Cloud Atlas
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 First edition cover |
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| Author | David Mitchell |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Novel |
| Publisher | Sceptre |
| Released | 2004 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 544 pp (first edition, hardback) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-340-82277-5 (first edition, hardback) |
| Preceded by | number9dream |
| Followed by | Black Swan Green |
Cloud Atlas is a 2004 novel, the third book by British author David Mitchell. It was short-listed for the 2004 Man Booker Prize, which went to Alan Hollinghurst's The Line of Beauty. It was also nominated for the 2004 Nebula Award for Best Novel, and won the British Book Award Literary Fiction Award and the Richard & Judy Book of the Year award.
[edit] Plot synopsis
The book consists of six nested stories that take us from the remote South Pacific in the nineteenth century to the far future after a nuclear apocalypse.
- The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing. Pacific Ocean, circa 1850. Adam Ewing, an American notary's account of a voyage home from the remote Chatham Islands, east of New Zealand. The next character discovers this story as a diary on his patron's bookshelf.
- Letters from Zedelghem. Zedelghem, Belgium, 1931. Robert Frobisher, a penniless young English musician, finds work as an amanuensis to a composer living in Belgium. This story is saved in the form of letters to his friend Rufus Sixsmith, which the next character discovers after meeting Sixsmith.
- Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery. Buenas Yerbas, California, 1975. Luisa Rey, a journalist, investigates reports of corruption and murder at a nuclear power plant. The next character is sent this story in the mail, in the form of a manuscript for a novel .
- The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish. United Kingdom, early 21st century. Timothy Cavendish, a vanity press publisher, flees the brothers of his gangster client. The next character watches a movie dramatisation of this story.
- An Orison of Sonmi~451. Nea So Copros (Korea), dystopian near future. Sonmi~451, a genetically-engineered fabricant (clone) server at a fast-food restaurant, is interviewed before her execution after she rebels against the society that created and exploited her kind. The next character sees this story projected holographically in an "orison," a futuristic recording device.
- Sloosha's Crossin' an' Ev'rythin' After. Hawaii, post-apocalyptic distant future. Zach'ry, a tribesman living a primitive life after most of humanity dies during "the fall," is visited by Meronym, a member of the last technologically-advanced civilisation. This story is told when the protagonist is an old man, to seemingly random strangers around a camp-fire.
Apart from the central story (Sloosha's Crossin an' Ev'rythin After'), which is uninterrupted, each story breaks off abruptly half-way through, to be followed by the first half of the next story. The interrupted story then appears within the next one, with the protagonist reading or watching the first half of its text; for example, in "An Orison of Sonmi~451," Sonmi~451 describes watching a film about the life of Timothy Cavendish, but she is only able to watch 50 minutes before her story is also interrupted. Each story ends with its protagonist finding the second half of this story, which is then printed after it.
In "Letters from Zedelghem," Robert Frobisher composes the Cloud Atlas Sextet, which consists of six nested solos arranged in the same manner as the narratives in Cloud Atlas.
Cloud Atlas's six novella structure has been described as nesting in a Matryoshka doll fashion, a description perhaps imprecise, as the plots, themes, and especially voice and setting vary greatly (not merely the size and scope). The stories do bracket and interlock one another into a whole stronger than its constituent parts, but each story could be successfully read independent of the related other five. "An Orison of Sonmi~451" and "Sloosha's Crossin' an' Ev'rythin' After" are decidedly science fiction, with "Orison" reminiscent of the futuristic dystopian worlds of Aldous Huxley and Margaret Atwood and "Sloosha's Crossing" of the post-apocalyptic world of Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban. Mitchell has noted that the characters Robert Frobisher and Vyvyan Ayrs were (very) loosely inspired by Eric Fenby and Frederick Delius (Fenby was an amanuensis to the great English composer). "Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery" is likely based on the similar true story of American labor union activist Karen Silkwood.
[edit] Major themes
There are many common themes linking the stories:
- Reincarnation. The book hints that the same character appears reincarnated in each of the six episodes and has some memories from other stories. In each life he/she has a comet-shaped birthmark near the shoulder. There are further hints that at least one other soul accompanies the character through the ages.
- Imprisonment. Each protagonist is in some way imprisoned or enslaved and makes a bid for freedom.
- Racism/stereotyping. In each narrative, inequalities in social status and individual rights are based on racial, socio-economical or genetically-engineered differences.
- Treachery/betrayal. The protagonists either contemplate betraying others around them or are betrayed by people that they trust.
- Civilization. In each section, civilizations are in danger of being destroyed, deteriorating, or already devastated.
- Will to Power. The Nietzschean Philosophy of the ability of an individual to break free from their chains of oppression regardless of the ability or influence of others is a recurring theme, as is the Nietzschean idea of recurring themes.
- The question: "What should/can a pacifist do when faced with overwhelming odds?". This question is posed in each of the episodes, and the answers are as varied as the situations the character finds themselves in. As such, the book has much in common with Kim Stanley Robinson's The Years of Rice and Salt.
- A counter-argument on the above statement on pacifism. It seems that none of the characters act in a traditionally pacifist way. Violence is not the solution to their situation, but a number of the characters make clear that violence is an option open to them. Frobisher, for instance, feels thoughts of violence toward his patron. Instead, it seems that the book is a screed on the inevitability of violence when people find themselves in situations of unbalanced power, not a condemnation of violence or an expression of pacifism. This is most clearly laid out in the philosophies of Sonmi-451.
- The word "Hydra" appears in at least the first five stories in different contexts.
- Hawaii features, to different degrees, in four of the stories.
At least two of the characters are mentioned in Mitchell's first book, Ghostwritten (1999). Luisa Rey, the protagonist of the third story, 'Half-Lives', is mentioned in a radio show dedication in the 'Night Train' segment of Ghostwritten, while Timothy Cavendish, from the fourth story, 'The Ghastly Ordeal', appears as a minor character in 'London'. In addition, the phrase cloud atlas is used as a descriptive flourish by the narrator Eiji Miyake in Mitchell's second novel, number9dream, and the daughter of Vyvyan Ayrs shows up in "Black Swan Green", mentioning Robert Frobisher's suicide. The comet-shaped birthmark also shows up in "Ghostwritten" as a passing comment.
Some readers claim a direct and respective connection between the Cloud Atlas US cover illustration (2nd publication featuring six colored panels of various cloud formations) and the book's six novellas.
