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?

n  Bulgarian review below/Ревюто на български е по-долуn
You probably wonder now and then if the chords of your soul reverberate through time. I do too. Or if those 21 grams caught in several dozen kilos of flesh fly away like startled little birds when our time to go strikes. Maybe that’s also possible. We probably haven’t awaken to such a degree of consciousness as to know the answer of this question and to be drawn to some hypothetical ‘beyond’ instead to the quite material and palpable ‘now’.

‘Cloud Atlas’ is a story about the reincarnation of a single soul (in the author’s words). Some of its embodiments chime in with something larger than themselves and for others conceitedness and its blotchy baby brother – egoism – are a creed. David Mitchell does not judge though. He doesn’t glorify and doesn’t stigmatize. He builds his stories upon the simple assumption that everything we do will matter somewhere, sometime, on a large or small scale, and he creates objective connections. The soul swims through time and space, solitary and rejected in one incarnation, almost forgotten by everyone or deified in another.

‘We do not stay dead long. Once my Luger lets me go, my birth, next time around, will be upon me in a heartbeat. Thirteen years from now we’ll meet again at Gresham, ten years later I’ll be back in this same room, holding this same gun, composing this same letter, my resolution as perfect as my many-headed sextet…
Sunt lacrimæ rerum.’

Mitchell himself says in an interview that there wasn’t some grandly conceived plan behind the creation of the novel, and he just wanted to write the craziest and most gargantuan thing that comes to his mind. I think this proves something of a rule of thumb – if you don’t much care what others will have to say about your work, you are free of the ambition to ‘achieve something’ with it and just surrender to some internal rhythm, and that’s when the results really glow.

The narrative I liked most was that of Sonmi-451. Sonmi’s fate reminded me of Emiko from ‘The Windup Girl’ – there was this whiff of fatality in it too. People have low tolerance threshold for things with a higher level of consciousness than themselves – are we not proud to be the only species who think and create? Well, and if that’s not true?

‘- 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.’

In our stories though free will (if we can speak of such category at all) has its place on the mise-en-scene. Who could tell if Mitchell was right when writing his ‘juvenile whim’ as he calls it? We all go down the miniature spirals of our lives and we are dashing to their end. We might as well think about what follows next. It might be far more real than what we are capable of imagining.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Вероятно все някога сте се питали дали акордите на душата ви отекват във времето. И аз съм. Или пък тези 21 грама, залостени в няколко десетки килограма затвор от плът, се разлитат като подплашени птички, когато ни дойде времето да си идем. Може и това да е. Навярно сме още твърде недоосъзнати като вид, за да знаем отговора на този въпрос и да се интересуваме от някакво хипотетично „отвъд“, вместо от съвсем вещественото и осезаемо „сега“.

„Облакът Атлас“ е история за прераждането на една-единствена (по думи на автора) душа. Някои от въплъщенията ѝ трептят в съзвучие с нещо по-голямо от самите себе си, за други самомнителността и пъпчивият ѝ по-малък брат – егоизмът – са верую. Дейвид Мичъл обаче не осъжда. Не величае и не заклеймява. Изгражда историите си върху простичкото предположение, че всичко, което правим, някъде някога ще има някакво значение, голямо или малко, и създава обективни връзки. Душата плува из времето и пространството, в един живот самотна и отхвърлена, в друг почти забравена от всички или пък обожествявана.

„Ние не оставаме мъртви за дълго. След като моят Люгер ме изпрати в отвъдното, само след миг ще ме споходи раждането ми, следващото поред. След тринайсет години ще се срещнем отново в Грешам, след десет ще се озова отново в същата тази стая, стиснал същия този пистолет, ще съчинявам същото това писмо с решителност, съвършена като многоглавия ми секстет...
Sunt lacrimæ rerum.“

Самият Мичъл в интервю казва, че зад романа не е имало първоначален грандиозен замисъл, а просто е искал да напише най-шашавото и мащабно нещо, което му хрумне. Мисля, че това доказва почти желязното правило, че колкото пò не ти пука какво ще каже някой за работата ти и, освободен от амбицията да „постигнеш нещо“ с нея, просто се оставяш на някакъв вътрешен ритъм, толкова повече сияят резултатите.

Разказът, който най-много ми хареса, беше този на Сонми-451. Съдбата на Сонми твърде ми напомняше за тази на Емико от n  The Windup Girln – и от нея лъхаше същата обреченост. Хората трудно понасят нещо да е по-осъзнато от тях – нали се гордеем, че сме единственият вид, който може да мисли и твори? Да, ама ако не е така?
„– Съжалявате ли, че животът ви протече така?
– Как бих могла? Съжалението предполага свободно избрано, но погрешно действие; в моята история свободната воля не играе никаква роля.“

В нашите истории обаче свободната воля (ако изобщо може да се говори за такава категория) има своето място в мизансцена. Кой би могъл да каже дали Мичъл е бил прав, пишейки своята „младежка приумица“, както я нарича той? Всички се въртим по миниатюрните спирали на живота си и устремно се носим към края им. Хубаво е да помислим и за онова, което става след това. То може да е по-истинско, отколкото сме способни да си представим.

