GENERAL INFORMATION
TITLE: CLOUD ATLAS
AUTHOR: DAVID MITCHELL
PAGES: 529
PUBLISHER: SCEPTRE
YEAR: 2004
GENRE: GENERAL FICTION
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_Atlas_(novel)
Cloud Atlas won the British Book Awards Literary Fiction Award and the Richard & Judy Book of the Year award. The novel was shortlisted for the 2004 Booker Prize, Nebula Award, Arthur C. Clarke Award, and other awards.
Cloud Atlas was adapted for the screen in 2012 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_Atlas_(film).
BLURB FROM THE COVER
Six interlocking lives – one amazing adventure. In a narrative that circles the globe and reaches from the 19th century to a post-apocalyptic future, David Mitchell erases the boundaries of time, genre and language to offer an enthralling vision of humanity’s will to power, and where it will lead us.
EXTRACT
Beyond the Indian hamlet, upon a forlorn strand, I happened on a trail of recent footprints. Through rotting kelp, sea coconuts & bamboo, the tracks led me to their maker; a white man, his trowzers & Pea-jacket rolled up, sporting a kempt beard & an outsized Beaver, shovelling & sifting the cindery sand with a tea-spoon so intently that he noticed me only after I had hailed him from ten yards away. Tus it was, I made the acquaintance of Dr Henry Goose, surgeon to the London nobility. His nationality was no surprise. If there be any eyrie so desolate, or isle so remote that one may there resort to unchallenged by an Englishman, ‘tis not down on any map I ever saw.
THE PACIFIC JOURNAL OF ADAM EWING
REVIEW
I’ve wanted to read Cloud Atlas since I saw the movie. I have it on DVD and it’s one of the best films I’ve seen in years. I loved the book, absolutely loved it. Cloud Atlas will stay with me for a long time and I will read this one over and over.
At first glimpse, Cloud Atlas could be dismissed as just a collection of sort of interlocking short stories the author has chosen to tell in two halves (with the exception of one). Cloud Atlas is much, much deeper than that. I love the way Mitchell uses transient souls as the main theme that gels the stories together. Each main character is a reincarnation of the same soul in different bodies. Each soul is identified by a birthmark. I’m glad I saw the movie first because this theme is clear. I don’t think it comes across completely clear in the novel though Mitchell offers enough hints and clues. Mitchell offers something very unique and original with Cloud Atlas.
I love the little links between the stories that imply the transient souls theme. The same soul bears the same birth mark. Each story is observed or read by the main character in the next. For example, Timothy Cavendish runs a vanity publishing house. While he is in Aurora House he reads a manuscript submitted called Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery which is the title of one of the stories in the novel. Mitchell does a great job of interweaving the stories. I didn’t struggle with the complex structure but it might be because I’ve seen the movie so it made a lot more sense to me.
I liked the way Mitchell split the stories in half. Each one ends at a cliffhanger. This structure compels you to read on to find out what happens next. My favorite story was The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish. I thought this was hilarious. It was a highlight of the film as well. I enjoyed Sloosha’s Crossin’ an’ Ev’rythin’ After the least. Mitchell writes this in dialect and I found it hard to follow sometimes. The actual story was excellent and my favorite overall but I found it much harder to get into because of the language.
RATING
