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Cloud Atlas: A Novel Pasta dura – 20 noviembre 2012
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A postmodern visionary and one of the leading voices in twenty-first-century fiction, David Mitchell combines flat-out adventure, a Nabokovian love of puzzles, a keen eye for character, and a taste for mind-bending, philosophical and scientific speculation in the tradition of Umberto Eco, Haruki Murakami, and Philip K. Dick. The result is brilliantly original fiction as profound as it is playful. In this groundbreaking novel, an influential favorite among a new generation of writers, Mitchell explores with daring artistry fundamental questions of reality and identity.
Cloud Atlas begins in 1850 with Adam Ewing, an American notary voyaging from the Chatham Isles to his home in California. Along the way, Ewing is befriended by a physician, Dr. Goose, who begins to treat him for a rare species of brain parasite. . . . Abruptly, the action jumps to Belgium in 1931, where Robert Frobisher, a disinherited bisexual composer, contrives his way into the household of an infirm maestro who has a beguiling wife and a nubile daughter. . . . From there we jump to the West Coast in the 1970s and a troubled reporter named Luisa Rey, who stumbles upon a web of corporate greed and murder that threatens to claim her life. . . . And onward, with dazzling virtuosity, 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 narrative then boomerangs back through centuries and space, returning by the same route, in reverse, to its starting point. Along the way, 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 videogame, 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.
- Número de páginas528 páginas
- IdiomaInglés
- EditorialModern Library
- Fecha de publicación20 noviembre 2012
- Dimensiones14.48 x 3.56 x 21.08 cm
- ISBN-10081299471X
- ISBN-13978-0812994711
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Críticas
“One of those how-the-holy-hell-did-he-do-it? modern classics that no doubt is—and should be—read by any student of contemporary literature.”—Dave Eggers
“Wildly entertaining . . . a head rush, both action-packed and chillingly ruminative.”—People
“The novel as series of nested dolls or Chinese boxes, a puzzle-book, and yet—not just dazzling, amusing, or clever but heartbreaking and passionate, too. I’ve never read anything quite like it, and I’m grateful to have lived, for a while, in all its many worlds.”—Michael Chabon
“Cloud Atlas ought to make [Mitchell] famous on both sides of the Atlantic as a writer whose fearlessness is matched by his talent.”—The Washington Post Book World
“Thrilling . . . One of the biggest joys in Cloud Atlas is watching Mitchell sashay from genre to genre without a hitch in his dance step.”—Boston Sunday Globe
“Grand and elaborate . . . [Mitchell] creates a world and language at once foreign and strange, yet strikingly familiar and intimate.”—Los Angeles Times
Biografía del autor
Extracto. © Reimpreso con autorización. Reservados todos los derechos.
Beyond the Indian hamlet, upon a forlorn strand, I happened on a trail of recent footprints. Through rotting kelp, sea cocoa-nuts & bamboo, the tracks led me to their maker, a White man, his trowzers & Pea-jacket rolled up, sporting a kempt beard & an outsized Beaver, shoveling & sifting the cindery sand with a teaspoon so intently that he noticed me only after I had hailed him from ten yards away. Thus it was, I made the acquaintance of Dr. Henry Goose, surgeon to the London nobility. His nationality was no surprise. If there be any eyrie so desolate, or isle so remote, that one may there resort unchallenged by an Englishman, ’tis not down on any map I ever saw.
Had the doctor misplaced anything on that dismal shore? Could I render assistance? Dr. Goose shook his head, knotted loose his ’kerchief & displayed its contents with clear pride. “Teeth, sir, are the enameled grails of the quest in hand. In days gone by this Arcadian strand was a cannibals’ banqueting hall, yes, where the strong engorged themselves on the weak. The teeth, they spat out, as you or I would expel cherry stones. But these base molars, sir, shall be transmuted to gold & how? An artisan of Piccadilly who fashions denture sets for the nobility pays handsomely for human gnashers. Do you know the price a quarter pound will earn, sir?”
I confessed I did not.