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.

[Review edited to add comments about the movie]
-----------------------------------------
I don’t think I have ever had six books on the go simultaneously, so I had a bit of trouble with the much-discussed structure of Cloud Atlas, with its six nested short stories. While the breaks did mostly come at logical or dramatic turns, I still found them a bit jarring, especially the shifts in writing style (though probably that was the intention,) and I had to keep returning to the first half of each one before reading on.

The first The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing, beginning with Ewing’s 1825 adventures in the Chatham Islands started out well, but the florid language of his diary became tiresome after a while.

I liked the 2nd Letters from Zedelghem a lot more. The letters from the young composer Robert Frobisher to his friend and sometime lover Sixsmith in 1931, detailing his rise as amanuensis to the aging composer Vyvyan Ayres and subsequent descent into terminal despair, were evocative and well done.

The 3rd, Half-Lives, was the weakest I thought, with Luisa Rey on the trail of a nuclear power plant scandal in 1975, complete with bad-guy Bill Smoke and interminable made-for-Hollywood chase scenes. But then, with the sub-title that it was supposedly the first of many(?) Luisa Rey mysteries, it was clearly written as a pastiche of a pulp-fiction thriller.

I think I liked the droll present-day 4th Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish the best, where Mitchell allows the narrator a dig at his own novel:

“As an experienced editor, I disapprove of flashbacks, foreshadowing and tricksy devices, they belong in the 1980s with postmodernism and chaos theory”.

The dystopian future of the 5th, An Orison of Sonmi-451 didn’t do much for me either. The question-and-answer format with extended responses from the clone Sonmi were just too bloodless. But then clones would be emotionless, right? This recitation also degenerated into another baffling and rather pointless chase sequence, though it was revealed at the end that its very pointlessness was a setup by the fascist ruling Corpocracy of that era.

And in the 6th, post-apocalyptic world of Sloosha’s Crossin’ an’ evrythin’ after – the only story that was unbroken (is that ironic, or what?) – there was yet another extended hunt and chase episode (whoo, does Mitchell ever loooove chase scenes!) But I thought that Zachry’s monologue, (actually it’s his son who is relating his father’s story even farther into the future) with its coarse, simplified language that reflected the primitive state that society had been reduced to, was also brilliantly crafted and evocative.

I was a bit surprised that there wasn’t more significance to the links between the stories though. Oh sure, there were multiple references from one to the other, but they were more or less incidental: eg, Adam Ewing’s ship preserved in the marina in Luisa Rey’s story, and Sixsmith is also an older scientist in the same story, which is sent to Cavendish to review; Sonmi is invoked as a goddess in the final narrative.
Then there was the comet-shaped birthmark that appeared in all six, but strangely, didn’t actually seem to connect anything.
There were a few foreshadowing references too: Ayres “dreamt of a nightmarish cafe ... the waitresses all had the same face” (of Sonmi), and in several earlier stories there are references to humanity destroying itself.
The strongest link was the piece of music “Cloud Atlas Sextet” that Robert Frobisher wrote and Ayres claimed as his own: it was conceived as a “sextet for overlapping soloists ... each solo is interrupted by its successor ...”. It appeared in various forms in all the later stories –eg, Luisa Ray says she is sure she’d heard the melody before. But - I wondered - if this story was actually the key to the whole novel, why didn’t it figure in Adam Ewing’s journal? (Or maybe it did, and I missed it?)

Then I read the whole thing all over again, but finishing each narrative in sequence. The effect was surprising: (I tend to forget much of what I read the first time, so the reason wasn’t that I knew what was coming!) No, it was that I found that the stories I liked grew on me while those I didn’t much like, I liked even less - they seemed to have more artifice and pointless incidents that didn’t really add much.

Basically I think I was expecting more connectedness. And I felt that the ending, the final pages of Adam Ewing’s journal, was quite weak, despite Ewing’s (long-winded as ever) concluding commentary on civilization.
So I also wondered - how would Cloud Atlas read if the nesting was reversed?
Starting with the end times, discovering how humanity had come to that, and ending on the same bleak note ... Zachry’s story, closing with the magical

... silvry egg what he named Orison in his yarns. Like Pa yarned, if you warm the egg in your hands, a beautsome ghost-girl appears an’ speaks in Old-Un tongue what no un alive und’stands nor never will, nay. It ain’t Smart you can use ‘cos it don’t kill Kona pirates nor fill empty guts ...
Sit down a beat or two.
Hold out your hands.
Look.

... that seemed to hit just the right note, far in the future where humanity’s fate is truly uncertain.

