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A reluctant voyager crossing the Pacific in 1850; a disinherited composer blagging a precarious livelihood in between-the-wars Belgium; a high-minded journalist in Governor Reagan’s California; a vanity publisher fleeing his gangland creditors; a genetically modified “dinery server” on death-row; and Zachry, a young Pacific Islander witnessing the nightfall of science and civilisation -- the narrators of Cloud Atlas hear each other’s echoes down the corridor of history, and their destinies are changed in ways great and small.
In his captivating third novel, David Mitchell erases the boundaries of language, genre and time to offer a meditation on humanity’ s dangerous will to power, and where it may lead us.
Finalist for the 2004 Man Booker Prize for Fiction
Beyond the Indian hamlet, upon a forlorn strand, I happened on a trail of recent footprints. Through rotting kelp, sea cocoa-nuts & bamboo, the tracks led me to their maker, a White man, his trowzers & Pea-jacket rolled up, sporting a kempt beard & an outsized Beaver, shoveling & sifting the cindery sand with a teaspoon so intently that he noticed me only after I had hailed him from ten yards away. Thus it was, I made the acquaintance of Dr. Henry Goose, surgeon to the London nobility. His nationality was no surprise. If there be any eyrie so desolate, or isle so remote, that one may there resort unchallenged by an Englishman, ’tis not down on any map I ever saw.
Had the doctor misplaced anything on that dismal shore? Could I render assistance? Dr. Goose shook his head, knotted loose his ’kerchief & displayed its contents with clear pride. “Teeth, sir, are the enameled grails of the quest in hand. In days gone by this Arcadian strand was a cannibals’ banqueting hall, yes, where the strong engorged themselves on the weak. The teeth, they spat out, as you or I would expel cherry stones. But these base molars, sir, shall be transmuted to gold & how? An artisan of Piccadilly who fashions denture sets for the nobility pays handsomely for human gnashers. Do you know the price a quarter pound will earn, sir?”
I confessed I did not.
“Nor shall I enlighten you, sir, for ’tis a professional secret!” He tapped his nose. “Mr. Ewing, are you acquainted with Marchioness Grace of Mayfair? No? The better for you, for she is a corpse in petticoats. Five years have passed since this harridan besmirched my name, yes, with imputations that resulted in my being blackballed from Society.” Dr. Goose looked out to sea. “My peregrinations began in that dark hour.”
I expressed sympathy with the doctor’s plight.
“I thank you, sir, I thank you, but these ivories”—he shook his ’kerchief—“are my angels of redemption. Permit me to elucidate. The Marchioness wears dental fixtures fashioned by the afore- mentioned doctor. Next yuletide, just as that scented She-Donkey is addressing her Ambassadors’ Ball, I, Henry Goose, yes, I shall arise & declare to one & all that our hostess masticates with cannibals’ gnashers! Sir Hubert will challenge me, predictably, ‘Furnish your evidence,’ that boor shall roar, ‘or grant me satisfaction!’ I shall declare, ‘Evidence, Sir Hubert? Why, I gathered your mother’s teeth myself from the spittoon of the South Pacific! Here, sir, here are some of their fellows!’ & fling these very teeth into her tortoiseshell soup tureen & that, sir, that will grant me my satisfaction! The twittering wits will scald the icy Marchioness in their news sheets & by next season she shall be fortunate to receive an invitation to a Poorhouse Ball!”
In haste, I bade Henry Goose a good day. I fancy he is a Bedlamite.
Friday, 8th November—
In the rude shipyard beneath my window, work progresses on the jibboom, under Mr. Sykes’s directorship. Mr. Walker, Ocean Bay’s sole taverner, is also its principal timber merchant & he brags of his years as a master shipbuilder in Liverpool. (I am now versed enough in Antipodese etiquette to let such unlikely truths lie.) Mr. Sykes told me an entire week is needed to render the Prophet- ess “Bristol fashion.” Seven days holed up in the Musket seems a grim sentence, yet I recall the fangs of the banshee tempest & the mariners lost o’erboard & my present misfortune feels less acute.