“Nor shall I enlighten you, sir, for ’tis a professional secret!” He tapped his nose. “Mr. Ewing, are you acquainted with Marchioness Grace of Mayfair? No? The better for you, for she is a corpse in petticoats. Five years have passed since this harridan besmirched my name, yes, with imputations that resulted in my being blackballed from Society.” Dr. Goose looked out to sea. “My peregrinations began in that dark hour.”
I expressed sympathy with the doctor’s plight.
“I thank you, sir, I thank you, but these ivories”—he shook his ’kerchief—“are my angels of redemption. Permit me to elucidate. The Marchioness wears dental fixtures fashioned by the afore- mentioned doctor. Next yuletide, just as that scented She-Donkey is addressing her Ambassadors’ Ball, I, Henry Goose, yes, I shall arise & declare to one & all that our hostess masticates with cannibals’ gnashers! Sir Hubert will challenge me, predictably, ‘Furnish your evidence,’ that boor shall roar, ‘or grant me satisfaction!’ I shall declare, ‘Evidence, Sir Hubert? Why, I gathered your mother’s teeth myself from the spittoon of the South Pacific! Here, sir, here are some of their fellows!’ & fling these very teeth into her tortoiseshell soup tureen & that, sir, that will grant me my satisfaction! The twittering wits will scald the icy Marchioness in their news sheets & by next season she shall be fortunate to receive an invitation to a Poorhouse Ball!”
In haste, I bade Henry Goose a good day. I fancy he is a Bedlamite.
Friday, 8th November—
In the rude shipyard beneath my window, work progresses on the jibboom, under Mr. Sykes’s directorship. Mr. Walker, Ocean Bay’s sole taverner, is also its principal timber merchant & he brags of his years as a master shipbuilder in Liverpool. (I am now versed enough in Antipodese etiquette to let such unlikely truths lie.) Mr. Sykes told me an entire week is needed to render the Prophet- ess “Bristol fashion.” Seven days holed up in the Musket seems a grim sentence, yet I recall the fangs of the banshee tempest & the mariners lost o’erboard & my present misfortune feels less acute.
I met Dr. Goose on the stairs this morning & we took breakfast together. He has lodged at the Musket since middle October after voyaging hither on a Brazilian merchantman, Namorados, from Feejee, where he practiced his arts in a mission. Now the doctor awaits a long-overdue Australian sealer, the Nellie, to convey him to Sydney. From the colony he will seek a position aboard a passenger ship for his native London.
My judgment of Dr. Goose was unjust & premature. One must be cynical as Diogenes to prosper in my profession, but cynicism can blind one to subtler virtues. The doctor has his eccentricities & recounts them gladly for a dram of Portuguese pisco (never to excess), but I vouchsafe he is the only other gentleman on this latitude east of Sydney & west of Valparaiso. I may even compose for him a letter of introduction for the Partridges in Sydney, for Dr. Goose & dear Fred are of the same cloth.
Poor weather precluding my morning outing, we yarned by the peat fire & the hours sped by like minutes. I spoke at length of Tilda & Jackson & also my fears of “gold fever” in San Francisco. Our conversation then voyaged from my hometown to my recent notarial duties in New South Wales, thence to Gibbon, Malthus & Godwin via Leeches & Locomotives. Attentive conversation is an emollient I lack sorely aboard the Prophetess & the doctor is a veritable polymath. Moreover, he possesses a handsome army of scrimshandered chessmen whom we shall keep busy until either the Prophetess’s departure or the Nellie’s arrival.
Saturday, 9th November—
Sunrise bright as a silver dollar. Our schooner still looks a woeful picture out in the Bay. An Indian war canoe is being careened on the shore. Henry & I struck out for “Banqueter’ s Beach” in holy-day mood, blithely saluting the maid who labors for Mr. Walker. The sullen miss was hanging laundry on a shrub & ignored us. She has a tinge of black blood & I fancy her mother is not far removed from the jungle breed.