So I’m giving this 4 stars for a hugely inventive work though I think it is more like 3.5 for the bits that didn’t quite do it for me.
[Original review 20 May 2018]
-----------------------------------------------
so, the movie:
It was long – very long – at nearly 3 hours, but that meant less than half an hour for each of the stories, far too short for any real involvement. And where the book broke the narratives in two, here the six were inter-cut with scene changes like a fast-paced action movie. Admittedly the transitions were very well done – a punch from one era landing on a character in another – but it was like watching six Hollywood trailers simultaneously and not feeling any great urge to watch any of them in full:

The sea voyage of Adam Ewing pared down to a few swashbuckling pirate-inspired scenes;

The sombre, serious, period-drama hinting at more gay themes than were actually explicit in the Frobisher story (though I thought that, and moving the action from Belgium to Edinburgh worked well);

The Hollywood thriller/chase that Mitchell must have written with just this movie in mind (It looked and felt exactly as I’d visualized it, which says a lot about how a stereotyped genre has infected my and probably everyone else’s imagination)

The British farce that was played for more yucks, like a TV sitcom, and less nuance than the book; but enjoyable anyway.

The futuristic cyber-clone movie where the producers just couldn’t keep their hands off the special effects – the techno-schlock of flying X-cars, shimmering highways and laser weaponry essentially drowning out Mitchell’s message about where corporate-controlled consumerism would lead us; two thumbs down for that one.

And finally the post-apocalypse, quite well done since it didn’t have to be simplified much. I was also quite chuffed to see that the producers had had the same thought as I did – to start and end far into the future rather than with Adam Ewing.
Though why they had it end on another planet was beyond me – it almost negated Mitchell’s bleak vision with one that suggested everything would turn out fine; one rainbow unicorn away from a hope-y fairytale ending.

What struck me though, was the sheer incomprehensibility and pointlessness of so many scenes if you hadn’t read the book first; the movie simply couldn’t stand on its own. Although cutting might have made the movie less unwieldy, really, to do justice to Cloud Atlas it needed to be a mini-series.

... and I'm glad now that I gave the book 4 stars, to distinguish it from a decidedly 3-star movie.

A basket case when it comes to storytelling form: six interrelated stories (in different narrative style and different genres) happening centuries in between. If you list the chapters in sequence, this is how the relationship looks like, main themes, and how the main characters are related to each other:

1a The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing (1st part) - diary - sea adventure; racism - 16th century - in a vessel Prophetess afloat the Pacific Ocean
2a Letters from Zedelghem (1st part) - epistolary - adultery; music - year 1931 - in a old English house called Zedelghem
3a Half-Lives - The First Luisa Rey Mystery (1st part) - mystery/thriller - about an undisclosed danger of a nuclear plant - 60's
4a The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish (1st part) - 3rd px - comedy - rivalry in literary world - current
5a An Orison of Sonmi-451 (1st part) - recorded interview - sci-fi/dystopian; love story - futuristic
6 Sloosha's Crossin' an' Ev'rythin' After - tribal war; father-son - ultra-futuristic
5b An Orison of Sonmi-451 (2nd part) - clone Sonmi watching a movie of Cavendish
4b The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish (2nd part) - Tim has the MS of Luisa Rey
3b Half-Lives - The First Luisa Rey Mystery (2nd part) - Luisa has RF's letters
2b Letters from Zedelghem (2nd part) - Robert Frobisher takes interest on Ewing's diary
1b The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing (2nd part) - setting goes back to the Prophetess with Adam Ewing surviving from a parasitic infection.

Notice the circular pattern: the narration started with the diary being written on a vessel called Prophetess then it went to 6 other settings (time and place) before going back to the same vessel afloat the Pacific Ocean.

It's a league on its own. There is nothing quite similar to it. If Scheherazade told 1001 stories, Mitchell limited the number to 6 but made his main character in each reincarnation of one person. It is similar to Michael Cunningham's Specimen Days (2005) it's just that the Cunningham novel has only one setting, i.e., New York, while this one of Mitchell has various: 1. New Zealand; 2. London; 3 & 4. US; 5. Korea and 6. Hawaii. And the fact that Cloud Atlas was published earlier (2004) makes it the original compared to Specimen Days.

This is definitely one of my memorable reads. Reasons: (1) Longer time to finish since I had to understand 6 different stories each of them in different style, genre, theme, setting (place and time) and set of characters. This for me proves the talent and versatility of David Mitchell. Who would have risked writing in a genre one is not comfortable writing about? The voice is different too. Adam Ewing used old-fashioned English that I had to open my Lexicon dictionary to adjust to his writing while I almost failed to understand the 6th story (Zachry) because of the contracted (apostrophe replacing letters); (2) The 5 stories were split into two parts with even the 1st story ending its first part with a hanging sentence about the character Raphael. You have to recall what happened in the first part of each of the 5 stories for you to understand their second part; (3) You have to pay attention to the interlink points of the 10 half stories as you progress as Mitchell's intention is for you to follow the stories through its main character in 6 persons that is made possible because of the concept of reincarnation.