I met Dr. Goose on the stairs this morning & we took breakfast together. He has lodged at the Musket since middle October after voyaging hither on a Brazilian merchantman, Namorados, from Feejee, where he practiced his arts in a mission. Now the doctor awaits a long-overdue Australian sealer, the Nellie, to convey him to Sydney. From the colony he will seek a position aboard a passenger ship for his native London.
My judgment of Dr. Goose was unjust & premature. One must be cynical as Diogenes to prosper in my profession, but cynicism can blind one to subtler virtues. The doctor has his eccentricities & recounts them gladly for a dram of Portuguese pisco (never to excess), but I vouchsafe he is the only other gentleman on this latitude east of Sydney & west of Valparaiso. I may even compose for him a letter of introduction for the Partridges in Sydney, for Dr. Goose & dear Fred are of the same cloth.
Poor weather precluding my morning outing, we yarned by the peat fire & the hours sped by like minutes. I spoke at length of Tilda & Jackson & also my fears of “gold fever” in San Francisco. Our conversation then voyaged from my hometown to my recent notarial duties in New South Wales, thence to Gibbon, Malthus & Godwin via Leeches & Locomotives. Attentive conversation is an emollient I lack sorely aboard the Prophetess & the doctor is a veritable polymath. Moreover, he possesses a handsome army of scrimshandered chessmen whom we shall keep busy until either the Prophetess’s departure or the Nellie’s arrival.
Saturday, 9th November—
Sunrise bright as a silver dollar. Our schooner still looks a woeful picture out in the Bay. An Indian war canoe is being careened on the shore. Henry & I struck out for “Banqueter’s Beach” in holy-day mood, blithely saluting the maid who labors for Mr. Walker. The sullen miss was hanging laundry on a shrub & ignored us. She has a tinge of black blood & I fancy her mother is not far removed from the jungle breed.
As we passed below the Indian hamlet, a “humming” aroused our curiosity & we resolved to locate its source. The settlement is circumvallated by a stake fence, so decayed that one may gain ingress at a dozen places. A hairless bitch raised her head, but she was toothless & dying & did not bark. An outer ring of ponga huts (fashioned from branches, earthen walls & matted ceilings) groveled in the lees of “grandee” dwellings, wooden structures with carved lintel pieces & rudimentary porches. In the hub of this village, a public flogging was under way. Henry & I were the only two Whites present, but three castes of spectating Indians were demarked. The chieftain occupied his throne, in a feathered cloak, while the tattooed gentry & their womenfolk & children stood in attendance, numbering some thirty in total. The slaves, duskier & sootier than their nut-brown masters & less than half their number, squatted in the mud. Such inbred, bovine torpor! Pockmarked & pustular with haki-haki, these wretches watched the punishment, making no response but that bizarre, beelike “hum.” Empathy or condemnation, we knew not what the noise signified. The whip master was a Goliath whose physique would daunt any frontier prizefighter. Lizards mighty & small were tattooed over every inch of the savage’s musculature:—his pelt would fetch a fine price, though I should not be the man assigned to relieve him of it for all the pearls of O-hawaii! The piteous prisoner, hoarfrosted with many harsh years, was bound naked to an A-frame. His body shuddered with each excoriating lash, his back was a vellum of bloody runes, but his insensible face bespoke the serenity of a martyr already in the care of the Lord.
I confess, I swooned under each fall of the lash. Then a peculiar thing occurred. The beaten savage raised his slumped head, found my eye & shone me a look of uncanny, amicable knowing! As if a theatrical performer saw a long-lost friend in the Royal Box and, undetected by the audience, communicated his recognition. A tattooed “blackfella” approached us & flicked his nephrite dagger to indicate that we were unwelcome. I inquired after the nature of the prisoner’s crime. Henry put his arm around me. “Come, Adam, a wise man does not step betwixt the beast & his meat.”