As we passed below the Indian hamlet, a “humming” aroused our curiosity & we resolved to locate its source. The settlement is circumvallated by a stake fence, so decayed that one may gain ingress at a dozen places. A hairless bitch raised her head, but she was toothless & dying & did not bark. An outer ring of ponga huts (fashioned from branches, earthen walls & matted ceilings) groveled in the lees of “grandee” dwellings, wooden structures with carved lintel pieces & rudimentary porches. In the hub of this village, a public flogging was under way. Henry & I were the only two Whites present, but three castes of spectating Indians were demarked. The chieftain occupied his throne, in a feathered cloak, while the tattooed gentry & their womenfolk & children stood in attendance, numbering some thirty in total. The slaves, duskier & sootier than their nut-brown masters & less than half their number, squatted in the mud. Such inbred, bovine torpor! Pockmarked & pustular with haki-haki, these wretches watched the punishment, making no response but that bizarre, beelike “hum.” Empathy or condemnation, we knew not what the noise signified. The whip master was a Goliath whose physique would daunt any frontier prizefighter. Lizards mighty & small were tattooed over every inch of the savage’s musculature:—his pelt would fetch a fine price, though I should not be the man assigned to relieve him of it for all the pearls of O-hawaii! The piteous prisoner, hoarfrosted with many harsh years, was bound naked to an A-frame. His body shuddered with each excoriating lash, his back was a vellum of bloody runes, but his insensible face bespoke the serenity of a martyr already in the care of the Lord.
I confess, I swooned under each fall of the lash. Then a peculiar thing occurred. The beaten savage raised his slumped head, found my eye & shone me a look of uncanny, amicable knowing! As if a theatrical performer saw a long-lost friend in the Royal Box and, undetected by the audience, communicated his recognition. A tattooed “blackfella” approached us & flicked his nephrite dagger to indicate that we were unwelcome. I inquired after the nature of the prisoner’s crime. Henry put his arm around me. “Come, Adam, a wise man does not step betwixt the beast & his meat.”
Sunday, 10th November—
Mr. Boerhaave sat amidst his cabal of trusted ruffians like Lord Anaconda & his garter snakes. Their Sabbath “celebrations” downstairs had begun ere I had risen. I went in search of shaving water & found the tavern swilling with Tars awaiting their turn with those poor Indian girls whom Walker has ensnared in an impromptu bordello. (Rafael was not in the debauchers’ number.)
I do not break my Sabbath fast in a whorehouse. Henry’s sense of repulsion equaled to my own, so we forfeited breakfast (the maid was doubtless being pressed into alternative service) & set out for the chapel to worship with our fasts unbroken.
We had not gone two hundred yards when, to my consternation, I remembered this journal, lying on the table in my room at the Musket, visible to any drunken sailor who might break in. Fearful for its safety (& my own, were Mr. Boerhaave to get his hands on it), I retraced my steps to conceal it more artfully. Broad smirks greeted my return & I assumed I was “the devil being spoken of,” but I learned the true reason when I opened my door:—to wit, Mr. Boerhaave’s ursine buttocks astraddle his Blackamoor Goldilocks in my bed in flagrante delicto! Did that devil Dutchman apologize? Far from it! He judged himself the injured party & roared, “Get ye hence, Mr. Quillcock! or by God’s B——d, I shall snap your tricksy Yankee nib in two!”
I snatched my diary & clattered downstairs to a riotocracy of merriment & ridicule from the White savages there gathered. I remonstrated to Walker that I was paying for a private room & I expected it to remain private even during my absence, but that scoundrel merely offered a one-third discount on “a quarter-hour’s gallop on the comeliest filly in my stable!” Disgusted, I retorted that I was a husband & a father! & that I should rather die than abase my dignity & decency with any of his poxed whores! Walker swore to “decorate my eyes” if I called his own dear daughters “whores” again. One toothless garter snake jeered that if possessing a wife & a child was a single virtue, “Why, Mr. Ewing, I be ten times more virtuous than you be!” & an unseen hand emptied a tankard of sheog over my person. I withdrew ere the liquid was swapped for a more obdurate missile.
