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Cloud Atlas [Paperback]

David Mitchell
3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (456 customer reviews)

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Book Description

Aug 2004
Now a major motion picture starring Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Susan Sarandon, and Hugh Grant, and directed by Lana and Andy Wachowski and Tom Tykwer
 

A postmodern visionary who is also a master of styles of genres, David Mitchell combines flat-out adventure, a Nabokovian lore of puzzles, a keen eye for character, and a taste for mind-bending philosophical and scientific speculation in the tradition of Umberto Eco and Philip K. Dick. The result is brilliantly original fiction that reveals how disparate people connect, how their fates intertwine, and how their souls drift across time like clouds across the sky.
 
“[David] Mitchell is, clearly, a genius. He writes as though at the helm of some perpetual dream machine, can evidently do anything, and his ambition is written in magma across this novel’s every page.”—The New York Times Book Review

“One of those how-the-holy-hell-did-he-do-it? modern classics that no doubt is—and should be—read by any student of contemporary literature.”—Dave Eggers

 
“Wildly entertaining . . . a head rush, both action-packed and chillingly ruminative.”—People
 
“The novel as series of nested dolls or Chinese boxes, a puzzle-book, and yet—not just dazzling, amusing, or clever but heartbreaking and passionate, too. I’ve never read anything quite like it, and I’m grateful to have lived, for a while, in all its many worlds.”—Michael Chabon

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Product details

  • Paperback: 528 pages
  • Publisher: Random House Trade (Aug 2004)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0375507256
  • ISBN-13: 978-0375507250
  • Product Dimensions: 2.8 x 13.8 x 21.1 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (456 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,022,183 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Product Description

Amazon Review

It's hard not to become ensnared by words beginning with the letter B, when attempting to describe Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell's third novel. It's a big book, for start, bold in scope and execution--a bravura literary performance, possibly. (Let's steer clear of breathtaking for now.) Then, of course, Mitchell was among Granta's Best of Young British Novelists and his second novel number9dreamwas shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Characters with birthmarks in the shape of comets are a motif; as are boats. Oh and one of the six narratives strands of the book--where coincidentally Robert Frobisher, a young composer, dreams up "a sextet for overlapping soloists" entitled Cloud Atlas--is set in Belgium, not far from Bruges. (See what I mean?)

Structured rather akin to a Chinese puzzle or a set of Matrioshka dolls, there are dazzling shifts in genre and voice and the stories leak into each other with incidents and people being passed on like batons in a relay race. The 19th-century journals of an American notary in the Pacific that open the novel are subsequently unearthed 80 years later on by Frobisher in the library of the ageing, syphilitic maestro he's trying to fleece. Frobisher's waspish letters to his old Cambridge crony, Rufus Sexsmith, in turn surface when Rufus, (by the 1970s a leading nuclear scientist) is murdered. A novelistic account of the journalist Luisa Rey's investigation into Rufus' death finds its way to Timothy Cavendish, a London vanity publisher with an author who has an ingenious method of silencing a snide reviewer. And in a near-dystopian Blade Runner-esque future, a genetically engineered fast food waitress sees a movie based on Cavendish's unfortunate internment in a Hull retirement home. (Cavendish himself wonders how a director called Lars might wish to tackle his plight). All this is less tricky than it sounds, only the lone "Zachary" chapter, told in Pacific Islander dialect (all "dingos'n'ravens", "brekker" and "f'llowin'"s) is an exercise in style too far. Not all the threads quite connect but nonetheless Mitchell binds them into a quite spellbinding rumination on human nature, power, oppression, race, colonialism and consumerism. --Travis Elborough --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

An impeccable dance of genres ... an elegiac, radiant festival of prescience, meditation and entertainment. (The Times)

His wildest ride yet ... a singular achievement, from an author of extraordinary ambition and skill (Matt Thorne, Independent on Sunday)

It knits together science fiction, political thriller and historical pastiche with musical virtuosity and linguistic exuberance: there won't be a bigger, bolder novel this year. (Guardian)

Mitchell's storytelling in CLOUD ATLAS is of the best. I was, appropriately, captivated. (Lawrence Norfolk, Independent)

David Mitchell entices his readers onto a rollercoaster, and at first they wonder if they want to get off. Then - at least in my case - they can't bear the journey to end. (AS Byatt, Guardian)

The way Mitchell inhabits the different voices of the novel is close to miraculous ... No other British novelist, to my mind, combines such a darkly futuristic intelligence with such polyphonic ease. (Robert MacFarlane, The Sunday Times)

Gloriously inventive and dazzlingly virtuosic (Suzi Feay, Independent on Sunday) --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
620 of 624 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Unexpectedly enjoyable 28 April 2010
By Sid Nuncius #1 HALL OF FAME TOP 10 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback
I was expecting to hate this book. I forced myself to try it because people had gone on about it so much, but I really didn't like the descriptions I'd heard: 500-plus pages, visions of a dystopian future, a fractured timescale with six loosely-linked narratives each nested within the previous one, and so on and so on. It just reeked to me of a self-regarding author determined to show the judging panels of literary prizes how terribly clever he was, and with no interest whatsoever in whether anyone normal would actually be able to read the thing.

