Cloud Atlas (2004)
By David Mitchell
I’m not sure whether other people do this too (or whether it’s just part of my own unique weirdness) but I have a Guilt List. It’s an ever-increasing list of books that I should read, but very rarely do. I know that I should read these books because they’re classics that have won all sorts of prizes and been critically acclaimed. They’re works of art. But usually, tackling a work of art just seems like a bit too much work.
Cloud Atlas has been on my Guilt List for quite a while. I knew it was supposed to be fantastic. I knew it was a stunning, prize-winning example of conceptual fiction. For a really long time though, I honestly just could not be bothered reading it. A couple of weeks ago, I finally got round to it and I have never in my life been so pleasantly surprised by a book.
Cloud Atlas is written in six sections, covering several centuries and following a number of very different characters. Each section is so completely different to the others that they stand on their own as individual short stories/novellas, with each section written in a different style (historical fiction/crime novel/sci fi)and each following a very different protagonist. This gives each section a unique voice and makes for a fantastic read.
But David Mitchell is very clever, so this is just the beginning. In very basic terms, the six different stories work like this:
Part 1. Adam Ewing is an American travelling home from New Zealand’s Chatham Islands in the 1830's, having spent time with the settlers and the enslaved Moriori people of the islands. This section is written in the form of Ewing’s journal entries.
Part 2. One hundred years later, Robert Frobisher (a young composer in 1930’s Belgium) reads Ewing’s journal. This part of the book is made up of Frobisher’s letters, addressed to his friend Rufus Sixsmith (possibly the best name ever, by the way.
Part 3. Sixsmith (still in possession of Frobisher's letters from forty years ago) is a nuclear scientist in 1970’s California, involved in all sorts of conspiracies, death threats and chase scenes with plucky journalist Luisa Rey.
Part 4. In 1990's England, publisher Timothy Cavendish has a series of tragi-comedic misadventures in a rest home, having recently received the manuscript of a 1970's crime novel (featuring Rufus Sixsmith & Luisa Rey in California) in the mail.
Part 5. A few hundred years later in Korea, a genetically modified “fabricant” called Sonmi-451 watches an old movie about Timothy Cavendish’s time in the rest home. This part of the book takes the form of a recorded interview with Sonmi-451.
Part 6. Set in post-apocalyptic Hawaii, this section follows the trials and tribulations of Zachry (a young man who has seen the video footage of Sonmi-451's interview) as his family struggles to survive in a potentially dangerous place.
In case that wasn’t complicated enough, there’s more! The first half of the book unfolds in chronological order: 1830's journal, then 1930's letters, then 1970's crime novel, then 1990's movie, then futuristic Korean interview, then extra-futuristic Hawaiian story. Each of the first five sections finish mid-story (sometimes even mid-sentence), with the second half of each story unfolding in reverse chronological order in the second half of the book, until you finish back where you started, with Adam Ewing in the 1830's.
No idea whether the movie adaptation was any good or not, but like the poster says: everything is connected.
It messes with your understanding of what you’re reading and plays on some fairly deep themes around fiction versus reality. Is Adam Ewing’s story meant to be real? Or is he just a character in a forged diary read by a composer who wrote letters to a scientist in a novel read by a character in a movie, watched by a Korean “fabricant” interviewed for a video watched by a young man in Hawaii? Is Zachry the only real character? Or is the real character someone else again, to whom Zachry is telling his story? It’s so cleverly constructed that it’s a bit of a mind-f##k, really.
The most impressive thing about Cloud Atlas though, is that David Mitchell has created this absolute masterpiece of conceptual fiction in such a way that it’s an absolute pleasure to read. The structure of the book is complex and layered but it doesn’t feel that way when you’re reading it - it just reads like a collection of well-written, absorbing stories that you don’t want to put down. Each of the characters is believable and likable (in their own special way) and each story inhabits a well-constructed, fleshed-out world.
It would be an understatement to say that David Mitchell has a way with words - Cloud Atlas includes some of the most beautifully put-together phrases I’ve ever read, but it’s not self-congratulatory or pretentious. He just has a way of finding exactly the right words. Lines like: “A half-read book is a half-finished love affair” or “Unlimited power in the hands of limited people always leads to cruelty” have meant that Cloud Atlas quotes pop up all over the place - just google it and you’ll find an extensive list of them.
When I’ve read Guilt List books before, it’s usually a fairly forced experience and I’ve found a number of the critically-acclaimed award-winning novels have left me feeling like I’ve been wallowing in someone else’s misery. I read Nobody is Ever Missing recently and felt like I’d wasted my week reading about hopelessness. It is my strongly held belief that a good book makes life better (even if only in the sense that it provides a nice distraction from life - I refuse to judge those who love crime fiction or chick-lit). Cloud Atlas made my life better. I feel like there were a whole lot of themes and messages in this book that I missed the first time through, but I plan to go back and re-read with wild abandon on frequent occasions, so I imagine I will understand more of this with time. Despite some relatively dark subject matter, Cloud Atlas is not depressing. In fact, I would almost say it’s life-affirming and optimistic - as summed up in the final line from the book: “…only as you gasp your dying breath shall you understand, your life amounted to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean! Yet what is any ocean but a multitude of drops?” Damn straight.
What I’m trying to say, is that Cloud Atlas is absolutely worth your time. Of the 54 books I’ve read so far this year, this one is my favourite by a mile - in fact, I think it’s even usurped Chuck Palahniuk’s “Lullaby” to become my new favourite book of all time. Drop everything and read it immediately.
10/10
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