Cloud Atlas (The Novel)
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I'd had a copy of Cloud Atlas on my shelf for years, and finally took the plunge upon hearing that it was being made into a film. I've since heard that the film is both interesting and confusing ... and that sounds about right.
Cloud Atlas is a wonder of construction, telling six stories - they move through time, beginning with a voyager on a boat in the 1800's, and finishing at some time in the far future. What's interesting is that after this last story, it loops back, telling the second half of each of the first five stories. The stories are linked, in one specific way, but also thematically. It may be troublesome for some readers that the stories aren't even more extricably and obviously linked, It bothered me, as well, but somehow after the last story ended (the last story, again, being also the first story), it made more sense to me and felt very complete and fairly awesome.
Each story is written in a different style (from journal entries, to interview notes, to first and third persons, etc.) and in different slang versions of English, each theoretically appropriate to its age. That's certainly fun, but because each actual story is also different, the books are extremely thinly related to each other.
And I can't rate the overall book five stars because at least one of the stories ("The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish") was not only not that interesting, it didn't really seem connected in any way that I cared about to the other stories. In some ways, I think Mitchell wanted to have at least one story that was more humorous (which it was).
In truth, I didn't much like the bookend story, "The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing" until its (and the books) final end, which resonated beautifully and is really striking in its message and storytelling. I did, however, flat out enjoy - and often love - the other stories, some of which I wish were not just stories but complete novels on their own.
Cloud Atlas is a brilliantly written book and absolutely worth all of the plaudits it gets. In some ways, I'm not rating this higher because in some ways, I spent a decent amount of the book feeling like I do when I read some poetry, or see performance art -- like I am missing something or that I'm not quite smart enough to truly get it. That well may be true - but there's plenty of genius novels out there (see Foster, David Wallace) that don't have that result. Still, this is very much recommended.