Well, I was completely wrong. I thought it was absolutely terrific. Interesting, thoughtful, readable and - most surprisingly of all - page-turningly suspenseful and exciting quite a lot of the time. I thought it had a lot of thoughtful and thought-provoking things to say about exploitation and the abuse of power, and about the possible consequences of both humanity and inhumanity. The different voices are really well done, with the historic and present-day(ish) ones sounding absolutely authentic and the future ones chillingly believable both in the language they use and what they say with it. The stories are involving, occasionally humorous, sometimes sad and sometimes extremely touching. For example, the few paragraphs when a character in a train passes some of the places of his youth and sees them much changed are really affecting, I thought, even though the character himself is thoroughly odious.

I doubt whether many people, if any, will read this review among the hundreds of others here, but if you do I would urge you to try the book. Plainly quite a few other reviewers hated the book and did find it as terrible as I expected to. You may hate it too, but you won't have lost much. On the other hand, you may be surprised to find it as enjoyable and rewarding as I did. It's worth the risk - if you do find it's for you, you'll never forget it.
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101 of 104 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars To read, or not to read... 2 April 2010
Format:Hardcover
With the mixed reviews, that is the question!

This is a big read. Quite long, and filled with connections, but it is very rewarding.

So, read it if you have the time and the mental energy. On holiday, for example. Do not get this book and think you can do 20 pages a night and just dip into it. It will need your time.

It will also need your patience. I found it hard to get into, and nearly gave up during the first part. Just as I was getting into the first part, it finished and the second part started and I felt like I was starting again.

But keep going and you will get to the point where it all starts to come together.

I would also suggest that you find out as little as possible about the plot. Let the plot reveal itself. Don't read the reviews that give it away and don't surf around looking for comment and insight into it. Let the intricateness reveal itself naturally.

If you have the time and patience you will find a wonderful book.
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61 of 68 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars Probably a bit of a Marmite book. 22 April 2011
By D. Ho
Format:Paperback
I received this book from somebody as part of the World Book Night 2011 project so I thought I'd give it a go.

I have just finished Cloud Atlas after taking it with me on holiday. To be honest I did not enjoy most of it. Indeed after 2 chapters I very nearly gave up on the book.

The novel is essentially six short stories with a tenuous and at best superficial link between them. The stories are written in a variety of presentations and styles and seemed more of a showcase for the authors linguistic talents and maybe his insights and thoughts on humanity through the ages rather than to engage the reader with a good story. While it may be fair to say that the authors grasp of the english language surpasses my own, I am hardly an uneducated philistine but to feel the need to run off to a dictionary at nearly every paragraph is hardly conducive to immersion. Thankfully after the first 2 chapters it becomes a bit easier going. However I still found the authors deliberate mis-spellings of some words more annoying rather than adding to the tales.

The authors choice to split the stories into halves is in my opinion more gimmickry than revolutionary (which he questions himself in the guise of his sextet). The problem is that the stories in themselves are not good enough to keep the reader hooked enough to want to continue to find out the conclusion (maybe with the exception of the futuristic tale) so thus forcing the reader to endure at least half the book before finding any gratification in how any particular story concludes. It's a bit like one of those rambling comedy stories that just goes on for too long before the punchline is reached.

In conclusion I would say that a person should read this book as an exercise in literacy exploration. If however you are looking for a good story to get stuck into, you're better off looking elsewhere.
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101 of 113 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Cumulative Nimbleness 22 Jun 2004
Format:Hardcover
Everything about Cloud Atlas - the elegant and allusive title, the heft of this 540-page hardback (which as well as providing food for thought, doubles as a good cardiovascular workout), the quotes and prize-tips it comes garlanded with, even the bold cover (so idiosyncratically contemporary it should achieve kitsch status within a couple of years) - says: This is a significant book.

And so it is. As you begin to read it, first your opinion rises to meet your expectations, and then continues from there. What Mitchell has done is return to the form of his first novel, Ghostwritten (1999), with a linked set of stories, but with a twist this time. The narrative is less a Russian doll than an onionskin: we get one story which is interrupted by another, and that by another, and so on as we drill through the flesh of the book. At the centre is a whole story, then we return to resume the story it interrupted, then the story *it* interrupted, and so on until the book ends with the conclusion of the story which began it.

And also! As well as having the earlier stories enclosing the later ones, within the structure of the book, Mitchell also has - fictionally and chronologically - the later stories enclosing the earlier ones. By this I mean within each story, the protagonist is aware of the story which has just been interrupted.