The chapel bell was summoning the God-fearing of Ocean Bay & I hurried thitherwards, where Henry waited, trying to forget the recent foulnesses witnessed at my lodgings. The chapel creaked like an old tub & its congregation numbered little more than the digits of two hands, but no traveler ever quenched his thirst at a desert oasis more thankfully than Henry & I gave worship this morning. The Lutheran founder has lain at rest in his chapel’s cemetery these ten winters past & no ordained successor has yet ventured to claim captaincy of the altar. Its denomination, therefore, is a “rattle bag” of Christian creeds. Biblical passages were read by that half of the congregation who know their let- ters & we joined in a hymn or two nominated by rota. The “steward” of this demotic flock, one Mr. D’Arnoq, stood beneath the modest cruciform & besought Henry & me to participate in likewise manner. Mindful of my own salvation from last week’s tempest, I nominated Luke ch. 8, “And they came to him, & awoke him, saying, Master, master, we perish. Then he arose, & rebuked the wind & the raging of the water: & they ceased, & there was a calm.”
Henry recited from Psalm the Eighth, in a voice as sonorous as any schooled dramatist: “Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou has put all things under his feet: all sheep & oxen, yea & the beasts of the field; the fowl of the air & the fish of the sea & whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas.”
No organist played a Magnificat but the wind in the flue chimney, no choir sang a Nunc Dimittis but the wuthering gulls, yet I fancy the Creator was not displeazed. We resembled more the Early Christians of Rome than any later Church encrusted with arcana & gemstones. Communal prayer followed. Parishioners prayed ad lib for the eradication of potato blight, mercy on a dead infant’s soul, blessing upon a new fishing boat, &c. Henry gave thanks for the hospitality shown us visitors by the Christians of Chatham Isle. I echoed these sentiments & sent a prayer for Tilda, Jackson & my father-in-law during my extended absence.
Detalles del producto
- Editorial : Modern Library (20 noviembre 2012)
- Idioma : Inglés
- Pasta dura : 528 páginas
- ISBN-10 : 081299471X
- ISBN-13 : 978-0812994711
- Dimensiones : 14.48 x 3.56 x 21.08 cm
- Clasificación en los más vendidos de Amazon: nº92,756 en Libros (Ver el Top 100 en Libros)
- nº762 en Ficción Histórica en Idiomas Extranjeros (Libros)
- nº2,076 en Ciencia Ficción Militar (Libros)
- nº2,815 en Amazon Súper - Libros
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I should also begin by admitting that even for an unreserved, omnivorous reader like me, making headway into this novel as was bit tough. But ONLY because the first chapter is written in diary form, and in the 18th century style of English (at times, it reminded me quite a lot of Herman Melville's seafaring novels, so accurate was the mimicry. And after getting comfortable with that style, it was easy to finish the final chapter (the end of that narrative) when I got to it.
Mitchell's Fourth novel, CLOUD ATLAS (perhaps his masterpiece), is - like his first - a collection of the different stories which are all inter-connected. In this case, Mitchell has used Italo Calvino's IF ON A WINTER'S NIGHT A TRAVELER and THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY by Thornton Wilder as, respectively, the foundation and inspiration for his fourth novel.
"The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing", the first narrative - set in and around the Pacific Rim, during the mid 1800s - follows the fate of Adam Ewing. He witnesses a variety of cruelties visited upon darker skinned people, most of whom are enslaved in one way or another, but does nothing to intervene, believing this is the natural order of things. But his voyage back home - to California, and his young wife -- finds him growing mysteriously ill. He is seen to by Dr. Henry Goose, another traveler of Ewing's acquaintance. But the good doctor's ministrations don't seem to be helping, and a stowaway - a black islander, who turns out to be a crack sailor, whom Adam kindly helps out - helps save Adam Ewing's life, thus opening his eyes and heart.