Sunday, 10th November—
Mr. Boerhaave sat amidst his cabal of trusted ruffians like Lord Anaconda & his garter snakes. Their Sabbath “celebrations” downstairs had begun ere I had risen. I went in search of shaving water & found the tavern swilling with Tars awaiting their turn with those poor Indian girls whom Walker has ensnared in an impromptu bordello. (Rafael was not in the debauchers’ number.)
I do not break my Sabbath fast in a whorehouse. Henry’s sense of repulsion equaled to my own, so we forfeited breakfast (the maid was doubtless being pressed into alternative service) & set out for the chapel to worship with our fasts unbroken.
We had not gone two hundred yards when, to my consternation, I remembered this journal, lying on the table in my room at the Musket, visible to any drunken sailor who might break in. Fearful for its safety (& my own, were Mr. Boerhaave to get his hands on it), I retraced my steps to conceal it more artfully. Broad smirks greeted my return & I assumed I was “the devil being spoken of,” but I learned the true reason when I opened my door:—to wit, Mr. Boerhaave’s ursine buttocks astraddle his Blackamoor Goldilocks in my bed in flagrante delicto! Did that devil Dutchman apologize? Far from it! He judged himself the injured party & roared, “Get ye hence, Mr. Quillcock! or by God’s B——d, I shall snap your tricksy Yankee nib in two!”
I snatched my diary & clattered downstairs to a riotocracy of merriment & ridicule from the White savages there gathered. I remonstrated to Walker that I was paying for a private room & I expected it to remain private even during my absence, but that scoundrel merely offered a one-third discount on “a quarter-hour’s gallop on the comeliest filly in my stable!” Disgusted, I retorted that I was a husband & a father! & that I should rather die than abase my dignity & decency with any of his poxed whores! Walker swore to “decorate my eyes” if I called his own dear daughters “whores” again. One toothless garter snake jeered that if possessing a wife & a child was a single virtue, “Why, Mr. Ewing, I be ten times more virtuous than you be!” & an unseen hand emptied a tankard of sheog over my person. I withdrew ere the liquid was swapped for a more obdurate missile.
The chapel bell was summoning the God-fearing of Ocean Bay & I hurried thitherwards, where Henry waited, trying to forget the recent foulnesses witnessed at my lodgings. The chapel creaked like an old tub & its congregation numbered little more than the digits of two hands, but no traveler ever quenched his thirst at a desert oasis more thankfully than Henry & I gave worship this morning. The Lutheran founder has lain at rest in his chapel’s cemetery these ten winters past & no ordained successor has yet ventured to claim captaincy of the altar. Its denomination, therefore, is a “rattle bag” of Christian creeds. Biblical passages were read by that half of the congregation who know their let- ters & we joined in a hymn or two nominated by rota. The “steward” of this demotic flock, one Mr. D’Arnoq, stood beneath the modest cruciform & besought Henry & me to participate in likewise manner. Mindful of my own salvation from last week’s tempest, I nominated Luke ch. 8, “And they came to him, & awoke him, saying, Master, master, we perish. Then he arose, & rebuked the wind & the raging of the water: & they ceased, & there was a calm.”
Henry recited from Psalm the Eighth, in a voice as sonorous as any schooled dramatist: “Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou has put all things under his feet: all sheep & oxen, yea & the beasts of the field; the fowl of the air & the fish of the sea & whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas.”
No organist played a Magnificat but the wind in the flue chimney, no choir sang a Nunc Dimittis but the wuthering gulls, yet I fancy the Creator was not displeazed. We resembled more the Early Christians of Rome than any later Church encrusted with arcana & gemstones. Communal prayer followed. Parishioners prayed ad lib for the eradication of potato blight, mercy on a dead infant’s soul, blessing upon a new fishing boat, &c. Henry gave thanks for the hospitality shown us visitors by the Christians of Chatham Isle. I echoed these sentiments & sent a prayer for Tilda, Jackson & my father-in-law during my extended absence.
