Book Review: Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell (2004)

Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant…. I very much enjoyed reading Cloud Atlas, a book that takes you on a journey, not just across the globe, but also through time. In fact, when you arrive at the end you might feel somewhat jaded from the excursion. Beginning in the Chatham Islands in the South Pacific in the nineteenth century, the story stretches into the distant future, before recoiling to end up more or less where it started. Along the way it touches on 1930s Belgium, California in the 1970s, present-day Great Britain, futuristic Korea, and reaches a post-apocalyptic saga set in Hawaii. These represent individual stories, each told in two instalments, apart from the sixth story - that set furthest into the future - which forms the middle of the book and is told in a single sitting. Thus, each subsequent instalment steps forward in time, and then steps back again in reverse order, meaning the opening story is completed at the close of the novel. However, the book is more than a neatly organised collection of short stories – moving forward in time the characters in each new setting learn or know something about a character or characters in the instalment just gone – happening to read their letters or diary or learn their story somehow – and in the second half of the book they (like the rest of us) want to find out how the stories ends. (A recurring comet-shaped birthmark is another tentative link between some characters.) These links form a sort of paper chain, which holds together when it is held out, and looks pretty. I think these links all subtly add considerable weight to the novel, demonstrating to us just how confined we are to the context of the times we happen to live in, and how rapidly and completely time will sweep aside the trivial complexities that consume us.

This novel is not as complicated as I might have made it sound, but it is inherently clever. Not only are the individual stories entertaining and intriguing, they are each completely different – having their own style, structure, format and language. The first is the serious log of a travelling American lawyer, the second is a series of witty, private letters written by a young English musician from the house of an ageing, ailing composer in Belgium, addressed to his male friend/lover back home. The third reads like a thriller, following the fate of a young female journalist who perseveres in investigating the environmental misdemeanours of a powerful energy company in California. The fourth story is honestly hilarious – the laugh-out-loud account of a hapless owner of a tiny London-based publishing company who contrives to get himself imprisoned within an elderly people’s home (also offering a despairingly accurate appraisal of the state of the current rail service in the UK). Things then become futuristic – a ’fabricant’ called ‘Sonmi’ gives an account of her story in the form of an interview, having ascended from being a fast-food waitress to learning the truth about ‘pureblood’ human society. Critically, by this time, human civilisation has begun to collapse following some kind of global disaster. The language she uses is convincingly futuristic, achieved in part through abbreviated spellings, and the use of brand names for everyday items, such as a ‘sony’ for some kind of computer tablet device, or any sort of vehicle being a ‘ford’. Finally, the sixth story comes after the ‘fall’ of civilisation, following the struggles of a small community of people trying to survive in a fashion reminiscent of the distant past, having lost the knowledge and understanding of advanced science and technology. The narrator is retelling his story to an unknown audience, apparently in some sort of bar or tavern, using a kind of distorted, broken English that reminded me very much of Roald Dahl’s BFG (“… gimme some mutton an I’ll tell you ‘bout our first meetin’. A fat joocesome slice, nay, none o’your burnt off’rins…”).

Any criticisms? – Not really. I absolutely flew through the opening stories of the book and then hit a bit of a block when I reached those set into the future. Perhaps as they should be, these were harder to read, requiring more concentration and attention, and I did have the feeling they were perhaps slightly longer than they needed to be. A challenge was then remembering all the necessary details for the conclusion of the stories that had been half told. This obviously became more of a problem as the separation between the two halves of each tale grew progressively greater. Logically, it would be possible to jump around the book and read each story in full – but don’t do that. I imagine the author would be horrified.

My impressions of the novel are overwhelmingly positive. If there is an overarching theme, I believe it’s a message of hope – hope that exists in all times for the possibility of a brighter future. The stories show that the various struggles we face in our lives, in their different guises, are all the same, and likely will be the same throughout time – the common fight against oppression, discrimination, manipulation, and of course the battle against the demons in our own heads. A film was made, which I will seek out now with an open mind, not expecting too much, but hoping to be surprised. The book is already established as a favourite of mine, and one I am sure to return to.

 

Favourite Character: Incredibly hard to say. I could choose a favourite from each story, and it would be almost impossible to pit one against the other. Robert Frobisher stands out – capable of being admired, despised, envied, and pitied all at once. But perhaps I should choose Timothy Cavendish, just for giving me such a great laugh.

((*** Google shows me that there are a handful of viewers of this blog, which is fantastic. Assuming the views are not from robots, it would be great if you could leave a comment, recommend a book perhaps, or even just say hi and where you are in this world! Thanks, Richard. ***))