"Letters From Zedelghem", the second narrative, set during the early 1900s, in Belgium, follows bon vivant and aspiring musician, Robert Frobisher, who has taken on the job of being an apprentice to a renowned, but mostly retired, classical musician. Frobisher's tale is told in epistolary form: letters from the young bisexual to his long-time lover, Rupert Sixsmith, recount the story of his days with Composer Ayrs, and his sexually frustrated wife. There follows a tale of frustration (Ayrs thinks Frobisher is neophyte with no skills) lust (Ayrs's wife seeks out Frobisher for sexual fulfillment - and her daughter is chasing him as well), wonder (Frobisher begins writing his "Cloud Atlas" sextet) and longing (Frobisher continues to express his undying love for Sixsmith). In this narrative of creative wonderment and romantic longing, it is revealed that Frobisher was born with a distinctive birthmark: one that looks like a comet; and he also mentions his frustration at having stumbled across an old journal - written by one Adam Ewing - which is only half there.
"Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery" is the third narrative. It's told in third person, and set in the 1970s in California, featuring Luisa Rey, daughter of a famous investigative journalist of the 1960s, follows the basic tenets of a mystery novel or story - because it is just that. Luisa (who sports a birthmark shaped like a comet. During the course of writing an article for a tabloid type magazine, Luisa finds herself I the company of a man named Rupert Sixsmith. The older man happens to be scientist in the employ of a company which is committing corporate and ecological crimes. When Sixsmith tries to open up to Luisa, he is targeted for termination - and when Luisa learns the secrets Sixsmith was keeping, she finds herself in the sights of the companies hired killers as well.
"TheGhastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish", the fourth narrative - a boisterous, comedic farce, recounted in first person - takes place in England and centers around vanity publisher and knight errant, Timothy Cavendish. Set during the present - with tongue firmly in cheek - it weaves the hilarious tale of Cavendish's fortunes after one of his customers - an ex-con in London who writes a badly-written tell-all entitled, "Knuckle Sandwich" - is arrested for murdering a critic who loathed his book. Cavendish reaps the financial benefits when the book becomes a bestseller. But the brother of his (now favorite) writer come calling, looking for their own "piece o' the pie"), demanding thousands of dollars, which leads Cavendish - the knight errant - to take it on the lam, resulting in quite a few laugh-out-loud scenes.
"An Orison of Somni-451", the Fifth narrative, recounted as transcripts of an interview, is set around the mid-part of the 21st (or perhaps 22nd) century, in Korea. A fabricant - basically a clone created to live in servitude - is on trial for participating in illegal activities which are considered crimes against the state. Her story - of revelation, escape, and rebellion - eventually becomes the stuff of legend and myth.
"Sloosha's Crossin' An' Ev'rythin' After", the Sixth narrative, is set in Hawaii after an apocalyptic event. It is another first person narrative - told in a style of "broken English" which recalls the old SF classic, RIDDLEY WALKER) - recounting what happens when Zachary - a decidedly non-heroic, but basically good-hearted man - encounters (along with the surviving members of his tribal village) a certain prescient (a human who still has the power of advanced intellect and technology) who is in search of something that will affect the future of all humankind. But first he and the prescient, named Meronym, must survive a gauntlet that will take them past packs of murderous Kona savages (war-like cannibals).
After the narrative of the sixth section is complete, each of the previous narratives - which all stop at a sort of cliffhanger type ending - begin again, in descending order: narrative 5, then 4, then 3, and so on. It's a narrative conceit that both keeps the reader in suspense and works to further illustrate how each seemingly separate narrative is joined with the others (in the same manner that seemingly separate lives are either joined together or affected by one another).
This narrative technique works resoundingly well, and only adds to the depth, drama and wonder of author David Mitchell's variously moving, and variously entertaining, stories, as well as the over-arching, overall theme: that every human being, no matter how seemingly insignificant, contributes to the future and (in the end) the success or failure of his family, community and species. And each of the narratives affects the others. For instance, Adam Ewing's journal is read by Robert Frobisher. Robert Frobisher's lover, Sixsmith, helps Luisa Rey (and she shares a distinctive birthmark with Sixmith's long-dead lover). At one point, vanity publisher Cavendish is reading the manuscript of a mystery novel entitled, HALF-LIVES: THE FIRST LUISA REY MYSTERY, written by someone named Hilary V. Hush. Fabricant Somni-451 gets to watch part of an old "Disney" (as future beings refer to films) that recounts the comedic misadventures of an old man named Timothy Cavendish. And Zachary and all of the surviving far-future humans pray to a goddess named Somni. Thus reiterating the idea that no matter how small, or how big, a being, their life affects the rest of the world in ways one can't imagine.
