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sterling8 's review for:
Cloud Atlas
by David Mitchell
So I think I like the author and how he writes better than I actually liked the book, if that makes sense.
This book is set up as a series of short stories. Each short story is split in two, and if I were to number them the halves of the stories would look like this set into the book:
12345654321
The "nesting doll" analogy has been used by many, including the author a bit more than halfway through the book in what I thought was a surprisingly sledgehammer-obvious explanation of his work after subtly leading the reader along.
Each short story is written in a different style: 19th century adventure travelogue, 1930's epistolatory English aristo/musician on the make, 1970's crime thriller, contemporary English satire, dystopian future Korea, and sometime in the far future post-apocalyptic Hawaii.
Wide variety, right? And the author can master any of these styles, as he shows. But- the book does take effort. I'm not always good at following through on episodic/short story styles, and that tendency betrayed me in this book. I put it down about 3/4 of the way through, with 2 short story portions left. And then I didn't pick it up again for weeks. I hadn't been especially fond of those short stories the first time around, despite the author's skill, and couldn't summon up the energy or enthusiasm to finish.
So, while I admired the author's stylistic mastery, I simply didn't like any of the individual stories enough to enjoy the book thoroughly. Themes included the continuity of the soul vs. transience of the world (the last line of the book is "isn't the ocean made up of single drops of water" or the like) and the Cloud Atlas- the attempt to define ineffability. There, that made me sound deeper than I am.
The author drops some very thoughtful bombs into the pieces he writes that made me slow down and think. I enjoyed those bits perhaps more than the general stories in the book.
So, I want to read more of this author, despite the fact that this book didn't thrill me the way "Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet" did.
This book is set up as a series of short stories. Each short story is split in two, and if I were to number them the halves of the stories would look like this set into the book:
12345654321
The "nesting doll" analogy has been used by many, including the author a bit more than halfway through the book in what I thought was a surprisingly sledgehammer-obvious explanation of his work after subtly leading the reader along.
Each short story is written in a different style: 19th century adventure travelogue, 1930's epistolatory English aristo/musician on the make, 1970's crime thriller, contemporary English satire, dystopian future Korea, and sometime in the far future post-apocalyptic Hawaii.
Wide variety, right? And the author can master any of these styles, as he shows. But- the book does take effort. I'm not always good at following through on episodic/short story styles, and that tendency betrayed me in this book. I put it down about 3/4 of the way through, with 2 short story portions left. And then I didn't pick it up again for weeks. I hadn't been especially fond of those short stories the first time around, despite the author's skill, and couldn't summon up the energy or enthusiasm to finish.
So, while I admired the author's stylistic mastery, I simply didn't like any of the individual stories enough to enjoy the book thoroughly. Themes included the continuity of the soul vs. transience of the world (the last line of the book is "isn't the ocean made up of single drops of water" or the like) and the Cloud Atlas- the attempt to define ineffability. There, that made me sound deeper than I am.
The author drops some very thoughtful bombs into the pieces he writes that made me slow down and think. I enjoyed those bits perhaps more than the general stories in the book.
So, I want to read more of this author, despite the fact that this book didn't thrill me the way "Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet" did.