Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

From TheBookbag

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

Genre: Literary Fiction

Reviewer: Dave Martin
Summary: Cloud Atlas is an ambitious book for the ambitious reader. It will reward your patience, but it isn't an easy read. Characters are well drawn and complex and the writing is top notch. Read when you've time to spare.
Buy? Maybe	Borrow? Yes
Format: Paperback 544 pages
Publisher: Sceptre 21 Feb 2005
ISBN: 0340822783
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"Cloud Atlas" by David Mitchell was nominated for the Booker Prize; received rave reviews and has been touted as one of the greatest reads of all time. As such, I delayed reading it for many months. After all, I was bound to be disappointed. "Cloud Atlas" is a novel told in six parts. Telling the tale of six radically different, yet linked lives, it is a disjointed mishmash of a book. Rather than a novel, this book reads like a collection of short stories combined by a loose connection and this is its strength and ultimately its weakness.

Covering six lives in vastly different times and places is daring, unique and refreshing as it moves away from the writer's obsession with structure, chapters and linearity. Instead Mitchell offers the reader a variety of writing styles as each of the six sections are told from different perspectives be it an unwitting American Adam Ewing, hero to a stowaway. This native is one of the last of his tribe following a genocide. There is also Somni-451, a fabricant/clone working with no rest in a futuristic Mc Donald's. Other sections of note include an opportunistic musician intent on fame and fortune at any cost and a young journalist determined to live up to the reputation of her father. Add to this an old bookseller who finds himself unwittingly in the unfamiliar surroundings of a Nursing Home and we have a wide array of characters.

As you can see, the time differences between the sections are huge and Mitchell reflects this in his varying styles. Each story is told from the point of view of its protagonist and Mitchell gives himself the task of writing in the style of that time. As such, Adam Ewing writes in the descriptive language of an intelligent man in the 17th Century whereas Somni-451 tells her tale in a monotone fashion indicative of her life in slavery. Each narrative Mitchell achieves with varying degrees of success but on the whole all six sections left me in no doubt of his ability as he crosses genres effortlessly and provides convincing settings and interesting characters to peruse.

Mitchell's characters are a very strange bunch as I found it difficult to gain much empathy for them or their various plights. Their motives seemed largely selfish and Mitchell seems to be saying that motives are not an issue as long as the result is worthwhile. The various settings however do invoke a variety of emotions with one tale leaving me angry while another filled me with a sense of justice and irony. I suppose this is the genius of such a diverse novel, there is bound to be at least one section you thoroughly enjoy and in my case I enjoyed the majority of them. My personal favourites were the Robinson Crusoe style "The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing" and the Bladerunneresque "An Orison of Somni-451".

Of course, such a wide-ranging novel cannot be perfect and "Cloud Atlas" is not. Undeniably, the book is an epic. Parts of it drag whereas others seem to end far too abruptly. The language makes this a heavy read at times, certainly in a particular section that is bogged down in musical terminology and history. As a result this novel is a worthy read but not all that accessible. You have to really want to read it, as its style can be off-putting. However, perseverance does reap considerable rewards.

At 544 pages this is a hefty read, you may find as I did that one section at a time is the way to go. Was I disappointed? No, but it was not what I expected. I am in awe of Mitchell's ability but he may have slightly overstretched himself here. The tales do mix together well by the novel's conclusion, but you will find yourself enjoying it more if you devote your time to one section at a time. I recommend this novel purely for its attempts to be different and its patches of brilliance, but do not expect an easy read.

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