As Adam Ewing observes: "...what is any ocean but a multitude of drops?"
His characters (credible?--passably; likable?--two or three; where not--revelatory of gritty humanity) reflect each other across eras: 1850s, 1930s, 1970s, 1990s, and a science-fiction-era: Year 2144--in which cloning has led to an evolved yet enslaved sentient class) so it seems Mitchell is reincarnating his creations; also, there's this 'comet' tattoo of his that keeps popping up, tail n all (ooooh, so spooooky--nah, not really: the author neglects to drill this body-ink motif sufficiently to get it through my thick skull; never did say: "Ah, I get it!" As for Twilight Zone's theme wafting o're me whenever a story-connecting etude blew in, such woo-woos of his just did not resonate; but no matter, there's much to ponder:
The characters' South Pacific, Belgian, China-cum-Korean and Hawaiian motifs kept my nose to the grindstone [page after page, small type] till I hit THE END. Why?--A COMPELLING QUALITY OF WRITING; each character, speaking in an era's dialect, did share (or came to share) a resigned cynicism (hey, there's little reason for optimism) yet also appear inclined to engage in and enhance life--no matter his or her limitations, or til life's tenebrous aspects overwhelm them, or that relentless killer shows up. CLOUD ATLAS is far more interesting than gloomy; it's just that life's deflating; did I mention mortal? Sad how oblivious Adam Ewing is to his own demise.
A reader obstacle---for me, a nuisance---interpreting Mitchell's language style in `Sloosha's Crossin'--a 70-page segment that draws on Hawaiian folklore.
[Warning: spoiler alert; the novel's line-up follows]
#1) Adam Ewing, notary---33-year old's journal entries in 1850s English are posted during a South Pacific three-masted sailing; Adam reports roguish behavior. (Hint: an avowed physician and a Christian missionary have much to answer for, but don't) Adam ends up owing his life to Autua, a freed slave, and becomes an abolitionist, determined to have a life worth living by helping to shape a world that he wants his son to inherit, and NOT one that he fears that his son will.
#2) Letters from Zedelghem: Musician/composer/amanuensis Robert Frobisher pursues an ex-pat Englander in failing health--a cantankerous composer: Vivyan Ayers; he stalks Ayers to a Belgian castle-hideaway on the outskirts of 1931 Bruges; Frobisher gains employment and lodging from the nearly-blind genius, and is seduced by Ayer's 50-ish wife, whose daughter Eva he ultimately lusts for (The Graduate? Nope. Things don't work out so well for Robert, as for Dustin); the talented young Englishman (Frobisher) seems compelled to unburden his woe-is-me rural existence in a series of letters to a mysterious `Sixsmith' -Frobisher's occasional benefactor, and, it comes to light, his once-upon-a-time lover. In the close, Frobisher has planned his suicide well; even so, he is doubtful that he will escape himself even in death; he believes "We do not stay dead long." However, he employs the Luger, to see perhaps if his belief will stand up.
#3) Rufus Sixsmith unmasked: in this 1970s noir segment he is 66 and an energy-consultant/nuclear scientist/whistle-blower in `Half-lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery.' Its atomic-powered rending has a Three-Mile Island flavor; Mitchell ushers in murder-for-hire, corporate malfeasance, p.r.-intrigue, investigative journalism---whisking in comeuppances for all dem kats in the his cat n mouse fray. At one point the reader is left hanging, like when Luisa gets launched over a bridge-railing into a sure-watery death by hit-man Bill Smoke. But heroine Luisa survives such repeated close-calls, exposes corporate wrongdoing, and Smoke gets smoked.