My only criticism is that it seems to be too gimmicky that its message is drowned by unusual form and convoluted plot and subplots. It is like living a big mansion with many rooms so you almost don't see your loved ones anymore. It is like a big story with no meaning. True that I appreciate the effort and the novel storytelling form but at the end of the day, most of us want to either be entertained (escape literature) or our lives enriched. (meaningful literature). Although some stories are indeed entertaining (Timothy Cavendish) or emotional (Sonmi-451), others are just somewhere in between but not really leaving a mark. Adam Ewing for example tried to tell the story of Mariori genocide by the existing tribe Maori with the indirect consent by the European colonizers but it did not have the sincerity Chinua Achebe was able to deliver in his landmark novel Arrow of God. Ditto to the period adultery of Jocasta and her bisexual lover, Robert Frobisher. I felt that the danger of having the lovers discovered is not as engaging as let's say between Lady Chatterly and her lover. In short, some of the characters seem to be caricatures instead of individuals that the readers can relate with. Or maybe I was just overwhelmed by the form that I no longer have time to appreciate the characters and to fully understand the message.

Nevertheless, for this novel's original form and Mitchell's incomparable creativity as a writer, this novel deserves those stars! In fact, I feel I little guilty not clicking the last star. I just felt too unequipped to tackle a brilliant novel like this. Maybe I should go back to this book someday and give it another try. In fact, this is the first book I read where I have to write on the pages for me to remember not only each and every character but more importantly the events and the interlinks. I apologize in advance to my brother who will later read my copy. I just could not help myself.

I enjoyed the film that was spawned by this book. I haven't had time to read the book, partly due to time constraints, and partly because I disliked the style in the first chapter.

Something worries me more than the divisiveness of this particular book, though. It is the idea that some people seem to have here on Goodreads, that they have the last say on what is "allowed" to be said about a book, and that, if we are Goodreads friends, we have to all agree about how we feel about a particular book.

That, people, is BS plain and simple.

I reserve the right to say exactly what I want to about a book, and if Amazon won't allow me, I will post that opinion elsewhere.

But NObody tells me what to do anymore. Not anymore. My parents had that prerogaritive for a long time, but I'm all grown up now, and I will say EXACTLY WHAT I WANT to, about which book I want to.

Sue me.

My year of reading is starting off quite nicely so far with the books you've all helped me select. I think I'll be hard pressed this year, however, to read anything better than Cloud Atlas.

What a remarkable achievement!

The author, David Mitchell, starts off in 1850 on a ship in the Chatham Islands and jumps ahead through time and setting, telling six separate, but connected stories. He ultimately takes us in the future to a post- apocalyptic Hawaii and then reverses the sequence returning us to 1850. He shows off his writing skills using six distinctive narrative voices. To describe the stories as being only 'connected' though, isn't quite right. Together, they paint a larger picture of the human condition.

And the picture, although not without redeeming features, is not a pretty one.
.
But the skill with which he paints it is damn impressive. At times, he even appears to be showing off - I'll forgive him for it though, because, even if it is a tad pretentious, this is a work of a man at the top of his game.

At the Museum of Science in Boston, there is an exhibit just outside the doors of the Planetarium that demonstrates—through a series of adjacent panels—the scale of the Earth in relation to the universe at large. The first panel shows the Earth’s location in the Solar System (as a microscopic dot, mind you), which is followed by a second panel showing the Solar System’s location in the Milky Way (also microscopic). The third panel is of the galaxy’s location in its Supercluster or whateverthefuck it’s called, and so forth and so on, concluding with a final panel depicting the entire observable universe. Reading Cloud Atlas is like zooming out from a point on the Earth to the edge of the universe and then back in again, as represented by those aforementioned panels. Do we need a visual aid?

nhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzYHWI...
n

This novel, of course, has little to do with the cosmos, but the analogy is fitting for describing the vastness of its scope. It is a hugely ambitious novel connecting characters through space and time, from Adam Ewing’s mid-nineteenth century voyage from the Chatham Islands to Sonmi~451’s ascent to sentience at an indeterminate period in Korea’s future, and several places in between. The novel then goes even further into the future, so far in fact that it becomes indistinguishable from the past, and like the reverse zoom in the video above, the novel collapses back in on itself, ending exactly where it began.

n  “Yay, Old Uns’ Smart mastered sicks, miles, seeds an’ made miracles ord’nary, but it din’t master one thing, nay, a hunger in the hearts o’ humans, yay, a hunger for more.”n  
n

Cloud Atlas is about human slavery and captivity as it exists in all its forms, at all points in time. Throughout history, humans have enslaved each other on the basis of skin color and racial background, religious beliefs and cultural or ethnic differences. The weak have been enslaved to the strong, the old to the young, and the poor to the well-to-do. This novel goes a step further by exploring the concept of knowledge and how it relates to the socioeconomic hierarchy of the future. Knowledge is all that separates us from savagery, and yet it is our most transient asset. I am probably making this book sound like a course in sociology, though it is anything but. Cloud Atlas is a brilliantly constructed novel delineating the cyclicality of human civilization and it is written by someone who has immediately become one of my favorite authors. In fact, David Mitchell’s only flaw is that he is indecisive. Unable to choose among the various genres of fiction available, he ends up...writing them all! Cloud Atlas is historical fiction, it is a dark comedy, it is a crime thriller, it is science fiction, it is a post-apocalyptic dystopia.

