David Mitchell

Recounts the connected stories of people from the past and the distant future, from a nineteenth-century notary and an investigative journalist in the 1970s to a young man who searches for meaning in a post-apocalyptic world.

a Novel

Cloud Atlas

Luisa hearing The cloud sextet in the music store. 

Klára Kováčiková 

The sound is pristine, riverlike, spectral, hypnotic...intimately familiar. Luisa stands, entranced, as if living in a stream of time. 

Newborn sunshine slants through ancient oaks and dances on a lost river. Look, Joe, herons. 

Souls cross ages like clouds cross skies, and tho a clouds shape nor hue nor size don´t stay the same it´s still a cloud and so is a soul.

But ain´t dyin´ terrorsome cold if there ain´t nothin´after?

There ain´t no journey that won´t change you some.

She was too, blue same as the ocean and if you weren´t looking right at her you would not see her.

True knowledge without experience is food without sustenance.

Snow´s whites are bruised lilacs in half light.

Trees, their incremental gymnastics and noisy silence, are another wonder of Outside to me.

One writes music because winter is eternal and because if one didn´t, the wolves and blizzards would be at one´s throat all the sooner.

When one unlocks a woman´s body, her box of confidences also spills.

She holds forth like a man and smokes myrrhy cigarettes through a rhino horn holder.

As many truths as men. Occasionally, I glimpse a truer Truth, hiding in imperfect simulacrums of itself, but as I approach, it bestirs itself and moves deeper into the thorny swamp of dissent.

Gavin

Features befitting a great book: stunning detail, well-historicised prose, engaging characters, intricate narrative structure, embrace of multiple genres. But it's too clean, somehow. 

Though it depicts predation by the worst of us; though its dystopia is one Pop-Hegel extrapolation from our current world-system, it's not as challenging as it thinks it is. 

It consists of ten sudden narrative shifts, moving back and fore four or five centuries. These sections are connected by each having a 'reader' (the opening sea journal is read by the second narrator, the Romantic composer, whose letters are obsessed over by the journalist, whose memoir is seen by the hack editor, whose tale is seen in an ancient film by the saintly clone, who is remembered as a god in the post-apocalypse story that is as far forward as we see. (They are also connected by a reincarnation overlay - but, apart from giving brutal history more chances to be brutal to the same people, I don't really get it.) 

The bit with the composer, Frobisher, is my favourite: he transcends his cheeky bohemian archetype and becomes horribly tragic despite his pig-headedness and camp pretension. 

The last line, returning to the original Victorian narrator, is a good summary of the book's wounded, pessimistic collectivism: 

  He who would do battle with the many-headed hydra of human nature must pay a world of pain & his family must pay it along with him! & only as you gasp your dying breath shall you understand, your life amounted to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean!’ 
Yet what is any ocean but a multitude of drops?


So: Enjoyable and ambitious, unsatisfying.

Prashanth Srivatsa

Masterful storytelling; the book beautifully knits six stories spanning centuries, from the wild seas of the nineteenth century to a post apocalyptic, primitive future. It's a mesh of linguistic brilliance and debatable presience, displaying our will to power as a race, and the doom it's bound to bring. The book makes you think, feel and, perhaps if you're lucky, see. If you've watched the movie and thought of it as a philosophical and existential pisspot, try this. The books are always better, aren't they?

the structure is ingenius, it feels like climbing a mountain and than sowly descending. 

Story feels like remembering, waking up during the storm and free falling. 

excited to read this for the first time again sometime (if u know u know) 

the structure is ingenius, it feels like climbing a mountain and than sowly descending. 

Story feels like remembering, waking up during the storm and free falling. 

excited to read this for the first time again sometime (if u know u know) 

☁️☁️☁️

Amy Thibodeau

This book broke my brain and then put it back together again. I loved it.

Alfredo santos

One of the few books where i find that watching the movie gives you a faster comprehension amongst the stories. 
The book itself is extremely entertaining once you get the hang of the different characters and their personalities. Nevertheless, even though entertaining, I find that the book missed a little bit with the deep feeling of connection between the stories. It conveys just simple remarks between stories that thread along the book, but no deeper meaning is transmitted, i dare to say that the movie did a better job at this!.

alina s

a novel

Cloud atlas

I thought it was well written, but it personally was not for me.

