zachry & Meronym in the slightest. It’s the fall of humanity for chrissakes and I could not have given a shit less.
 
At least you have a sense of humor about it all, right pal? You saw the criticisms coming, and you gave them a swift kick in the ass (well, your character did, literally) right from the get-go. "The Ghost of Sir Felix Finch whines, “But it’s been done a hundred times before!” – as if there could be anything not done a hundred thousand times between Aristophanes and Andrew Void[sic]-Webber! As if Art is the What, not the How!” Oh man, you said it. Art is not the what, it’s the how; and in this instance, for me, the how is, well, not great. From the Mrs. Robinson romps to the three stooges escape hijinx, and let’s not forget the lovable Erin Brockovich Luisa Rey chapters. If you were experimenting with genres, take note, pulp is not your thing. I could go on and on (honestly I could) but I really don’t think it matters.

Anyway, I’m sure one little dissenter doesn’t matter much, right? Millions of people love this book, just like Dan Brown’s! Hey, they even got the same actor to star in the film! AND you got Wachowski directing (isn’t it serendipitous how my Matrix side story is actually relevant now?). You’re going to rack in the Euros buddy. If it means anything, I thought Black Swan Green was ace in the face!

Hug?

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!

Well Mr Mitchell, I have to say that I'd heard very mixed things about this book before I read it with people swinging between rapture and rage at its mention. But I enjoyed Ghostwritten so I was happy to give it a go. Some proclaimed you to be a genius while others compared it to Dave Egger's Heart Breaking work of Staggering Genius (you can draw your own conclusions on what I mean by this).

Initially I was looking forward to reading. I mean what's not to like? A visually pleasing cover in pretty pastels with little metallic birds and trees and a blurb which promised "the erasing of boundaries of time, genre and language to offer an enthralling vision of humanity's will to power, and where it will lead us."

Apart from the fact that the sentence "humanity's will to power" makes f**k all sense to me, I waded into the pages quite happily. I actually quite enjoyed The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing and Letters from Zedelghem. Admittedly I am easily suckered in with a little bit of historic fiction so down I went hook, line and sinker.

Reading Half Lives- The first Luisa Rey mystery I felt the book was now meandering from the historical fiction section of the library and nestling in between a couple of pulpy Dan Brown novels (plucky rebellious hero/heroine puts neck on the line to expose the truth no-matter-the-cost pushed along by slightly thin plot). The Orison of Somni read like an A-level creative writing essay and then the wordy, crunchy, indigestible icing on the literary cake - Sloosha's Crossin' and ev'rythin' after.

I'm not entirely sure what was going on in this chapter. Admitedly this is mainly because I got bored of trying to read it and so skipped at least half of it. The best I can work out is that Mitchell's assessment of a post-apocalyptic landscape is based in Yorkshire (why else would the chapter sound as if it was written by someone from Barnsley?) Did the post apocalyptic fall out include rains of real ale? A plague of whippets and flat caps? Did coal become a currency? Were people forced to take refuge in working mens clubs to avoid being crushed by the rain of meat pies? (sorry to people from Barnsley for this - I'm not trying to stereotype the north, I am northern.)

Overall this book left me with the impression that David Mitchell was sitting on a pile of short stories and cobbled them together into one book. Unfortunately for me, the binding element that sticks them all together was about as effective as glue made from clouds.

“I never said it would be easy. I only said it would be worth it.”
– Mae West

That is one of my favorite quotes, and it accurately describes David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas.

Utilizing a unique format, Cloud Atlas reads like a collection of short stories – the narrative thread is almost imperceptible, how these stories are connected.

The brilliance of this novel didn’t reveal itself until the last half of the book, and the beginning has more vocab words than the SAT test.

As a result of the structure, the characters were unevenly spaced, and when they reappeared, we should have been given a little tickler to get us to remember where we left off.

My battered copy of Atlas Shrugged had some v. interesting censorship. “Drink your own p--- if you get a thirst.” What utter nonsense! In the audiobook, this censorship was unceremoniously dropped. Thank G--!

Cloud Atlas is a sophisticated, ambitious novel with sublime characters, nailing the three elements of a perfect morally grey character: intelligence, great quotes, and humor. Allow me to leave you with a few of these quotes.

“Tapped on the pane and asked in French if she’d save my life by falling in love with me. Shook her head but got an amused smile.”

“Asked if I could borrow a policeman’s bicycle for an indefinite period. Told me that was most irregular. Assured him that I was most irregular.”

2025 Reading Schedule
JantA Town Like Alice
FebtBirdsong
MartCaptain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Berniere
AprtWar and Peace
MaytThe Woman in White
JuntAtonement
JultThe Shadow of the Wind
AugtJude the Obscure
SeptUlysses
OcttVanity Fair
NovtA Fine Balance
DectGerminal

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