The middle chapter, while the most difficult to read, is easily my favorite. In Sloosha’s Crossin’ an’ Ev’rythin’ After, humanity’s perpetual quest for domination provides the very spark needed to create and sustain civilization. However, this quest is a double-edged sword that becomes its own downfall, since domination is a self-defeating goal, and it is this downfall that ultimately causes civilization to collapse. But despite its bleak forecasts, Cloud Atlas inspires a glimmer of hope for our future, for as insignificant as one person may be, as much as one fathoms his life to have no impact greater than that of a single drop in a limitless ocean, the question is posed: “Yet what is any ocean but a multitude of drops?”

n  n
The Milky Way’s Galactic Center
© 2009 Serge Brunier, The Sky of the Earth

(Book 13 From 1001 Books) - Cloud Atlas, David (Stephen) Mitchell

The book consists of six nested stories; each is read or observed by a main character of the next, thus they progress in time through the central sixth story.

The first five stories are each interrupted at a pivotal moment. After the sixth story, the others are closed in reverse chronological order, with the main character reading or observing the chronologically earlier work in the chain. Each story contains a document, movie, or tradition that appears in an earlier story.

تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز بیست و چهارم ماه آگوست سال 2014میلادی

عنوان: اطلس ابر؛ اثر: دیوید میچل؛ مترجم: علی منصوری، مشخصات نشر تهران، روزگار، 1392، در 680ص، شابک 9789643744816؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان بریتانیا - سده ی 21م

داستان ویژگیها، و شباهت انسانها را، در شش عصر ناهمگون به تصویر خیال میکشد؛ عبارت «اطلس»، در میتولوژی «یونان»، نام یکی از گروه «تایتان»هاست، که نافرمانی آغاز کردند، آنگاه خدایان، «اطلس» را کیفر دادند، تا کره ی زمین را بر سر و با شانه های خویش حمل کند؛ «پرسیوس» را بر وی رحمت آمد، و او را به کوههایی انتقال داد، کوههای مزبور، همان جبال «اطلس» هستند، که بدان سبب به نام وی خوانده شده اند؛ در سده ی شانزده میلادی، که در «اروپا» کتابهای «جغرافیا»، با نقشه انتشار یافت، صورت «اطلس» را، بر پشت جلد کتابها، ترسیم کردند، در حالیکه ایشان کره ی زمین را حمل میکند، و از آن پس، کتابهای نقشه جغرافیا را «اطلس» خواندند؛ فیلمی نیز با اقتباس از همین کتاب ساخته شده است، فیلمنامه از شش داستان جداگانه، و برای شش دوره ی زمانی متفاوت، نوشته شده است؛ «یک - سال 1849میلادی...؛ سفری بر امواج دریا؛ از جزایر اقیانوس آرام تا سان فرانسیسکو»؛ «دو - سال 1936میلادی، کمبریج، شاهکار بدنام»؛ «سه - سال 1973میلادی سانفرانسیسکو؛ حقیقت پر هزینه»؛ «چهار - سال 2012میلادی، لندن؛ قتلی تأثیر گذار»؛ «پنج – سال 2144میلادی، سئول؛ انقلابی متفاوت»؛ «شش – یکصد و شصت سال پس از پایان دنیا؛ اینک اخر الزمان».؛

نقل از متن: (روزنوشتهای «آدام اِوینگ» از اقیانوس آرام جنوبی، پنجشنبه، هفت نوامبرــ آنسوی دهکده­ ی سرخپوستان، در ساحلی متروک، به رد پاهای جدیدی برخوردم؛ از میان جلبکها و نارگیلهای دریاییِ گندیده و بامبوها، ردپاها مرا به صاحب خود رساندند؛ مردی سفید پوست، با پاچه ها و آستینهای تا خورده، ریشی مرتب، و یک کلاه خز فوق ­العاده بزرگ؛ با چنان دقت و جدیتی با یک قاشق چای­خوری مشغول کندن، و الک کردن ماسه­ ی خاکستری بود که تا وقتی از فاصله­ ی ده یاردی، به او سلام کردم، متوجه حضورم نشد؛ اینگونه بود که با جناب «دکتر هنری گوس»، جراحی از نجبای لندن آشنا شدم؛ ملیت او برایم تعجب ­آور نبود؛ چرا که هیچ آشیانه­ ی متروک یا جزیره­ ی دور افتاده ­ای نیست که پای یک انگلیسی به آن نرسیده باشد، حتی نقاطی که روی هیچ نقشه­ ای قابل مشاهده نباشند

آیا جناب دکتر در این ساحل نکبت­بار چیزی گم کرده بودند؟ آیا من می­توانستم کمکی به ایشان بکنم؟ «دکتر گوس» سرش را تکان داد و گره دستمالش را باز کرد و با غروری آشکار محتویات آن را نشان داد؛ «دندان، جناب، این جامهای مینایی، هدف جستجوی بنده هستند؛ در سالیان گذشته این کرانه ­ی روستایی محل سورچرانی آدمخواران بوده، بله، جایی که قوی­ترها، ضعیف­ترها را می­بلعیدند، و دندانها را به بیرون تف می­کرده­ اند، همانطور که جنابعالی یا بنده هسته­ ی گیلاس را تف می­کنیم؛ اما این دندانهای آسیاب، حضرت آقا، تبدیل به طلا خواهد شد؛ چطور؟ یک صنعتگر خیابان پیکادلی که برای نجیبزادگان دندان عاریه ­ای می­سا،زد مبلغ سخاوتمندا نه­ای برای دندن های انسان می­پردا؛د. می­دانید با یک چهارم پوند از این دندن ها چقدر عایدم می­شود، قربان؟»؛