Anonymous
Posted March 25, 2008
Cloud Atlas is difficult to describe. It is hard to explain what the book is about, precisely. It is a book about what makes a story, and it is a book about what it means to be human. Ultimately, it is a book that forces the reader to question what is reality. It is a postmodern tour de force, laden with literary allusions. For example: Sonmi-451 is a clear reference to Bradbury's classic 'Fahrenheit 451', and her story parallels themes explored in '1984'. Similarly, Zachry's tale of Sloosha's Crossin' is much like Russell Hoban's 'Riddley Walker'. From Frobisher's letters, to Luisa's quest for truth... from Smith's journal and his final question at the end, 'Cloud Atlas' is a brilliant novel that intertwines stories and styles across centuries, continents, and cultures. The stories are relatable and terrifying, and all speak volumes about human nature and its relationship to stories. It is not a novel that you can say is 'about' something, in terms of plot. It's far more thematic. It's about humanity's relationship to one another, to stories, and its quest for truth and the definition of reality. An excellent read that blew me away.
8 out of 8 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.There are books that just¿grab you by the throat and pick you up and slam you over the desk time and time again and leave you all disheveled, with a weird tingly feeling in the nether regions and the idea that you have just had your mind blown.
This is such a book. Or at least it was for me. Imagine taking Italo Calvino¿s ¿If on a winter¿s night a traveler¿ concept and actually wrapping it up. Those of you familiar with the Calvino novel know that he took essentially like¿ten stories and started telling them to you before it is somehow hopelessly interrupted and another story is started. Here, Mitchell writes what some people have referred to as a Russian Doll of a novel. You know those dolls you can open up at the middle and then there is another doll inside of it, and then you open that one up and HEY! another doll and then you open up that one and WTF!!! yet another doll and so forth? Yeah, this is sort of like that.
There are six stories, all of them spanning about a century and a half in history, maybe a little bit more. Six stories that may seem entirely unrelated, though, as you read into them, you begin to see just how tightly interwoven they all are. There are subtle references and some very overt ones, but part of the joy in this book is reading foreshadowing and not even knowing it because it applies to another story you have not even started.
The stories, even separated from the over all work are all very intriguing, each with its own challenges. Some thrilling, some amusing, some gripping, some outright wild, Mitchell switches gears on you better than an F-1 racer and he leaves you wanting more. Fortunately, unlike Calvino, he takes you to the end, and then bothers to come right back and give everything else a respectable wrap. The only thing is, the very first story, which takes place just before the turn of the 20th century, as are all of the other stories, is written in a era-specific fashion. Be prepared to learn a whole new vocabulary. I literally had to sit by the computer in this one and look stuff up. But after that, the language becomes a lot more familiar¿that is until you get to the stories that are told in the future and then even a dictionary won¿t help. A buy, hands down.
5 out of 6 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted January 18, 2005
Don't be frightened off by reviews citing the book's 'experimental' nature. While not perfect, in 'Cloud Atlas' Mitchell moves seemlessly from voice to voice and finds a way to make six very different narratives almost equally engaging. Yes, there is a momentary sense of frustration when moving from one truncated section to the next (one even ends mid-sentence), but it's easy to get past this once sucked into the next thread. Mitchell drops enough breadcrumbs in the first half of the book to imply a reward for enduring the interuptions, and indeed he delivers on several levels: the literal linking of the narratives (whether they be manuscripts or sci-fi holographs), the philosophical/spiritual implications of reincarnation or distant relation, the unfortunate consistency of human oppression, and the dependence of all fiction (including history) on what has been created before. A tad of environmental preachiness here and there where the narrative itself would have sufficed evinced a few sighs here, but none of consequence. And some of the homages may be mistaken for derivative writing (Melville, Orwell and Huxley foremost), but in fact they form the basis for a more profound relation than that between the six narratives themselves, as 'Cloud Atlas' itself admits to being admits to being another legend drawn from legends. Mitchell has used a technique similar to that of Italo Calvino in 'If on a Winter's Night a Traveler' and pushed it beyond creative novelty. He infuses the novel with a rational, integrated plot structure that, beyond giving the reader a feeling that in the end it all 'makes sense,' itself adds a deeper layer of meaning.
