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wrenreads2025 's review for:
Cloud Atlas
by David Mitchell
By the author's own description, Mitchell presents a set of stories that fit together like a set of nesting Russian dolls. At first blush, they seem to have very little to do with each other. There are six novellas bound together: 1) a Victorian travel narrative 2) a set of letters about a corrupt and exploited young musician 3) an airport thriller about corporate greed 4) a farce about a publisher being held captive in a nursing home, 5) a dystopia about totalitarian government exploiting a race of subhuman clones and 6) a post-apocalyptic adventure story about society returning to hunter/gatherer conditions.
But read together, Mitchell tells the story of the human race struggling between the desire to exploit other and the desire to nurture others. Most of the conflict in each narrative occurs because one person or a whole element of society strives to "eat or be eaten" as Dr. Henry Goose of the first and last chapter describes it. In each narrative, there is one person or a lonely band of people trying instead to nurture, liberate and support others.
But Mitchell fractures these stories by relaying only half of the first five narratives, leaving us in suspense. Splitting the stories have another effect: it invites us to see the foreshadowing of future action in each "present," and it invites us to see the influence of the past on the future. Mitchell does this most overtly by having a textual object from each former narrative occur in the subsequent one. Whether a journal, a set of letters, a novel, a LP record, a movie or a recorded interview -- the story of an earlier protagonist is considered by a subsequent one. And how they story is interpreted often slips beyond the intention of the author.
This is not just a book about the history of humanity, it's a book about the power of the written word and the power of narratives. Yes, Mitchell does much to mimic the voices of others, but he is obviously in control of the master narrative that he weaves in the telling of six stories that connect in the deep structure of commentary they make on what motivates people at their very core.
But read together, Mitchell tells the story of the human race struggling between the desire to exploit other and the desire to nurture others. Most of the conflict in each narrative occurs because one person or a whole element of society strives to "eat or be eaten" as Dr. Henry Goose of the first and last chapter describes it. In each narrative, there is one person or a lonely band of people trying instead to nurture, liberate and support others.
But Mitchell fractures these stories by relaying only half of the first five narratives, leaving us in suspense. Splitting the stories have another effect: it invites us to see the foreshadowing of future action in each "present," and it invites us to see the influence of the past on the future. Mitchell does this most overtly by having a textual object from each former narrative occur in the subsequent one. Whether a journal, a set of letters, a novel, a LP record, a movie or a recorded interview -- the story of an earlier protagonist is considered by a subsequent one. And how they story is interpreted often slips beyond the intention of the author.
This is not just a book about the history of humanity, it's a book about the power of the written word and the power of narratives. Yes, Mitchell does much to mimic the voices of others, but he is obviously in control of the master narrative that he weaves in the telling of six stories that connect in the deep structure of commentary they make on what motivates people at their very core.