#4) The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish was by far my favorite of the six tales: the protagonist (poor buggah suffers a stroke in Aurora House) is a n'er-do-well publisher/book-agent, also 66; he gets trapped in an assisted-living facility; his farcical attempt to escape the wretched place (and the clutches of Nurse Noakes--One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest sprang to mind) is humorous as all get out, if only he can get out; Looking at old-age homes: "You will not apply for membership, but the tribe of the elderly will claim you...this slippage will stretch your skin, sag your skeleton, erode your hair and memory, make your skin turn opaque so your twitching organs and blue-cheese veins will be semivisible...only babies, cats, and drug addicts will acknowledge your existence... and you will stand before a mirror, and think, E.T. locked in a ruddy cupboard." More: "Oh, once you've been initiated into the Elderly, the world doesn't want you back." For laughs, re-read pages 360-361. There's also the not-so-funny: "Unlimited power in the hands of limited people always leads to cruelty"--consider the right-wing dominated U.S. House of Representatives. It does turn out well for Mr. Cavendish; he relocates to a northern England village, his ordeal and middle-age left behind.
#5) AN ORISON OF SONMI, 451 -deposition of a cloned (fabricated) human, conducted by an archivist; her name: Sonmi; her production #: 451--assigned off the wombtank assembly line: a `perfect organic machinery' in a futuristic Nea So Copros regime. Having snuck herself an education, and uncovering a murderous government conspiracy, she's a major threat to establishment enforcers. She's awaiting execution, sees herself a martyr, and tells the skeptical archivist about show trials, and over-population solutions. Sonmi thus gives evidence of a grim 22nd century world: which is life under Papa Song--he may be the equivalent of The Great and Powerful Oz--a sham tyrant, made in this instance of bytes n bits. Two groups at odds: 1) Unanimity, whose Purebloods hold n wield power in a suffocating, corpocratic state, and 2) Union Abolitionists, whose aim it is to wrest power from Unanimity, and put an end to fabricant slavery. The setting? Northeast China, near a Korean peninsula. Sonmi tells the archivist that highly-ascended Purebloods (think Cheney, Rove, Rumsfeld, or the Koch bros.) intend to exterminate downscale Purebloods (anyone at all literate) in order to replace them with docile, readily controllable clones (say, ones beholden to Grover Norquist.)
#6) Sloosha's Crossin: Zachry--this tale's illiterate narrator--and Meronym, an island guest, traverse the Big Isle of Hawaii together. Meronym (back from the future) stops in at Kona, ostensibly to study Island Life and to document how Hilo natives placate (toss in a few slaves every so often) their awesome god Mauna Kea; either He is a humongous volcano or He inhabits it. Who the slaves are depends on who's exercising dominance. This segment was my least favorite, its vernacular hard to fathom. Mitchell's witticisms, however, are numerous: "The nation-state is merely human nature inflated to monstrous proportions. Another war is always coming. War is one of humanity's two eternal companions."
Wrote this review in Feb 2011. Then in Oct 2012 I saw CLOUD ATLAS, the movie---dumbstruck the film project would even be tackled. Anyone who has NOT read the book, it's my belief, will be lost in this film, and likely frustrated. For the book's readers, the movie will be entertaining. (Yet come to think of it, now that you've read my review, you may profit from the movie after all) I was particularly engaged in the film's ORISON OF SONMI 451 sci-fi segments. Jim Broadbent is terrific; Tom Hanks and Halle Berry are fine; the one casting miscue: Susan Sarandon.
The writing style was very unique. There are 6 interconnected snapshots of history. The first half of each of told, except for the 6th which is told in entirety, then in reverse order is the conclusion to each story. Each story was very different, yet carried some of the same themes. It was interesting to see how the past popped up in each story, sometimes affecting the current times more than others, but still lingering on.
