Review of Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

[xse99]

I read this book a couple of months ago, and it's definitely my fave stand-alone book of the year (HP7 being in a separate catagory for series). Like the work of Dave Eggers (yep, I'm uncool enough to admit to liking him), this was the kind of subway reading that had me hoping for an unexplained 20-minute delay in service. 

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell (Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2004)

 

This novel by the author of Black Swan Green, Ghostwritten, and number9dream offers a heady, dizzying plunge into six interconnected stories set in different time periods and genres. The narratives literally interrupt one another: the first, a journal from a nineteenth-century traveler in the South Pacific, cuts off in mid-sentence. Each successive story sets up its action and ends at a point of climax until the sixth, the center of the book, after which each of the earlier stories picks up again in reverse order. If this sounds like literary gimmickry or the excuse for a postmodern romp, it is, but masterfully executed. Mitchell proves equally adept with science fiction, suspense thriller, epistolary narrative, comedy, and other literary forms. (Or nearly equally adept: the science fiction narrative is derivative of Blade Runner and just about every other work featuring a dystopian future. It also features one too many plot twists.)

 

 I expected this novel would be an interesting, philosophical read; I never suspected it would be a page-turner. Each story unfolds in its own compelling world, connected to the others in strange and illuminating ways. Two themes battle throughout the book: humankind’s innate savagery and its potential for altruism, heroism, and sublime artistic expression. It’s cynicism with a dash of hope. In the words of one character, “The weak are the meat the strong do eat.” We see evidence of this across the stories as people wage war, con the gullible, pollute the environment, and enslave others. Yet we also see strangers risk their lives for one another and individuals battle repressive societies (occasionally succeeding). Cloud Atlas sometimes succumbs to its own cleverness, and the conceit linking the stories seems half-baked. Yet it remains a superbly imagined and vividly rendered work. The Cloud Atlas Sextet, a musical masterpiece composed by one character, figures in several of the stories. Of course, the six narrators form the true sextet, with their voices swelling into a harmonious whole.

Comments

[havenstone.livejournal.com]

I loved Cloud Atlas. Agree that the linking birthmark was half-baked, but I thought the sci-fi narrative was quite strong -- perhaps because I immediately dropped it into the "dystopia" sub-genre and was able to relish the many original bits without considering the genre tropes derivative. Also agree on the plot twist too many.