اعتراف کردم که نمی­دانم

من هم به شما نمی­گویم قربان، چون که این از اسرار حرفه ا­ست!» دماغش را مالید؛ «جناب اِوینگ، شما با زوجه ­ی مارکیز گریس اهلِ مِی­فیر آشنا هستید؟ خیر؟ خوش به سعادتان، چرا که او لاشه ­ای­ست در لباس زنانه؛ پنج سال از لکه دار شدن نام من توسط این عجوزه ­ی نابکار می­گذرد، بله، چیزی که منجر به تحریم شدن من توسط اشراف شد،» دکتر «گوس» نگاهش را به دریا دوخت

آوارگی من از همان ساعت شوم آغاز شد

به دکتر گوس ابراز همدردی کردم

ممنونم قربان، ممنون، اما این دندانها -دستمالش را تکان داد- «فرشته ها­ی رستگاری من ­اند؛ اجازه دهید توضیح دهم؛ زوجه­ ی مارکیز از دندانهایی عاریه ­ای استفاده می­کند، که پزشک مذکور آنها را می­سازد؛ کریسمس بعد، زمانی که آن زن احمق ضیافت مجللش را با حضور سران حکومتی و اشراف ترتیب دهد، من، هنری گوس، از جایم برخواهم خواست و به همگان اعلام خواهم کرد که میزبان­مان با دندانهای آدمخواران مشغول جویدن غذایش است! قابل پیش ­بینی­ است که سِر هوبارت با من به مخالفت می­پردازد؛ آن دهاتی فریاد خواهد کشید «شواهدت را ارائه کن، یا صدایت را ببر.» من خواهم گفت: «شواهد، سر هوبارت؟ آه، من خودم دندانهای مادرتان را از یک سلف­دانی در اقیانوس آرام جنوبی جمع کردم؛ اینجا، قربان، این هم تعدادی از رفقای­ آنها! و دندانها را توی ظرف سوپ­خوری آن زن خالی می­کنم، و اینکار حضرت آقا آتش انتقامم را فرو می­نشاند! بذله­ گویان مارکیزِ بیروح را در روزنامه های­شان به سخره خواهند کشید و تا یک فصل بعد او خیلی خوش اقبال خواهد بود حتی اگر به ضیافت فقرا دعوت شود!»؛

با عجله با هنری گوس وداع کردم. خیال می­کنم او مجنون باشد

جمعه، هشت نوامبر- در کارگاه کشتی ­سازی ساده­ ی زیر پنجره­­ ی اتاقم، کار ساخت تیر دکل کشتی تحت نظارت جناب واکر در جریان است؛ یگانه میخانه ­دارِ اُوشن بِی که همچنین تاجرِ عمده­ ی الوار نیز هست و در مورد سالها تجربه­ اش به عنوان یک استاد کشتی ­ساز در لیورپول لاف می­زند؛ (آنقدر از آداب و رسوم این نواحی سرم می­شود که بتوانم چنین دروغ بعیدی را تشخیص دهم.) جناب اِسکاید به من گفتند که یک هفته­ ی تمام تا اتمام کار و تحویل «پرافِتِس» باقی مانده؛ هفت روز دیگر سر کردن در «ماسکت»، حکم شومی به نظر می­رسد، با این حال وقتی به یاد نیش هولناک طوفان و ملوانانی افتادم که در کشتی از دست دادیم، بداقبالی کنونی­ در نظرم جلوه­ اش را از دست داد

امروز در پلکان به دکتر گوس برخوردم، و صبحانه را با هم خوردیم؛ او از اواسط اکتبر در ماسکت ساکن است؛ یعنی بعد از این که با یک کشتی تجاری برزیلی به نام «نامورادوس» از فیجی به اینجا آمده؛ در فیجی او به طبابت مشغول بوده و حالا هم منتظر رسیدن یک کشتی شکار سیل استرالیایی با نام «نِلی» ا­ست که مدتها از موعد آمدنش می­گذرد، و می­خواهد با آن به سیدنی برود؛ از مستعمره هم با یک کشتی مسافربری خود را به زادگاهش لندن میرساند

قضاوت من درباره­ ی دکتر گوس عجولانه و غیرمنصفانه بود؛ در حرفه­ ی من آدم باید همچون دیوژن، بدبین و کلبی مسلک باشد، اما کلبی مسلک بودن هم می­تواند چشم آدم را به روی خصوصیات ظریف­تر ببندد؛ دکتر غرابتهای خاص خود را دارد و تنها با یک جرعه پیسکوی پرتغالی (زیاده­ روی نمی­کند)، تک تک آنها را برمی­شمرد، اما ضمانت می­دهم که او باید یگانه نجیب­زاده­ ی دیگر در عرض جغرافیایی شرق سیدنی و غرب والپریسو باشد؛ شاید حتی برای­اش معرفی­نامه­ ای به خانواده­ ی پاتریج­ در سیدنی بنویسم، چرا که دکتر گوس و فرد عزیز هر دو از یک قماش ­اند

