Cloud Atlas

Beautifully written, but so contrived. Not my cup of tea. I prefer a story I can follow and characters I can either relate to or hate or feel some kinship with.

Novels like this are what keep me in love with reading. The characters are unforgettable with stories interwoven through near and distant timelines. It is the kind of book that allows you to sink all the way in and lose yourself for hours at a time. I’ll be returning to this book many times.

I remember when the movie came out, the trailers looked great and I was so excited to see it… Then I felt let down when I did see it. I didn’t think it was “bad,” but I found it hard to follow and the main thing I remember from it is the way they tried to make Jim Sturgess look Asian. It was weird — and shouldn’t be the most memorable part of what’s supposed to be a good movie. There were other non-Asian actors they tried to make look Asian too, but Jim Sturgess is the only one I remember. Sorry, Jim.The book is much better and makes me want to rewatch the movie through the lens of someone who “gets it” now.I spent the first 60% or so of this book thinking I would give it 4 stars…Why?Mainly because it’s 6 loosely intertwined stories (a “sextet,” if you will) and some of the stories are simply more compelling than others.And while they are very well-written, and while it is an impressive showing of David Mitchell’s flexibility in writing very different styles, I can’t help but reflect on the immortal words of Dr. Ian Malcolm in Jurassic Park:“You were so preoccupied with whether or not you could, you didn’t stop to think if you should.”Just because you CAN write a 500+ page book in six wildly different styles doesn’t mean you SHOULD.And I took particular issue with the style used in the middle story… It’s almost like David Mitchell was trying to emulate the voice Mark Twain created for Huckleberry Finn.Now, I’m a HUGE Mark Twain and Huck Finn fan, but I don’t understand what David Mitchell was thinking for that voice.The story in question takes place in Hawaii, where no person has ever sounded like Huckleberry Finn, aside from maybe a tourist and even then I doubt it. Sure, the story takes place in a post apocalyptic distant future where there is no longer education, but I still don’t envision anyone in Hawaii ever sounding like that.Perhaps as a British person, David Mitchell asked himself “what do uneducated Americans sound like?” and Huckleberry Finn was the stereotypical answer he thought up, I don’t know…But that’s only what uneducated Americans sound like in Missouri and maybe some of the other southern states. It’s not what they sound like in New York or California or Idaho or North Dakota or Alaska or Hawaii.ANYWAY, after all this complaining, why would I give this book 5 stars?Because all the stories are well-written, like I said, and it is indeed an impressive showing of flexibility. I had it in my head as a 4-star read for most of the book, with my Huck Finn issues and the fact some stories are better than others being the main thing holding back that 1 star…But then ALL the stories ended very well, even the post apocalyptic one where Huck Finns rule Hawaii. This convinced me to raise the 4 stars to 5. It’s a good book.

When I was younger, still a teenager, I read many books to movies. I remember reading Star Trek Generations and Terminator 2. But the older I got, the more I started to wonder why I bothered to read stories that I already knew. About twelve years ago, I read The Chronicles of Riddick, as I had read somewhere that I would learn more in the book about the Necromongers. The story was then exactly the same as the movie, but in a small epilogue, the culture and ways of the Necromongers were indeed introduced.My turning away of books to movies was thus reinforced. And for movies based on books, I try to read the book before I see the movie. The books are always better than the movies and should be read first. That makes me sometimes waiting to watch a movie for a long time. For example, I still have to read and then watch the Martian, or even the series based on a Song of Ice and Fire. And sometimes, I only know about a good book after I have seen a movie that was based on a book. Then, I try to wait for a while until I have forgotten enough to enjoy the book again.Five years ago, I read