5 out of 5 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted August 26, 2008
Mitchell is a Shakespeare of style, which is one way to describe his dramatic uses of different writing styles that encapsulate the cultural periods and classes from which they emerge. Usually this correlation of style and context seem organic: for instance, readers assume that a certain eighteenth-century writer would naturally speak or write in a distinctive way. But when a plot travels across cultures and across historical periods and into imaginary futures, only a grand dramatist and a great intelligence can create styles that seem so natural to these fictional worlds. It's one thing to seem to reproduce letters written from Colonialist ship travels in the 19th-century Pacific. It's another skill entirely to create a post-Apocalyptic language for civilization's last remnants. Mature post-modernism, although not profound. Delightful.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted March 7, 2006
While away at a company retreat, I often felt speechless when my co-workers would come up to me and say 'Whats the book about?' After many attempts of describing 'Cloud Atlas' to an array of people, I eventually fell back to the most simplisitc answer and yet poignant description of the book. I sheephishly responded with a non-delibrate patronzing remark 'It's a Novel'. To fully understand Cloud Atlas, you have to fully engross yourself with the letters of a sinister Robert Frobrisher, you have to get inside Adam Smiths mind bending torture, you need to sit shotgun with one Luisa Rey, you need to escape with one insistent and hilarious brit, Timothy Cavendash. Serve and volley the grand scientific question of our age (cloning) with Sonmi, and to be whisked away with Zachary and Moreynmon on an epic adventure through the blue skies, filled with white clouds. This my dear friend is the only way to describe something so treasured as this ingenuis literature. And for all you Passing souls who passed through this journey already, well you know what I mean when ask 'How do you describe the indescibable?'
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted July 7, 2011
This was recommended by a brilliant friend. It is by far one of the most amazing, creative, unforgettable books I have read of late. Read it.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.readandexist
Posted June 19, 2011
Quite possibly the best thing i've ever read. A how to manual for writing with balls. Read it.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.TomYork92
Posted March 30, 2011
Teen. A Very interesting premise of 6 stories nested in one another, all in a different genre. Intertwined stories going from the past to the near future, to the apocalyptic future - all detailing man's greed and how the selfish nature of humanity leads to a downfall. If you appreciate a variety of books, this one is a great read with strong characters and a sense of humanity underlying the stories.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Puck1967
Posted March 29, 2011
I mistakenly got the impression that <i> Cloud Atlas </i> was about someone's sailing trip, so I was reluctant to read it. While, travel across the ocean plays an important part of the story(ies), I could not have been more wrong about the subject matter of the book. The theme of this book is the development of a character's ethic through a device that at once mystical, symbolic, structured and unique. I cannot emphasize enough how original this story is. Some have compared it to Byatt's <i>Possession</i> or Robinson's <i>Year's of Rice and Salt</i>. I admit the similarities. However, the parallels are much more complex, clever, fascinating. Mitchell not only build six separate stories-within-stories, but does so using different genres of writing. There are twists one does not expect. Each story inspires the next in a way that is deeply satisfying. For me, this novel gains a place of the shelf next to <i>Master and Margarita</i> as a truly original, deeply meaningful work of beauty. My only comment is that reviewers should just stop using the metaphor that the book is a series of nested dolls. Please, is it possible you could use a metaphor the author himself doesn't use? Please. Read this book. It's a work of beauty.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Like a rollicking seafaring yarn? Like a good detective story? Like a futuristic sci-fi tale? Good because they are all in this book plus three more genres. Don't get too comfortable, though, because the author switches from one to the next at critical plot points. At first this drove me crazy but after the third switch, I settled in and just enjoyed the ride. The sixth story proceeds without interruption. And then each story picks up again in reverse order until readers wind up back where we started. Each of the six stories is linked to the next and the writing throughout is stunning. I finished this book with great regret. All of the main characters are memorable and each story could stand on its own but I think about Sonmi-451, Zach'ry and Meronym often. Highly recommended.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Mupples
