David Mitchell - Cloud Atlas

I am willing to admit that the films I watch has an effect on the type of books I read as I occasionally watch a film and find it that it was adapted from a book and then I go and find the book that it came from because I am curious to find out what the differences are between the film and the book.  Sometimes I'm impressed but sometimes I'm let down because the film is occasionally better from my point of view.  I really liked the Cloud Atlas film because it was impressive how they made the handful of cast members they had vary in gender and ethnicity convincingly and I just wanted to see what the book was like.

Cloud Atlas is a novel from David Mitchell and his third novel overall, following Ghostwritten and number9dream; Cloud Atlas is a multi-narrative piece following six protagonists, all from different times and places and all of different ages and backgrounds.  Due to the fact that there are six protagonists, spanning different times and places, this book covers a number of genres, going from a historical fiction piece written from the point of view of an American lawyer through a diary he is keeping to a story being told to some children by their grandfather in a post-apocalyptic future.

Rating: 10

Recommended To: Anyone; book lovers

Favourite Characters: Zachry - fascinated me; Somni - amazing

Favourite Part: A half-read book is a half-finished love affair. - Page 65

Good Points: Different writing formats; the theme of a reincarnated soul; the question of authenticity

Bad Points: Abrupt interruptions

Cloud Atlas follows six different people in six very different stories; Adam Ewing, Robert Frobisher, Luisa Rey, Timothy Cavendish, Somni~451, and Zachry.  The first story takes place in 1850, in the Pacific, following Adam Ewing, an American lawyer who tells the story through a journal as he sails aboard the Prophetess.  Ewing's journal is then found in Bruges by Robert Frobisher, a young composer who is the narrator to the next story, in 1931, who is writing letters to his friend and lover Rufus Sixsmith in 1931 in Bruges, Belgium.  In 1975, Luisa Rey, a journalist, meets an older Rufus Sixsmith who, when he realises he's going to be killed, gives Luisa the letters from his lover Frobisher along with his report from work that lands her in trouble.  In modern times, Timothy Cavendish owns a publishing house who has just released Knuckle Sandwich which gains media attention when the author kills a critic and is arrested; during this media attention, Cavendish receives Half-Lives, mystery novel about Luisa Rey just before he ends up in a retirement home thanks to his brother to avoid a bunch of violent thugs, related to the author of Knuckle Sandwich, who want money from Cavendish.  The next story set in a futuristic dystopian state, that was formerly Korea which has become a totalitarian state with a background of corporate culture, Somni~451, a genetically engineered fabricant (clone), is being interviewed about her escape from her forced enslavement with the aid of an underground rebellion that want to prove that the fabricants that do all the manual labour in this society are capable of more than people think; while Somni is hiding out with the rebellion, she watches a film (what is then called a "disney") about Timothy Cavendish and his adventures.  The next, and final story to be brought into the book, follows Zachry who lives in an even more distant future following Somni's world blowing its self to hell where they trade to survive with the Prescients and Zachry's people worship Somni as a god of sorts; one of the Prescients, Meronym, asks to stay with Zachry's people and ends up staying with Zachry's family.  Zachry is distrustful of Meronym and when rooting through her stuff, he finds a silver ball that contains Somni's interview from years ago; this leads him to question everything he knows.  I know this is long but it's as compact as I could make it.

Not many books use so many different writing formats which makes it stand out even more from the number of books I've read and I thoroughly recommend it to anyone who enjoys reading because it's different and you don't normally get to see such a varied amount of techniques used in one piece.  I really loved the different writing formats in this book that varied from each story; a journal, letters, a mystery novel, a film treatment, an interview, and a spoken story.  This really appealed to me because each one stood out from the one before and therefore, when there was a split halfway through, it was easy to pick back up on the story.  It also really showed how versatile Mitchell's writing could be and made me want to read more of his books as it would be interesting to see if his other work is as good as this, in my opinion.

There seems to be much debate about whether the protagonists of each story (or Meronym in the sixth story) are actually reincarnated over and over again or just history repeating its self.  I think it's the same soul being reincarnated as I would like to think there is more to life than this one time I'm on this lovely green and blue planet, maybe I've already lived a thousand lives all over the world.  Thus with the idea of this soul being reincarnated, some of the protagonists recall something from a past life, like a car falling into some water or a particular piece of music, which was interesting and made me think if I've ever had that feeling, a moment of déjà vu.

What I found really interesting was that a number of the stories were questioned about their authenticity; Frobisher didn't belief that Ewing's journal was real because he seemed very naïve and trusting when it was clear to him that Ewing's doctor friend couldn't be trusted and Cavendish questioned small bits about Luisa Rey's story, specifically her comet birthmark matching Frobisher's, because it seemed preposterous that two people, or more, could have the same birthmark.  This questioning of authenticity made you consider if each story was real in context to the next and not just a piece of fiction in the Cloud Atlas world.

I found Zachry's character absolutely fascinating and I therefore found his chapter fascinating because I became so enthralled by his story due to the language used, a somewhat-broken-down English, which meant I had to concentrate even more and absorb every word.  Zachry is definitely my favourite character out of every single one in this book, with Somni~451 a close second, because even though he didn't trust Meronym initially, he allowed himself to get to know her and slowly began to trust her because it enabled her to save his life without needing a reason and he was able to learn more about the world he inhabits through her even if it has gone to hell.

I loved Somni~451 because she was considered a weak, oppressed clone but she pushed herself to learn about the world she lived in which was amazing even if it was short-lived; she went from a worker who thought everything in Papa Song's was bright and a happy place to work but then she got a taste of the outside world and craved more, it's like a child's development but even more rapid because she basically inhales as much knowledge as she physically can and tries to experience as much as she can as well.  For me, Somni was an amazing character which made her story one of my favourites, narrowly being defeated by Zachry's.

While I liked the structure of this book, with Ewing's being chapters one and eleven, Frobisher's two and ten, and so on, the only part I didn't like about the book was the sudden interruptions half way through, especially at the end of the first chapter where Ewing's journal stops mid-sentence, I think I actually screamed at the book when I read this bit because it annoyed me that much as I had just gotten into Ewing's story.  I also seemed to share this view with Robert Frobisher, the protagonist in the Letters from Zedelghem, the story that followed Ewing's.

A half-read book is a half-finished love affair. - Page 65

I completely understand where Frobisher is coming from because that's how I feel about not finishing a book and if it takes forever, I want to immerse myself in the book and if I am unable to because I keep being interrupted, I get this longing feeling to pick up the book once again; it did feel like a love affair, a very intense one at that.  Maybe I read too much and need to get out more.  Anyway, this is my favourite line and wanted to share it because I understand what Frobisher meant as I was equally frustrated by the abrupt interruption in Ewing's story.

This book completely told me that Mitchell could write any type of novel, whether it is a historical fiction or a dystopic fiction and I would probably read it because I loved this book even if it took me FOREVER to read it, though this was due to some distractions in my life.  I highly recommend reading it though it's not a light read, parts need focus and attention but it's worth the read, honestly.