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3.99 AVERAGE
3.99 AVERAGE
My second reading of Cloud Atlas allowed me to see it from a more disinterested angle. I found myself concentrating on the mediums of each story: journal, letter, novel, film, orison, and oration, respectively. The diversity of these mediums raised a pretty simple question in my head: which stories participate in reality? This question is expertly obviated by Isaac Sach’s musings: “the actual future + the actual past exist only in the hazy distance, where they are no good to anyone” (393). My question of reality is one of Sach’s actuality, which is to say, it’s a pretty useless question insofar as it aims to distribute influence by declaring one of these narratives the most authentic. These narratives are peers; their distinctness is incidental.
The effect of democratizing all six narratives is unsettling in that it makes them all subject to Timothy Cavendish’s observation, “Reading too many novels makes one blind”—in other words, it makes me wonder if reading this novel necessitates wrapping ourselves up in solipsistic, comfortable fiction, such as a humanist utopia. Adam Ewing’s final theorization about the human condition raises the risk of subscribing to fiction’s description of ideas that don’t necessarily play out in reality. The question this novel forces us to ask, then, is, can we find any traces of utopia, as it is spelled out in this book, in the humanity we see every day?
I think it is necessary to believe in a certain amount of extraordinariness in humanity to enjoy this book. This immediately makes the novel a little problematic for me. But something I can give Mitchell props for: although he is nauseatingly hopeful about humanity’s interpersonal prospects, humans also destroy each other in this novel, in some of the most disturbing and brutal ways imaginable: psychologically, sexually, emotionally, physically. While the taste of utopia lingers on the reader’s tongue throughout, the conditions through which it persists are staggering. That this persistence is not confusing or inconsistent is an impressive feat alone.
The only thing I could probably do without is the obnoxious self-referentiality the novel needlessly insists upon. Why does a “sextet” need to exist in each story, sometimes in multiple forms, for example? The comet-shaped birthmark was heavy-handed enough. We get that “everything’s connected.” (Of course, this could be the sour taste leftover from the film’s trailer, which is stuffed with cliché dialogue concerning our connectedness with and responsibility for one another.) But everything is not necessarily connected, and that’s what I think the point of this novel is. There are choices; we have to decide cogently to observe the responsibility we bear to one another. We can choose to not discern between the virtual and the actual humanity—that is to say, we can insist upon seeing what we want in ourselves and each other, and rather than staying quiet and congratulating our perspicacity, we can act upon it.
The effect of democratizing all six narratives is unsettling in that it makes them all subject to Timothy Cavendish’s observation, “Reading too many novels makes one blind”—in other words, it makes me wonder if reading this novel necessitates wrapping ourselves up in solipsistic, comfortable fiction, such as a humanist utopia. Adam Ewing’s final theorization about the human condition raises the risk of subscribing to fiction’s description of ideas that don’t necessarily play out in reality. The question this novel forces us to ask, then, is, can we find any traces of utopia, as it is spelled out in this book, in the humanity we see every day?
I think it is necessary to believe in a certain amount of extraordinariness in humanity to enjoy this book. This immediately makes the novel a little problematic for me. But something I can give Mitchell props for: although he is nauseatingly hopeful about humanity’s interpersonal prospects, humans also destroy each other in this novel, in some of the most disturbing and brutal ways imaginable: psychologically, sexually, emotionally, physically. While the taste of utopia lingers on the reader’s tongue throughout, the conditions through which it persists are staggering. That this persistence is not confusing or inconsistent is an impressive feat alone.
The only thing I could probably do without is the obnoxious self-referentiality the novel needlessly insists upon. Why does a “sextet” need to exist in each story, sometimes in multiple forms, for example? The comet-shaped birthmark was heavy-handed enough. We get that “everything’s connected.” (Of course, this could be the sour taste leftover from the film’s trailer, which is stuffed with cliché dialogue concerning our connectedness with and responsibility for one another.) But everything is not necessarily connected, and that’s what I think the point of this novel is. There are choices; we have to decide cogently to observe the responsibility we bear to one another. We can choose to not discern between the virtual and the actual humanity—that is to say, we can insist upon seeing what we want in ourselves and each other, and rather than staying quiet and congratulating our perspicacity, we can act upon it.
Extremely well written, and in a few instances practically poetry. But the characters and plots didn't do a whole lot for me, especially in the first half of the book; it does get better in the second half. The book is in dialog with many influences, and it's interesting to see how some of these influences are deployed. And the structure of the book invites some interesting reflections, but it didn't drawn me in enough to motivate me to decode things to the level the author might have intended.
Arggggg I dont have anything nice to say im sorry Mr Mitchell your afterword was so nice and very well explained you seem very thoughtful.