هوای نامساعد مانع از گردش صبح­گاهی ­ام شد، کنار آتش به افسانه­ سرایی نشستیم و ساعتها برای­مان همچون دقایقی گذشت؛ برای او مفصلا از تیلدا و جکسون گفتم و از وحشتم درباره­­ ی «تب طلا» در سانفرانسیسکو صحبت کردم؛ سپس گفتگوی­مان به شهر محل سکونت من کشید و بعد هم در مورد گیبون و گودوین و انگلها و لوکوموتو ها صحبت کرد؛م. یک محاوره­ ی گرم چیزی­ست که به شدت در عرشه­ ی پرافِتِس از آن محروم بودم، و دکتر هم به تحقیق آدم همه چیز دان و فهمیده ­ای­ست؛ به علاوه او ارتشی از مهره های حکاکی شده شطرنج­ دارد، که تا عزیمت پرافِتِس یا ورود نِلی ما را سرگرم نگاه خواهند داشت)؛ پایان نقل

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 11/08/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 10/06/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

107th book of 2021.

1.5. Firstly I'd like to say that despite not enjoying this novel, it's a bold and noble attempt by Mitchell and I'm glad others (many others) clearly enjoyed it. I often joke that no "interesting" literature comes out of England and this is certainly (or at least I hoped) interesting. I think most people know the plot or at least the idea that the novel is comprised of 6 separate parts in multiple timelines, some in the future, even, and they all somehow connect to one another. There are ideas of reincarnation and fate, souls, etc., all of which are ideas I love myself, particularly being interested in Buddhism. I don't want to rant for too long so all I'll say is that this novel was not how I imagined it. The writing was fairly weak in my opinion and often felt closer to a YA novel than literary fiction. After hearing that this was massively influenced by Italo Calvino's If On a Winter's Night a Traveller (which I read for the second time this year) I thought I would love it even more than I first thought. People apparently struggle with the first part which is written in a sort of Herman Melville like style, but I actually enjoyed the 1st and 2nd parts the most. The rest were horrible. Part 3 about Timothy Cavendish was the worst, perhaps. I skimmed parts of parts 5 and 6 because I thought they were so dull. The idea of having a different style per chapter was also interesting to me, and I imagined it like Ulysses, but again it's not at all. The styles are hardly styles, but different (mostly annoying) narrative voices. Part 6 is just decimated with apostrophes to make some strange dystopian-future dialect, but it didn't come across as skilful, only unnecessarily difficult. So none of the stories after the 2nd part interested me. Of course once you get to 6, the structure inverts itself and you read all the parts again but in a mirrored order. Finishing the novel with my favourite two chapters was a saving grace. The faux-Buddhist thing going on was completely underdeveloped; I'm not going to say Mitchell isn't a smart guy but I was expecting the connections to be profound, they're not: most of the connections between characters are fairly bland, diaries and films and other forms of media written or made in some parts are simply later found in different parts. There's something to do with a birthmark again that connects the characters and brings in the idea of the soul/reincarnation, but again that is mostly mentioned and then forgotten about. Had the writing blown me away this might have got 3 stars, but as that was as disappointing as the plot, I had no choice but to rate it fairly (by my own ratings) with a 1-star. Like I said though, I respect Mitchell for what he attempted to do, even if he failed in my opinion. Closing the back cover of this novel was a huge relief and sadly I had hoped to finish it yesterday but we had our friends over from France and I was downstairs drinking Norwegian spirits that my parents brought back from the country two years ago with B. (English but raised in France) and her French boyfriend till 2.30am. Not liking this book puts me in a tiny minority but B.'s mother saw I was reading it and said she had read it years ago and thought it was awful. Most of the reviews for this book remain stellar, though I cannot fathom why myself.

A origem de tudo sempre intrigou o Homem. Desde tempos ancestrais, questões como "De onde venho?" e "Para onde vou?", são ecos na nossa mente. Muitos têm sido os arautos a apresentar soluções diversas para estes dilemas existenciais. Não deixa de ser caricato que, aquela que tem vingando, coloque um ovo como "coisa" primordial. No entanto, do seu chocar, não resultou o mundo idílico presumido, numa política defendida pelos criacionistas, baseada em teorias incompreensíveis de geração espontânea. Quebrando uma ignorância hipnotizante, surge Darwin, com a sua Teoria da Evolução das Espécies, na qual defende que, para garantir a subsistência, seres unicelulares cooperaram numa simbiose mística. Fundamenta-se uma ideia de comunhão entre os seres terrestres, descendentes de um progenitor comum que sofreu sucessivos processos de adaptação. A par das imensas espécies que habitam na Terra, também os céus são forrados por diferentes tipos de nuvens - cúmulos, limbos, estratos, cirros - que, em conjunto, sustentam a atmosfera, como filhas de Atlas.

