'Cloud Atlas' by David Mitchell is a unique and ambitious novel that weaves together six different stories, each set in a different time period and genre. The stories are interconnected in subtle ways, exploring themes of survival, humanity, and the interconnectedness of events throughout history. The book is known for its complex structure, where the stories are nested within each other, creating a rich tapestry of narratives that range from the 19th century to a post-apocalyptic future.
The writing style of 'Cloud Atlas' is praised for its versatility and ability to adapt to different time frames and genres. David Mitchell's narrative technique involves writing in distinct registers for each period, creating a diverse reading experience that includes elements of historical fiction, science fiction, and political commentary. The novel challenges readers with its non-linear storytelling and intricate connections between the six novellas, ultimately delivering a thought-provoking exploration of human nature and the cyclical nature of history.
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Sensitive Topics/Content Warnings
Triggers and content warnings include themes of slavery, corporate exploitation, violence, and environmental destruction.
From The Publisher:
By the New York Times bestselling author of The Bone Clocks
Now a major motion picture
Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize
Includes a new Afterword by David Mitchell
A postmodern visionary and one of the leading voices in twenty-first-century fiction, David Mitchell combines flat-out adventure, a Nabokovian love of puzzles, a keen eye for character, and a taste for mind-bending, philosophical and scientific speculation in the tradition of Umberto Eco, Haruki Murakami, and Philip K. Dick. The result is brilliantly original fiction as profound as it is playful. In this groundbreaking novel, an influential favorite among a new generation of writers, Mitchell explores with daring artistry fundamental questions of reality and identity.
Cloud Atlas begins in 1850 with Adam Ewing, an American notary voyaging from the Chatham Isles to his home in California. Along the way, Ewing is befriended by a physician, Dr. Goose, who begins to treat him for a rare species of brain parasite. . . . Abruptly, the action jumps to Belgium in 1931, where Robert Frobisher, a disinherited bisexual composer, contrives his way into the household of an infirm maestro who has a beguiling wife and a nubile daughter. . . . From there we jump to the West Coast in the 1970s and a troubled reporter named Luisa Rey, who stumbles upon a web of corporate greed and murder that threatens to claim her life. . . . And onward, with dazzling virtuosity, to an inglorious present-day England; to a Korean superstate of the near future where neocapitalism has run amok; and, finally, to a postapocalyptic Iron Age Hawaii in the last days of history.
But the story doesn't end even there. The narrative then boomerangs back through centuries and space, returning by the same route, in reverse, to its starting point. Along the way, Mitchell reveals how his disparate characters connect, how their fates intertwine, and how their souls drift across time like clouds across the sky.
As wild as a videogame, as mysterious as a Zen koan, Cloud Atlas is an unforgettable tour de force that, like its incomparable author, has transcended its cult classic status to become a worldwide phenomenon.
Praise for Cloud Atlas
"[David] Mitchell is, clearly, a genius. He writes as though at the helm of some perpetual dream machine, can evidently do anything, and his ambition is written in magma across this novel's every page."-The New York Times Book Review
"One of those how-the-holy-hell-did-he-do-it? modern classics that no doubt is-and should be-read by any student of contemporary literature."-Dave Eggers
"Wildly entertaining . . . a head rush, both action-packed and chillingly ruminative."-People
"The novel as series of nested dolls or Chinese boxes, a puzzle-book, and yet-not just dazzling, amusing, or clever but heartbreaking and passionate, too. I've never read anything quite like it, and I'm grateful to have lived, for a while, in all its many worlds."-Michael Chabon
"Cloud Atlas ought to make [Mitchell] famous on both sides of the Atlantic as a writer whose fearlessness is matched by his talent."-The Washington Post Book World
Ratings (103)
Incredible (22) | |
Loved It (39) | |
Liked It (18) | |
It Was OK (16) | |
Did Not Like (5) | |
Hated It (3) |
Reader Stats (240):
Read It (107) | |
Currently Reading (3) | |
Want To Read (98) | |
Did Not Finish (6) | |
Not Interested (26) |
5 comment(s)
This work shows a clear ambition in exploring intricate themes and using an innovative storytelling technique clustered up together under the Sci-fi spectrum. It is a challenging and a rewarding experience at that.