Limitless

. It is in itself a good book. And now, eight years after the movie, I have finally read Cloud Atlas. The book is ingenious. Six stories nestled in one another like a Matryoshka doll. And they have things in common. People that seem to be reincarnations of others. I came to realize that the heavy undertones of this idea were already there in the book, down to the comet-shapes birthmark. The idea to have the same actors play several roles must thus naturally have come to the directors, for which they were then criticized for having white actors playing Asian roles. Further comparing the book to the movie, I first had the feeling that movie stayed quite close to the stories in the book. Only when I arrived at Sonmi‘s story did I start to see differences. I didn’t remember Somni-451 studying one year at the university in the movie. I remembered Zachry and Meronym directly after they return from Mauna Kea discovering the village pillaged by the Kona. And I didn’t recall Robert Frobisher's infatuation with Eva from the movie. The stories in the movies were thus shortened, especially, I had the feeling, their second parts. And in my opinion, mixing them up, as it was done in the movie, and not having them split in two, as in the book, was beneficial to the stories as their climaxes could be synchronized. Which again apparently made it more difficult for people to understand the movie. Nevertheless, I really liked the movie, and now I see why. The book itself is also formidable. And coming back to my introductory subjects, some books, such as this one, I would probably not have discovered without the movie. Therefore, I will always watch some movies before I read the book. But as with other books, if I could have, I probably would have read the book first.

Cloud Atlasby David Mitchell*This quick review may contain potential spoilers.Cloud Atlas is a book that I’ve been wanting to read for quite some time. I saw the movie prior and fell in love with the film and the ideas represented within it. I heard that the book was a challenging read though, so I kept putting it off. To all of those out there who have been putting this book off, pick it up. To all of those who struggled to get through the first section, push forward - it’s so incredibly worth it.This novel, where do I even begin. First, I’d like to talk about the structure of the book - It’s beautifully designed. The idea that these six character’s stories are laid out as a sextet - Frobisher’s sextet - is such a novel idea. In other words, it’s almost like 6 novels were laid out on top of each other - and you read them in that order (e.g. the first half of the bottom novel, the first half of the next novel up and onwards, and then you return to the endings of the unfinished novels).Frobisher even states, “‘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." In a way, this is Mitchell poking fun at his own writing style, but it perfectly describes how this book is structured. Stories interrupting each other in completely different styles, colors, genres, yet completely intertwined - speaking to each other across the distances between periods and pages.Second, this segues into how the stories speak to each other. The character’s speak to each other, not just forward in time, but back and forth through space and time (if not actually being fragments of one another, e.g. reincarnation). The connections between the character’s stories, even the most minute details, really created a world where these characters were metaphysically bound together. This novel (although fiction of course) has challenged how I see time. Is it really simply just a linear plane?My favorite stories within the novel have to be the Frobisher letters and Sonmi 451’s orison. In some ways these stories are opposites. As Frobisher “descends” into the depths of depression, Sonmi “ascends” into a deeper understanding of the world around her. Although the other character’s were deeply three dimensional - Sonmi and Frobisher really brought me into their respective worlds. Sonmi’s dark recounting of her ascension from essentially blind slave in a corporation controlled dystopia, into someone who challenges that society’s foundation is riveting. How she decides to process the disturbing facts she encounter’s about her society reflects Luisa Rey’s attitude of “do what you can’t not do.” Her pathway changes to what she needs to do to fight for her sisters. Frobisher, on the other hand, spirals downward. His character is deeply complex - from his estranged relationship with his family, his undefined sexuality, and his clear psychological issues. Some of his letters clearly point to a bipolar and manic switch, which makes some of his actions unpredictable. How his thought process is revealed through the letters is honestly beautiful. His entire world is built around musical understandings, which toward the end really leads to a downward artistic exhaustion. Whereas Sonmi rose to be a leader with her situation, Frobisher took his journey and bowed out.I do not remember the last time that a novel has made me gasp, challenged my perspectives, tugged at my heartstrings, and made me question so much about life itself than Cloud Atlas has. I read it with such careful detail, often times rereading entire passages in order to pull in as much detail as I could.To sum up the novel from a quote from Zach’ry: “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?”And to be honest, I now wish I had a comet shaped birthmark under my shoulder.I have to give thanks to a great read-along / blog that aided my journey through this book. It is written by Dee on “Editorial Eyes” (http://editorialeyes.net/the-cloud-at...). This was especially helpful through the first and middle sections of the stories that had a more difficult language structure (stories of Adam Ewing and Zach’ry). It also helped point out details that I may have never noticed, which I’m incredibly grateful for. (Dee’s twitter handle is @dh_editorial).