Scarlet Rose

Irene Alegre

I'll probably come back to this review later, when I'm not as mad as I am now, and might give it three stars if I'm in a good mood. Right now, however, I just almost finished (I decided I'm just not going to bother reading the last passage (thirty pages) in weird old English) Cloud Atlas and I'm kinda pissed because I just wasted a month of my reading time on a pile of intricate words that mean more or less nothing. What is the point of Cloud Atlas? Why have I read Cloud Atlas? What do I get out of it?

Entertainment? Jeez, while some parts where mildly interesting, the language in more than half of the book was painful to read. Like, I don't mind making the effort if it's worth it, but it just wasn't. AND the whole story was cryptic and confusing just for the sake of it, too.

Have I learned something? No. I just haven't. I haven't read much SF in my life, but what I've read is far more superior in terms of thought, philosophy and social criticism.

Seriously.

AND, the link between the stories was weak. Very weak. I don't know in what world that would be an original turn of events. Definitely not in mine.

PS: I forced myself to finish this since it has such great reviews and readers describe it as a life-changing book. Must have missed quite more than thirty pages.

garima mamgain

Have read fiction after very long.loved the way stories are intertwined. A must read. Caution:you may want to keep the dictionary handy !!!

Sian Wadey-Kerr

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

I wasn't entirely sure what to expect from this book. All I knew was that it was told in six parts and they were all linked. 
Each part was very different and there were some parts I liked more than others. The first part, the journals of Adam Ewing, was my second to least favourite. I've recently read Sea of Poppies and it was a very similar vein, so it felt old. Mitchell used & rather than the word and, which was very irritating. Thankfully he only used it for the first section.
The second section, about Robert Frobisher was my favourite, although I've heard other describe it as the least relevant. I love the language Frobisher uses and I was completely drawn into his story.
The third section was all about Luisa Rey. I got through this section the quickest, although it wasn't clear that it was set in the seventies until it was actually mentioned by a character. The connection between Letters from Zedelghem is much stronger.
The fourth section, about Timothy Cavendish was excellent, especially the second half. I found myself laughing out loud at some of the activities that Cavendish and his cronies got up to.
Sonmi~451 was very interesting, but could be difficult. You definitely had to concentrate as normal words were replaced with brand names which I thought was very clever.
The final section, Sloosha's Crossin' was my least favourite. If this had been the opening section, I would have stopped because it was so complicated and difficult to read. Sea of Poppies had similar language and I hated it! However, this held the biggest surprises, so it was the most worthwhile section.
I must admit I was expecting more twists than there was. A lot of reviews discussed 'reveals' and apart from Sonmi~451 and Sloosh's Crossin' there wasn't anything spectacular.

Vilde

I've proclaimed Cloud Atlas to be one of my favourite book, and I stand by this. 

But Cloud Atlas is also not a book that I can adequately or articulately put into any kind of review. 

So bare with me, as I'm going to attempt to say something about this. Cloud Atlas is for me, one of the books that haunts me after I've completed it: making me think back and go back to the book and read certain passage again and again. Seeing connections here and there that I initially didn't notice, I can't even pinpoint to anything specific that made it resonate with me so deeply. I will admit that it was a challenge to read, it was so tough to get into. I definitely needed perserverance to get through it, but in the end it was very rewarding to have completed it. It was so good.

Yulande Lindsay

Thriller, dystopian fiction, apocalyptic fiction, historical fiction, comedy/farce. All these genres in one book all handled masterfully. This was one HELL of a journey. 

Very highly recommended.

Cindy Lieberman

More effort than enjoyment. Felt like the author pulled various (albeit excellent) writing exercises out of his trunk and strung them up to semi-fit the barest requirements of a novel.

B.H. Pitt

** spoiler alert **
           six impeccably-written novellas spun together by the threads that tether time & space.

Stephanie Cox

Some really great characters and themes, but the ending was sort of sloppy. Instead of bringing together some of the political ideas that threaded through all the plotlines, the author decided to spell out the inspiration behind the structure. Dude, I thought these big ideas about the interconnections between time and history and the present and all that nonsense was REALLY COOL. Back when I was in high school. 

Contains a pretty great dystopian future, though.