In my description above, I intentionally used the word "ambitious" first. When "The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing" is chopped off mid-sentence after just a couple dozen pages and we are transported abruptly to 1930s Belgium, the reader knows that he or she is in for a long, roller coaster of a ride. Each of the six stories begins in medias res, in fact, and in almost every case, the stories use dialect and are in a context foreign enough that it takes real concentration and focus on the part of the reader to follow along. Mitchell, after all, has something important to say, and in return for revealing his wisdom, he expects the reader to put some effort into reading his work. Each story, while a different genre, is remarkably rich in detail--one of Mitchell's strengths is the ability to so thoroughly and convincingly create a universe and characters that the reader feels as if he is strolling along the drafty corridors of Chateau Zedelghem with Robert Frobisher or at sea in the cramped "coffin" (cabin) of Adam Ewing. In fact, for the first half of the novel, one finds oneself acclimating to one world only to be transported to another just as soon as they have adjusted to the first. Certain sentences and passages are left untranslated or unexplained. One either finds his exhilarating or frustrating. As others have noted, this work is not for everyone--if you are looking for a "fun" read, or one that has only one level of meaning, look elsewhere. But for me, I found myself in the "exhilarated" camp. Diving into these rich, diverse worlds, trying to understand how they all fit together, gradually piecing together the puzzle of Mitchell's meaning ... Mitchell creates an adventure where the journey is as thrilling as the destination (each story, and the novel as a whole, tends to follow the pattern of a journey or quest). What is Mitchell's message? I'll let you read the book to find that out, but it is one that becomes clear as one reads the book ... and is even explicitly spelled out at several points (notably the last few pages of the Sloosha's Crossin' and Adam Ewing stories). Personally, having the message so explicitly written out was a bit heavy-handed and unnecessary for me--it was as if, having brought the reader along this far, Mitchell was afraid that the reader might leave without fully grasping what he was trying to say. Which, again, I felt was unnecessary given that the message was clear anyway--an author should not have to say "here's what it all means, folks!" if he has effectively conveyed the message through the story being told (which he has in this case, if the reader is attentive and committed to understanding the work).
The message is indeed profound, and important. However, another annoyance is how overtly and self-consciously Mitchell trumpets just how profound and important his message is; apotheosis is reached with the Robert Frobisher character's creation of the Cloud Atlas Sextet, which seems to be only a thinly-veiled metaphor for Mitchell's own creation. There are a number of self-conscious and self-referent moments that feel like a jarring breach of the fourth wall in an otherwise elaborately staged production. At these times I just wanted Mitchell to let his work speak for itself and its brilliance to be judged by the reader. Other flaws: although I enjoyed each of the six stories, some worked better for me than others--I felt that while all started brilliantly, only some finished brilliantly. Despite my grumblings about the Mitchell-Frobisher links, I found the psychological intensity of the Frobisher character to be remarkable; once I penetrated the dialect, Sloosha's Crossin' was rewarding as the first step in really tying everything together (as the other bookend to the story, I enjoyed Adam Ewing for the same reason). To this day, the most haunting and memorable story for me was that of Sonmi-451. The interrogatory style, the brutal satire of democratic capitalism through the portrayal of "corpocracy" as a near-future vision of the path we are on, the deceptions within deceptions and chilling revelations ... I felt that in terms of the plot, characters, and message it was perhaps the best of the lot as a self-contained story in and of itself. Other stories I enjoyed, but did not find quite as moving: Luisa Rey was fun as a hardboiled crime/detective novel (and a nice setup for the corpocracy of Sonmi-451) but felt a bit forgettable otherwise; for me, at least, Timothy Cavendish struggled to find the right balance between humor and seriousness. Of course, others will find other stories more or less gripping than me, that is the nature of this kind of genre-bending work.
Despite these complaints, I really did love Cloud Atlas despite its flaws. This was the first book of Mitchell's that I have read, but it has led me to seek out others. I greatly admire his ambition, his willingness to place expectations on the reader, his ability to create a rich world and complex characters to inhabit them, and his lack of fear in putting a message in his books and making his reader THINK. I would probably give this book 4 1/2 stars instead of 5 if I could, but I give no hesitation in my 5 star review: even if Mitchell occasionally falls short of his ambitions, bravo to him for writing real literature in an age where the bestseller lists are topped by the likes of Fifty Shades of Grey.