Our story is told through the weaving of six distinct stories that unfold over decades. What makes this composition stand out is its unconventional structure, presenting the first half of each story before revealing the complete tale in reverse order, in the second half of the book. The sixth story serves as connective tissue. And well, it sounds fun - and thankfully
it is…
The author is keen on emphasising that regardless of the era, humanity tends to exercise its harsh nature towards those who are vulnerable or deemed different - whether it's in the form of racism, love, imperialism, aging gap dynamic, or religion. And he does this exceptionally well. Each time period feels real and unique. That doesn't mean that every story has the same level of engagement, but it does manage to keep you interested enough to anticipate on what is coming next.
One minute defect that made it that challenging was the fact that, due to its peculiar structure the first half of the book felt like a collection of information piling up. Imagine having a specific setting, locations, characters, plot elements from different time periods, all crammed inside your head without an answer in sight. Reading one ‘unfinished’ story after the other, not knowing what the whole story is about. And when you do get how everything connects (thematically and practically) you are 3/5 in.
However, with all its quirky pacing, maybe
Cloud Atlas couldn't have worked any other way.
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.
Stand out stories were
Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery,
An Orison of Sonmi-451 and my personal favourite
The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish.
I'm dnfing it for now as I'm just not getting into the story. Will pick it up on a later date
“And do you know what “the world” is to me?...This world: a monster of energy, without beginning, without end; a firm, iron magnitude of force that does not grow bigger or smaller... but rather as force throughout, as a play of forces and waves of forces, at the same time one and many...a sea of forces flowing and rushing together, eternally changing, eternally flooding back, with tremendous years of recurrence...without will, unless a ring feels good will toward itself— do you want a name for this world? A solution for all of its riddles? A light for you, too, you best-concealed, strongest, most intrepid, most midnightly men?— This world is the will to power—and nothing besides! And you yourselves are also this will to power—and nothing besides!” - Nietzsche, Will to Power.
I am a slut for Nietzsche and a will to power novel is just what I needed. The concept of the will to power is not very subtle throughout this book as it's mentioned a lot especially in the later chapters. Many will say the cycling soul of the characters is what binds this "Russian doll" together into one, but Mitchell and the reader know this isn't a satisfactory answer. If this book is going to mean something in the end, then everything will have to come together, I kept thinking throughout the first half. And well I was given my answer.
Throughout the book, we are constantly plagued with the idea of the souls in each story and the role that they play. Who are we and why do we want what we want? Each main character longs for the absolution of their own will. It's so natural that we may even grow to see the story as evident within our own lives. And as you come around the bend of the halfway point each story comes to show you just why we live and how our souls endure. The will to power. Insidious wills stack against our protagonists and we merely have to watch this struggle.
Maybe the book took a purely neutral stance on whether wills serve good or evil (and Nietzsche would have us believe that will has no care for good or evil), but I observed an optimistic hue. Wills for justice and life, freedom and knowledge, salvation, and pure art can rise above the more vile wills. So it is so it has been.
It was a tremendous experience reading this.
Eh...it was alright. It seemed to be a bunch of short story ideas thrown together and made to be connecting through miscellaneous coincidences. "Oh, this person in 1855 has a comet-shaped birthmark? And this one in Belgium in 1933? And this one in Korea in 2171? Whoa...."
It's very well written and some of the stories are pretty good, but I don't think it's the masterpiece that many people think it is.
Listening to the audio version of this, which is read by 6 different readers for each of the different parts. I'm excited.
What can you read after
Cloud Atlas?
About the Author:
David Mitchell is the award-winning and bestselling author of Slade House, The Bone Clocks, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, Black Swan Green, Cloud Atlas, Number9Dream, and Ghostwritten. Twice shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, Mitchell was named one…
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