Phew. Okay. So there is much to admire here, not only in Mitchell's vast imagination - any lesser writer would have jealously hoarded these ideas to make up six novels and not splurged them all on one; clearly he has no fear of the ideas drying up, but then Iain Banks (of whose generously imaginative early work I was reminded) probably thought that too - but also in his execution of the stories. Each one is perfectly detailed and flawlessly ventriloquised. He successfully completes all of them (which was his stated intention, to reflect the frustration he felt on reading Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveller, where the many sub-stories all die hanging in the air). The stories have a unifying theme too, of subjugation and rebellion, deepening their superficial appeal, and also of course, we benefit from the dramatic irony of knowing the future for the human race that each character has such great hopes for in their own individual times.

I could end it there and leave you happy in the knowledge that Cloud Atlas was one of the greatest novels of our time. But that would be misleading, because much as I hate to carp on such a monumental achievement - I feel like a vandal scratching at Uluru with a pen-knife - the book is firmly flawed. As the stories break into one another, the sole connection - that each narrator is reading the story in the previous chapter - starts to seem a bit thin and gimmicky. There are attempts to bring deeper connections - two of the characters recur in successive stories, which is a good start - but they fall flat when all Mitchell manages otherwise is to have the protagonists share the same birthmark, to suggest, glibly, that they are related or reincarnated. And I thought Mitchell took a risk in starting and ending the novel (with the explorer story) and centring it (with the post-apocalyptic society: "a young Pacific Islander witnesses the nightfall of science and civilisation" - wow! Sounds fantastic, but isn't) with his least interesting and readable narratives.

I also had grave doubts about the thriller story - not that it is not very well done and highly entertaining. The problem is that, as noted before, the thriller is (it turns out) a manuscript which has been submitted to the vanity publisher: a pure fiction within the fiction of the novel. But this throws the preceding chapters - which are all, presumably, supposed to be "real" within the fiction of the novel - into chaos. If the character in the fictional thriller is reading the letters from the composer, does that make him just a subsidiary character within the thriller? And indeed the explorer whose journals he is reading? Does this even make sense? At least David Mitchell can be satisfied that, if you want to understand what on earth I am talking about when I make these criticisms, you will have to buy the book and read it to find out.

So despite its surface attractions and achievements - and they are many, and many people will devour the book joyfully and without complaint, and good luck to them - I am left with the feeling that, despite Mitchell's cumulative nimbleness, Cloud Atlas is more a trick than a book, to be returned to in parts (the composer's letters and the vanity publisher's "ghastly ordeal" were my favourite parts, both tragicomic and superb first person narratives), but not in whole, not to be lived in and loved over and over until either it falls apart or I do - which is what we want from all our books, after all. Read more ›

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Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars Well written
This is a fascinating book,which pulls you along all the way.
I wanted to read the book before seeing the film so I could
understand the context. Read more
Published 12 hours ago by hoskersmate
5.0 out of 5 stars Love Cloud Atlas
Very clever... love the stories within stories. Especially enjoyed spotting the different roles each actor played, and am now reading the book. Read more
Published 2 days ago by J. Smith
3.0 out of 5 stars A good story, well written, but not a classic
I enjoyed the book after finding the film almost incomprehensible due to the poor sound quality. I was ok with the split story format but the link between the stories was, as... Read more
Published 3 days ago by Hetty
5.0 out of 5 stars an engaging read
I saw the film first then picked up the book and I'm glad I got into this story that way round; the film is stunning and the book fills in gaps and expands the stories of all the... Read more
Published 7 days ago by smokie
5.0 out of 5 stars great book
This is a great book!!!!. It is a complex plot but lends it story to anacient philosophy, It also arrived promptly...great service!
Published 9 days ago by mindy
5.0 out of 5 stars Loved it but still not sure I get it!!!
After having recently watched and LOVED the film - have just finished reading Cloud Atlas. The film and the book are quite different as there is SO much content in the book, it... Read more
Published 10 days ago by J. Caughey
3.0 out of 5 stars Great but disappointing ending
This book is engaging and thought provoking until the end. The stories are interesting and inspiring, but not brought together at the end. Read more
Published 13 days ago by MrsF
5.0 out of 5 stars Very good read
An extremely well written book, which over the course of several stories intertwined, poses ethical questions about human behaviour. Read more
Published 13 days ago by k8
5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding
The most touching, thought provoking book I have read and it has left me deeply reflecting on its message for days.
Published 14 days ago by alfire
5.0 out of 5 stars A serious book-hangover
If you're an avid reader you know what a book-hangover is. It's that wistful, pensive state you enter after just finishing a book; you wish there was more but you're so glad you've... Read more
Published 17 days ago by ORourkeChris
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