If you have ever stood somewhere and thought about all the people in the past who have lived and walked where you stand and felt empathy for them and curiosity about their lives this will not impress you very much at all. I feel like I understand the message of the prevailing optimism of human nature as well as the thread of constant change in our societies, and that was nice to have tied together at the end but I have just literally thought about that before.
There were some very poetic and beautifully written one-off lines buried in here; "the evening was lemon-blue" was my favorite, but largly I felt like I had to drag myself through the pages and I had to fight some long blinks.
I think would have liked this much more as 6 short stories in full moving forwards or backwards in time, rather than the split, because I largely forgot what was going on by the time I made it back to the second half. Made it very hard to give an f about any of the characters or their relationships to the people in their stories.
Feeling very let down but lots of people seem to say the reread is worth it so perhaps I shelve this for a decade and see how I feel next time. Sorry Dave.
If you have ever stood somewhere and thought about all the people in the past who have lived and walked where you stand and felt empathy for them and curiosity about their lives this will not impress you very much at all. I feel like I understand the message of the prevailing optimism of human nature as well as the thread of constant change in our societies, and that was nice to have tied together at the end but I have just literally thought about that before.
There were some very poetic and beautifully written one-off lines buried in here; "the evening was lemon-blue" was my favorite, but largly I felt like I had to drag myself through the pages and I had to fight some long blinks.
I think would have liked this much more as 6 short stories in full moving forwards or backwards in time, rather than the split, because I largely forgot what was going on by the time I made it back to the second half. Made it very hard to give an f about any of the characters or their relationships to the people in their stories.
Feeling very let down but lots of people seem to say the reread is worth it so perhaps I shelve this for a decade and see how I feel next time. Sorry Dave.
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Oof.
At the end of the audiobook, Mitchell explained what he was attempting with ‘Cloud Atlas’ - to write a novel in a format that had never been done before. Unfortunately, some ideas should stay just ideas; this completely missed the mark.
The story lines were bizarre and disconnected. They were overly complicated and hard to follow. The writing was way, way too flowery. ‘Cloud Atlas’ read like someone had one glass of wine too many and discovered a thesaurus.
Do not recommend.
At the end of the audiobook, Mitchell explained what he was attempting with ‘Cloud Atlas’ - to write a novel in a format that had never been done before. Unfortunately, some ideas should stay just ideas; this completely missed the mark.
The story lines were bizarre and disconnected. They were overly complicated and hard to follow. The writing was way, way too flowery. ‘Cloud Atlas’ read like someone had one glass of wine too many and discovered a thesaurus.
Do not recommend.
http://gece1.blogspot.com/2013/03/cloud-atlas-david-mitchell.html
adventurous
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Everyone and their mom says this is an absolutely fantastic novel that you’ll love. So I was a bit disappointed when I found it widely varying in quality. The books starts off with arguably its weakest story - The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing. Boring and bland are the nicest words I got for it. Then it is followed up by an absolute BANGER - Letters from Zedelghem. An unhinged bisexual British composer flees from disgrace in England to the Netherlands. He seeks work with Vyvyan Ayrs, a famous composer who hasn’t able to produce any more works due to his age and disability. Frobisher (the narrator) is so full of himself yet his circumstances make the reader emphasize with him even though he is a little spoiled brat. Half Lives: The First Luisa Rey mystery is heavily inspired by crime/mystery pulp novels. However, it really wasn’t for me. I could see how someone might like it. The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish’s titular protagonist, like Frobisher, is full of himself. However, he is definitely not as entertaining to read about. He just comes off as a grumpy old man, and I wasn’t a fan of the nursing home element. The Orison of Sonmi-451 happily takes second-place in my rankings. In a futurist Capitalist hellscape in Korea where the Nea So Copros, clones are created with no other purpose than to serve as manual labor for the “purebreds”. The Q&A format was done really well and added a lot to the story. Lastly, Sloosha’s Crossin' an' Ev'rythin' After is about…uh, what is it about? I was not a fan of the writing style in this one. At all. It felt weird and gimmicky and I had no clue what the characters are saying. If you wanted characters to speak in a dialect, despite my numerous other qualms with it, Young Mungo does this quite well. The characters speak in Glaswegian but everything is narrated in Standard English. The average reader can understand what is going on while also taking note of the setting, which plays an important role.
I could only really recommend select stories from this book. Again, anthological collections like these are really all-over the place. You get bangers and you get duds.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Racial slurs, Racism, Slavery, Suicide, Murder
Moderate: Infidelity, Rape
Wish the stories were just a tiny bit more relevant to each other instead of being glorified MCU style cameos. the only stories that really connected in a satisfying way were the dystopia and the elderly home.
each story was a delight to read though
each story was a delight to read though
adventurous
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
LOVED this book. Mitchell does an incredible job of telling an interesting story from multiple points of view, each of which has a very strong and distinct voice. This book was very different. If you don't love the story, you'll love the writing. If you don't love the writing, you'll love the story.