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3.99 AVERAGE
3.99 AVERAGE
I like Mitchell's structure. I think it is clever and has a great deal of potential. Unfortunately, Mitchell didn't write six interesting stories to fill the slots of his sextet. The two stars I gave this book are one-each for the middle segments - the parts that take place in an imagined future, and the only imaginative portions of this book that is otherwise too self-consciously clever for its own good, with far too little payoff. They are also the only parts of the book with sympathetic or interesting characters. The rest is a tiresome slog peopled by insufferable egotists, even more insufferable goody-two-shoes naifs, mustache-twirling cartoon villains, and plot contrivances so hackneyed that even the twists feel more like gentle slides along well-worn channels.
The publisher's blurb laughably compares this book to Eco, who could pack more meaning and reference into one chapter than Mitchell draws out in this entire book. The structure and the conceit of Cloud Atlas has the potential to be mind-blowing, but the content poured into that structure is mostly pedestrian. Such a shame. This book could have been so much more but it is ultimately unsatisfying and empty. The ending fizzles. Just disappointing, really. I wish the book had been written by a writer with more depth of ideas.
Though I read the book quickly it was as much because I wanted it over with as because it held my attention. Now that it's done, it is getting worse in my memory rather than better.
I think this is one that is going to stick with me for a long time, and I’ll have to re-read. I really felt like I went on a journey across humanity’s lifespan, and the structure of the book made this possible to reread in a lot of interesting ways.
I hated this book. The story was hard to track and I didn’t care about any of the characters
I didn't find this a particularly easy read - in fact, it was downright frustrating, at times. Nevertheless, I would rate it pretty highly. I felt very satisfied at the end of the book. I did not feel, as many reviewers have said, that I did not want the novel to end. I was kind of relieved that it ended, honestly. But neither was I left with that empty feeling that comes after reading a book that was 'missing something'.
The book is in multiple parts, sort of novellas. It was fun because it was kind of a sampler of several genres of fiction I might not otherwise read
- a historical journal of a ship voyage (marvellous once I got used to the archaic language, although it kind of smacked of university-style post-colonial critiques that I found a bit implausible for the era in which it was set)
- a series of letters from a crazy, sociopathic composer to his gay lover - very entertaining, with a fabulous ending.
- a penny dreadful, airport-style novel about a hotshot sexy young girl reporter attempting to bring down a multinational corporation. This was a rollicking read, even though that is a genre I avoid like the plague. The plot was pretty unbelievable, but I guess that was deliberate. I think lovers of plot-based novels would find this story a real page-turner. For me, it was fun to visit a genre of books I would normally not read. The characters lacked substance, but it was lots of fun - it reminded me of an action blockbuster movie.
- a story about a literary agent who ends up imprisoned in an aged care home. This was my personal favourite - very funny, even thought the character was a pretty horrible person, I found myself cheering him on.
- a science fiction about a strange corpocracy full of cloned slaves, and one clone's attempt to overthrow it - amazing read, although I felt like he pinched ideas from Margaret Atwood's Maddaddam books. Still, I very much enjoyed this
- a post-apocalyptic story about a group of survivors who worship the clone from the previous story. It is set in the future of the last story. This was the most challenging book for me. I hated the faux dialect - it seemed really fake and over the top and it was very hard to read. About this time in the novel, I found myself repeatedly flicking forward and counting down the pages. I can understand why it was included, but it could have done with a severe pruning.
The plot is a bit like an onion, with the final story in the middle, bracketed by the other stories, which were divided into two parts. It sounds like it would be difficult to follow, but it wasn't too bad, actually. My only criticism is that I had to flick back and remind myself of the stories a bit, probably because it took me FOREVER to get through the sixth one. Again, this could have been avoided it the middle story wasn't so bloody long!
Definitely worth a read, but read it when you have some spare time as it's not the sort of book you can pick up after a break and remember what has gone on. It's designed to be read intensely. Maybe it's because I am a mum that I found this book a bit tough going! You need to have several hours at your disposal to read the book in big chunks.
The book is in multiple parts, sort of novellas. It was fun because it was kind of a sampler of several genres of fiction I might not otherwise read
- a historical journal of a ship voyage (marvellous once I got used to the archaic language, although it kind of smacked of university-style post-colonial critiques that I found a bit implausible for the era in which it was set)
- a series of letters from a crazy, sociopathic composer to his gay lover - very entertaining, with a fabulous ending.