Quiçá inspirado por uma ideia tão etérea quanto esta, David Mitchel apresenta neste livro várias histórias de cometas que resplandecem no astro literário, ofertando-lhe um brilho intenso. Aproximando o leitor das realidades narradas, o autor faz uso de um género epistolar que adensa a empatia, num pacto inquebrantável. Numa viagem de circum-navegação atmosférica, ele é banqueteado com seis vivências (!?), díspares ou complementares, que o levam para oceanos de sucessivas épocas - desde as ancestrais viagens marítimas com intuito comercial, mascarado pela intenção civilizadora, até a um futuro distópico, no qual a subjugação se mantém. A genialidade do autor resplandece pela criação de diferentes cenários, vários elencos, diversas linguagens e formas de agir, criando uma manta bem cosida, num Patchwork formidável - que nem a escrita densa nem a complexidade do enredo ofuscam.

Sendo humanos, claro que as preferências pendem mais para uma histórias, fruto das nossas próprias vivências. Selei laços com um pianista, de nome Frobisher, que, entre promiscuidades, se enamora pela arte, com laivos fatalistas. Este destaque não pretende menosprezar qualquer outra das camadas de uma obra brilhante, até porque funcionam em perfeita consonância, qual garfada de um trifle de vários sabores - nenhum se sobrepondo ao outro. E o que dizer da última página!? Aquele manifesto contra uma supremacia mesquinha que não leva a lado nenhum - antes nos confina a um estatuto de mero animal que definha ante o poderio alheio. Tão actual, tão necessário (Gates acertou no ano para o recomendar!)

Tal como a teoria das cordas, que dispersa as quatro forças básicas do Universo, a partir de uma origem comum; há também um trilho que conecta todo este emaranhado, centrando numa ideia que nunca perecerá: a natural bestialidade humana. A descendência dos chamados animais deixou um rastro no nosso âmago, fundado no arqueoencefálo, onde ideias de luta e tirania dominam o pensamento primitivo. Esta sede pelo poder levou o ser humano ao conceito de civilização, em que haveriam governantes e governados, num sistema baseado na cor, sobretudo. Mas alguém se esqueceu de avisar que por ser inesgotável, essa sede poderá levar à loucura e ao degredo de uma espécie (ou várias), num dilúvio civilizacional. Nessas águas, ainda que revoltas, são espelhadas as nuvens dos céus, conectando mundos distantes no tempo e no espaço, mais semelhantes do que aparentam. Afinal, "somos feitos a partir de poeira estrelar" - moléculas perenes num tempo curvo, que, mediante o ciclo vital, se emaranham em diferentes formas. Tantas como as nuvens no céu!

"Tudo é verdade, se houver gente suficiente para acreditar."

"Não se pode mudar o que já se escreveu sem esborratar tudo mais do que já está."

"O poder ilimitado nas mãos de gente limitada conduz sempre à crueldade."

"Ouve: os selvagens e os civ'lizsdos não se dividem por tribos ò' crenças ò' vales; tod's os humanos são ambas as coisas."

"Todas as revoluções são pura fantasia até que acontecem; então passam a ser inevitabilidades históricas."

"A ignorância gera medo. O medo gera ódio e o ódio gera violência. A violência cria mais violência, até que a única lei que existe é a vontade dos mais poderosos."

1st read (2009): A lovely book of nesting stories, lightly connected to each other in various ways. My favorite was Letters from Zedelghem, because I love how Mitchell writes about music. I haven't found out how he can be so cheeky and reverent about people and life at the same time, but he manages, and it makes me feel so connected to his characters and stories.

2nd read (2012): As usual, I had forgotten quite a bit of this book. This time around, I instigated this as a "renegade read" for the Sword and Laser bookclub, picked it for my LED book club, and joined half the country in reading it before the movie comes out. I don't think I really got the story before, didn't get the 'punchline' of sorts to "An Orison of Somni-451."

I downloaded the audio for this too, even while I re-read most of it in print. Every different section has a different narrator, and the "Sloosha's Crossin'" chapter was far easier to listen to than to read because of the post-apocalyptic Hawaiian dialect.

This book is a masterpiece. I can't believe it didn't win the Booker Prize when it was on the shortlist. Full disclosure - I haven't read the Hollinghurst, but it would have to be really good to impress me.

I'm looking forward to the discussions I'll be having about this book, and here's to hoping that the movie doesn't get it wrong (not banking on it).

Some of the little bits:

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

"I might as well join the avant-garde and throw darts at pieces of paper with notes written on 'em."

"That love loves fidelity, she riposted, is a myth woven by men from their insecurities."

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

"We'll dip our toes in a predatory, amoral, godless universe - but only our toes."

"Sometimes the fluffy bunny of incredulity zooms around the bend so rapidly that the greyhound of language is left, agog, in the starting cage."

"Oh, aging is ruddy unbearable! 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."

"..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!"

"And 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?"