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Cloud Atlas: A Novel
#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER - The timeless, structure-bending classic that explores how actions of individual lives impact the past, present and future--from a postmodern visionary and one of the leading voices in fiction One of the New York Times's 100 Best Books of the 21st Century - Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize Cloud Atlas begins in 1850 with Adam Ewing, an American notary voyaging from the Chatham Isles to his home in California. Ewing is befriended by a physician, Dr. Goose, who begins to treat him for a rare species of brain parasite. The novel careens, with dazzling virtuosity, to Belgium in 1931, to the West Coast in the 1970s, 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 novel boomerangs back through centuries and space, returning by the same route, in reverse, to its starting point. Along the way, David 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 video game, 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.
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Community Reviews
Story-telling and characterization are the strengths here. Literary fiction where I encountered the literary form in various avatars. Each tale is crisply told. Perhaps the best of them, for me, was the fourth voice, that of Timothy Cavendish. It's trapped in its own adversity but is humorously told. Each narrative voice tells a tale you could put your trust in.
Would have no qualms revisiting this one.
Would have no qualms revisiting this one.
Rereading this book, I maintain that this book is fun and clever, though not in an obscure, hard to understand way. Itâs clever in that it wraps around itself and pokes fun at itself and goes through so many varying styles.
There were parts where I really questioned why he included it, if there wasnât a better way, but the end almost makes up for it. Almost.
Some have said this book is a revolutionary masterpiece or extraordinarily convoluted. I honestly donât think itâs either.
There were parts where I really questioned why he included it, if there wasnât a better way, but the end almost makes up for it. Almost.
Some have said this book is a revolutionary masterpiece or extraordinarily convoluted. I honestly donât think itâs either.
Masterful, versatile storytelling that ambitiously entails six novellas spanning through different times, continents, cultures, genres, narrative styles and languages where the main characters in each are reincarnations of each other. There is nothing quite like it that I've read before. David Mitchell's work here is undoubtedly that of a literary genius in creativity and writing. It is awe inspiring and manages to have recurrent themes in each story and an overall philosophical message of humanity's power struggle, ethics around enslavement, predator-prey chain, etc.
Now, the reason why I do not give this book 5 stars is that if you hold each of the six novellas independently, they aren't too remarkable, some of them are especially weak. The thin thread tying their plots to coherence seems to be in place just for gimmick's sake and for the same reason, the core substance of this book gets drowned for me in unnecessary details. So even though I was highly impressed by it and appreciate it very much, I will likely not be carrying any of it or its characters with me for long.
Now, the reason why I do not give this book 5 stars is that if you hold each of the six novellas independently, they aren't too remarkable, some of them are especially weak. The thin thread tying their plots to coherence seems to be in place just for gimmick's sake and for the same reason, the core substance of this book gets drowned for me in unnecessary details. So even though I was highly impressed by it and appreciate it very much, I will likely not be carrying any of it or its characters with me for long.
I really enjoyed this book. I was confused by the way the first couple of stories ended so abruptly, but when I began to realize that they were tied together by a very thin wire I knew that it would all come together, eventually. It's a good book for discussion as it leaves much unanswered.
David Mitchell can write in any style. The book is substantive and enjoyable, but I can't give it 5 stars because ultimately it feels like a piece to show off his skill with different writing styles and feels a little hollow. It's the difference between reading an essay where you believe the person has conviction in their thesis, and one where the person has a thesis simply because an essay requires it. Also, and maybe this was the real problem for me, I only felt invested in the Somni character, the character that is supposed to be the least human.
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