- a penny dreadful, airport-style novel about a hotshot sexy young girl reporter attempting to bring down a multinational corporation. This was a rollicking read, even though that is a genre I avoid like the plague. The plot was pretty unbelievable, but I guess that was deliberate. I think lovers of plot-based novels would find this story a real page-turner. For me, it was fun to visit a genre of books I would normally not read. The characters lacked substance, but it was lots of fun - it reminded me of an action blockbuster movie.
- a story about a literary agent who ends up imprisoned in an aged care home. This was my personal favourite - very funny, even thought the character was a pretty horrible person, I found myself cheering him on.
- a science fiction about a strange corpocracy full of cloned slaves, and one clone's attempt to overthrow it - amazing read, although I felt like he pinched ideas from Margaret Atwood's Maddaddam books. Still, I very much enjoyed this
- a post-apocalyptic story about a group of survivors who worship the clone from the previous story. It is set in the future of the last story. This was the most challenging book for me. I hated the faux dialect - it seemed really fake and over the top and it was very hard to read. About this time in the novel, I found myself repeatedly flicking forward and counting down the pages. I can understand why it was included, but it could have done with a severe pruning.
The plot is a bit like an onion, with the final story in the middle, bracketed by the other stories, which were divided into two parts. It sounds like it would be difficult to follow, but it wasn't too bad, actually. My only criticism is that I had to flick back and remind myself of the stories a bit, probably because it took me FOREVER to get through the sixth one. Again, this could have been avoided it the middle story wasn't so bloody long!
Definitely worth a read, but read it when you have some spare time as it's not the sort of book you can pick up after a break and remember what has gone on. It's designed to be read intensely. Maybe it's because I am a mum that I found this book a bit tough going! You need to have several hours at your disposal to read the book in big chunks.
Took a long time with this book.
Some thoughts. This book was unlike anything I’ve read before, and I’m glad I challenged myself to read this book.
The idea that humanity might progress and achieve great technical marvel but can also reach a point where they can destroy themselves and be set back to medieval era was very sobering. (Somni + the zac story)
One of the ideas of this book is that humanity keeps making the same mistake over and over again, but there’s always hope sprinkled throughout the book.
The Somni 451 story was one of the most interesting things I’ve ever read but ends so sad.
The only story which had a remotely happy ending was the Timothy cavendish one and I liked it a lot.
I struggled getting through Zachary’s parts and the annoying grammar and English was the reason why.
Some thoughts. This book was unlike anything I’ve read before, and I’m glad I challenged myself to read this book.
The idea that humanity might progress and achieve great technical marvel but can also reach a point where they can destroy themselves and be set back to medieval era was very sobering. (Somni + the zac story)
One of the ideas of this book is that humanity keeps making the same mistake over and over again, but there’s always hope sprinkled throughout the book.
The Somni 451 story was one of the most interesting things I’ve ever read but ends so sad.
The only story which had a remotely happy ending was the Timothy cavendish one and I liked it a lot.
I struggled getting through Zachary’s parts and the annoying grammar and English was the reason why.
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
stories about the indomitable human spirit tend to gain my favor
A book I couldn't wait to get through because it really is a book that needs to be finished and viewed as a whole before you can decide what it all means... It's not a neat little story that hands over the answers and makes you feel warm fuzzies at the end, it's definitely challenging in the concepts and ideas it brings up, but I love a book that challenges and makes you think. I love how the book seems to bring up both the ideas that nothing is real and everything in inconsequential, yet also that everything is real and that everything that comes before actually really does matter. A conflict of interests, but one that somehow seems to make sense at the end. I love a book that can make you feel pulled in both ways equally, and actually enjoy the feeling, and that's what this book was like for me.
Nested narratives span centuries, linking intertextually.
(Note: the sixth (and central) narrative was frustrating and felt too long. Upon completing the novel, I believe this underscores the frustration of the text-poor, post-apocalyptic "era" featured therein.)
(Note: the sixth (and central) narrative was frustrating and felt too long. Upon completing the novel, I believe this underscores the frustration of the text-poor, post-apocalyptic "era" featured therein.)
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.