Cloud Atlas: A Novel | David Mitchell

Cloud Atlas: A Novel | David Mitchell | This book requires an investment on the part of the reader

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Cloud Atlas: A Novel

	Cloud Atlas: A Novel David Mitchell Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2004 - 528 pages average customer review:based on 172 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

The Sky's The Limit

In his third Novel-in-Stories, "Cloud Atlas," Mitchell proves himself to be a keen manipulator of styles and voices. He gives us six different characters from six different eras (a sea-faring notary in the late 1800s, a bisexual composer working as an amanuensis to an aging composer in Belgium during the early 30s, a hard-boiled investigative reporter from 1975, a British vanity press publisher trapped in a 21st century rest home, a fast food clone from a dystopian, futuristic Korea, and a tribesman scrounging out a meager life on postapocalyptic Hawaii), their voices as ingrossing as they are distinct. In some cases it takes patience and thought to decode the dialogue (the Hawaiian tale is written in an inventive, if not occasionally befuddling, dialect), but it is by all means worth the effort.

Mitchell's gimmick here is that each story is interrupted (sometimes in mid-sentence) by the one that follows it. The only tale that exists uncut is the sixth, which runs to its natural conclusion before passing the baton to the other five endings. The stories could conceivably be read alone and make just as much sense, but there is also plenty of connective tissue that makes each plot relevant to the other.

Mitchell's message here isn't new, and as far as themes go, he isn't blazing any trails. Each tale deals with slavery and imprisonment, racism and prejudices, worlds where the will of the weak fights the stubborn odds of the strong. Mitchell's ideology owes as much to Nietzsche as his craft owes to Robinson's The Years of Rice and Salt, but his multi-faceted scope, his absolute command of the language and how it is woven into six completely different tapestries, his genius for the employment of words and meanings -- this is all refreshingly new.

If there's anything negative to be said about the book, it's that Mitchell doesn't always trust his own skill. He occasionally employs plot devices (the comet-shaped birthmark) that clunk across the page like cars with square tires. And there are a few too self-referential moments for a writer who's at home in his own narrative skin. In the second story, Robert Frobisher, the composer, is creating "a sextet for overlapping soloists" called "Cloud Atlas," a musical masterpiece that is structured in the same manner as the book. "Revolutionary or gimmicky?" wonders Frobisher in a passage that tries a little too hard to play for audience sympathy.

Given the book's themes, no sympathy is needed. Mitchell juggles the five tales so expertly and dizzyingly that they blur into one colorfully infinite loop. And much like the loop of civilization -- as it rises and falls throughout history, borne up by breezes of bravery, defended by the status quo, brought down by choppy waves of change -- each tale has an ending that is bright but bittersweet. It's not giving anything away to say that each character finds victory in their lives, but these moments are all microcosmic. There's something distinctly fatalistic about the novel, as if the shoulders of the plot are perpetually bowed by the heavy weight of a world of lies, manipulation and oppression. But the six men and women who fight under that weight bring even still the hope of glory and change -- if not universal or lasting, then at least personal, intimate, and moving.

"Cloud Atlas" isn't just personal, intimate, and moving. It's hilarious, dark, demanding, and dynamic. Even if Mitchell's message is as old as the Bible, his unmistakable skill lends new credence to old words. It's a book that lasts longer than its pages, like a sky that's too small for its clouds.

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This book requires an investment on the part of the reader

Cloud atlas really started to remind me of Italio Calvinos 'If on a winters night a traveler' by the time I was about half way through. If you have read Calvino's story and remember its construction I think that you will enjoy seeing how Mitchell has elaborated upon the theme and produced something utterly original. This is one of those books that can be lumped in with a handful of others from each decade and be pronounced a classic of its time. I think reading afficianados will be looking back at this book with more and more affection as time goes on.

One item I kept coming across before reading this book would be the oft stated fact that Mitchell provides the reader with a tour de force mish mash of narrative styles. He does so here like a master of his craft. This is a series of stories that fit nicely together and work with one another, each story is set in a different place and different time and Mitchell gives each of them its own feel and place. He packs so much into each page that you will be washed with a sense of place and character unique to every setting. The stories themselves delve into such different narratives and plots, you will be both confused and captivated.

I would really like to read this book again in a book group setting where you could discuss each story and the unfolding pages with others as they occur. I dont often feel that way, its just that this is such a wonderful book, and so crammed with small details, I really would enjoy seeing how others react to them.

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Power, Time, Gravity, Love.

I just can't see myself giving this book less than 5 stars, even though there are sections of it I found long-winded and overwritten: I'm thinking particularly of the post-apocalyptic Hawaii scenario with the Burgessian patois at the far end of this circle of narratives, before one begins circling back. My favourite narratives were those of Timothy Cavendish and Robert Forbisher. Why? - I enjoy highly literate narratives full of wit.
Those who enjoy the Burgessian patois or screenplay action/adventure narratives will have other favourites. In some respects, reading this book is like holding a mirror up to your own literary likes and dislikes.

I cannot agree with other reviewers that the book is fundamentally Pynchonesque. Pynchon is a parodist, a mere parodist as far as I'm concerned. You don't get much depth out of him, lots of oh so clever verbal pyrotechnics-Yes. But that's about it.

Mitchell here tackles larger themes. Some of the other reviewers have mentioned them: Mankind's self-destructiveness via Nietzschean will to power, the individual versus society, the reliability of narratives in general etc. All quite true and thought-provoking - But the real puzzle of all puzzles this book addresses is the age old question of free will versus determinism, or fatalism seen through the trope of reincarnation, which is rather fun to follow through the different characters. Every narrative has its own take on this question, many offering quite profound meditations on it. Do we really "make choices" or is the phrase just a semantic construct for the firing of neurons in our brain? Are we merely the products, as Scottish philosopher David Hume puts it, of a "concatenation" of events? This is the question the book poses, deeply embedded in each narrative, time and again. The answer: None. While the book, taken as a whole, may seem to lean toward determinism,. the puzzle is unsolved because it's unsolvable....unless one has a Cloud Atlas, and we don't, just a book about one (or several, actually).

As a minor character in the second part of the Luisa Rey Mystery (on the way back around the circle, so to speak) puts it: "Funny, thinks Milton. Power, time, gravity, love. The forces that kick a** are all invisible"

So we're left stymied yet deeply thrilled and satisfied by this wonderful, unique, tour de force of a novel.

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Great read for the right person. Has a little of everything.

I really enjoyed this book. It was intelligent, had some interesting things to say, the approach was very fresh, and one section of it had me laughing outloud, and I continued laughing about it later while I was thinking about it. I think it deserves 4.5 stars, but seeing as I can't give it that many, I will work on the glass half full principle.

Essentially a book of short stories

While I get that the 6 stories were supposed to be related, I found all the reincarnation babble incredibly cheesy compared to the rest of the writing, and found it tedious to have to stop the middle of one story, start another, then continue it much later and forget who was supposed to be who. I obligingly read the book in order though, expecting a payoff, but found not much reason for this style other than the reincarnation cutesiness. However, a couple of the stories were extremely well-written and enjoyable, the first one about Adam Ewing being the least so (what was that?? So boring compared to the rest of the book, I can't figure out why he would choose to begin and end his book with that). The centerpiece story, the one that is uninterrupted, is absolutely my favorite, it brought me near tears several times. I would read this book again, but I would just read each story uninterrupted and skip the first one.

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