Posted January 15, 2011
This story is probably for more advanced readers. I LOVED it, but if you're not a "literary" reader-that is, you haven't read books from different time periods, it'll be hard to identify with the shifting language. This book deserves to be read twice. The stories are so interesting and can pretty much stand on their own. This is the second book I've read by David Mitchell and I can't wait to explore the rest of his novels.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.It is amazing how Mr. Mitchell interweaves the stroy lines through time. My first book of his; truly mesmerizing
0 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Posted July 17, 2008
This book caught my attention from the NPR summer recommendations. I was greatly surprise and delighted by this book. As captivating as this book was, it is hard to discuss exactly what its about. I think those without an open mind or those with pre-determined ideas about what a book should be would not enjoy this, however those with a sense of wonder and curosity about humanity and interconnectiveness would find this a great read.
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Posted February 20, 2008
This was the worst book I ever read. It amazes me that anyone would say they liked it. Boring and makes no sense.
0 out of 4 people found this review helpful.
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Posted February 2, 2006
Cloud Atlas is by no means a fast or easy read, but every page is time well spent. Mitchell intricately weaves his stories together in such unexpecting ways that you complete the novel feeling as if you've just been through history and back. Any author that can take on this many unique narrative voices deserves attention and praise. An ultimately optimistic, joyful story. Well done.
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Posted May 9, 2005
While the first few chapters were hard to get through (the reason for the missing star above), the rest of this novel makes the effort completely worthwhile! The story unfolds like a Russian Babushka doll, each layer connected to the previous and the next in surprising ways. Mitchell has a talent for comedy ('When insolvent, pack lightly'), and seemlessly slips into each character's voice. I highly recommend it.
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Posted June 26, 2005
It is an exquisite book. Can't let it out of your hand, like his previous books. Mitchell's amazing ability to tell a story is undoubted but this time it felt it was a technical-story-telling. Seemed like he enjoyed it exploring the life & language of his choice. I was impressed but waited in vain to be swept of my feet
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Posted April 18, 2005
This is an ingenious novel, both deliberately derivative and breathtakingly original. It is beautifully written with humor and compassion. While taking a hard look at the worst aspects of human nature it allows for the possibility that the best of human nature may prevail. The author has fun mimicking variously overused literary styles and at one point even questions (via the doubts of one of his characters)whether his work is ingenious or merely a clever trifle. I assure you that it is the former.
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Posted December 1, 2004
If you are reading this, you must be trying to decide if 'Cloud Atlas is worth buying and reading. This is where I was a few weeks ago. Influenced by the National Public Radio interview with Daniel Mitchell, I decided to take the chance. Thank you NPR. It is a thoughtful,provacative and entertaining read. Some of the chapters present a challenge (An Orison of Sonmi and Sloosha's Crossing and Everything After), but this adds to the intriguing nature of the stories. This book is well worth it.
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Posted February 5, 2010
No text was provided for this review.
Overview
From David Mitchell, the Booker Prize nominee, award-winning writer and one of the featured authors in Granta’s “Best of Young British Novelists 2003” issue, comes his highly anticipated third novel, a work of mind-bending imagination and scope.A reluctant voyager crossing the Pacific in 1850; a disinherited composer blagging a precarious livelihood in between-the-wars Belgium; a high-minded journalist in Governor Reagan’s California; a vanity publisher fleeing his gangland creditors; a genetically modified “dinery server” on death-row; and Zachry, a young Pacific Islander witnessing the nightfall of science and civilisation -- the narrators of Cloud Atlas hear each other’s echoes down ...