Marcos Silva

This book is unconventional. There are six different stories in six different epochs, apperently with little connection between then. But as you read you my get the idea. Don't give up, it's a great journey!

Ben Burns

Wish there were half-stars for this one. 4.5. Loved the concept, characters, styles, surprises, and themes. Slightly unfulfilling, otherwise awesome.

Bob Simone

I like this a lot. The first third was a little slow and academic, but things picked up fast once (view spoiler)[the somni story started. Up to the chronology reversal, I thought that each story was going to be a short story based in a different genre. And linked by a single line or something. I was impressed by how many different genres he was able to write in compellingly, I thought. Somni was my favorite, but the end of time was also pretty good. Louisa rey was a little trite. But I think maybe that's how that section was supposed to be (a trite mystery). I don't like when authors write shit cause "the story called for a work by a shitty author." No, you are just being a dick. Like that stupid 4th section in 5 Fingers of death. The Frobisher story was quite evocative. I was like, "nooooo Robert!!!!" :( Poor guy. (hide spoiler)]. Ultimately I like it a lot. This is a stupid review, this tells you nothing about the book,a nd probably isn't even interesting if you did read it. Hahaha. OH WELL>

Melody Izard

Several stories told by different characters in different periods of time. Each story has some small detail that links with the next. We discussed this in one of my book groups and Brian (our leader) drew an elaborate sort of diagram that was supposed to explain some things. I’m not really sure it did, but I had a great deal of respect for him afterwards and suspect he lied to his wife and told her that it was creating something that he had to do for class in order to avoid having to change a dirty diaper for his son. But that’s just my way of saying that you can get bogged down in the winding trail if you really want to, but my advice is just to read, absorb and enjoy. A wonderful thought provoking book. I wanted more of each segment.

marielle

** spoiler alert **
           the reason cloud atlas is a four-star book is because it fails to perform the delicate, high wire act that is truly interweaving the lives of the six protagonists across space and time within its chinese box structure. in terms of david mitchell's writing style, his prose is eloquent and exquisite- no argument there. he's intelligent, you can tell that he is by how convincingly he builds six distinct worlds around the characters. (unfortunately the characters' povs aren't written as well; i felt that zachary's narrative was marred by an abundant abuse of apostrophes and g-droppings in trying to construct an authentic accent.) in short, the book is a matryoshka doll of six stories centered around six incarnations that are loaded with clichés that make the book feel just slightly commercial. the meticulous set up and careful prose was, for me, a distraction from the frail connection between the six lives and a weak (or lack of an) overarching plot. this review is starting to sound overly brutal for one that's four-stars, but i genuinely enjoyed 80% of the book (the 20% comes from 1. the kind of pretentious, 19th century vernacular in adam ewing's journals (which is the fucking start of the book) and 2. zachary's very heavy accent.) it's such an interesting concept, and his writing style is at times spellbinding, but the themes of intertwining fates and eternal recurrence were not delivered well. for god's sake the incarnations have a pseudo-symbolic tattoo. the tattoo is actually a comet-shaped birthmark and i was waiting for a huge revelation, explanation, or overarching twist until the very last few pages, before realising that there was nothing more to it. the ending was some pretty philosophy, which made me realise that that was what most of the book was. 

the world-building and prose is chameleonic and wonderful, but this is less of a 'puzzle' (as some reviewers have put it) and more of six short stories that would honestly be weak on their own. the only merit they have is that they get interrupted at cliffhangers (cliché) and resumed hundreds of pages after. 

the links between the stories are tenuous, and i'll prove it by summarising them:
adam ewing's journal is found in robert frobisher's room. RF writes letters to sixsmith and the third story starts off by introducing sixsmith many years later. sixsmith meets luisa rey and she writes a mystery book that timothy cavendish happens to read. TC makes a film that sonmi-451 watches. sonmi-451's interview is in the possession of the people in zachary's narrative. 
but the thing is, david mitchell devotes so many words to building each individual's story that he neglects the interspatial connection between them.

i feel like the connection that 'all of the characters belonging to our troubled and yet resilient human race', as one reviewer put it, is not enough. if that were the case, what sets cloud atlas apart? though the ending, which centers around that notion, is pretty good and satisfying:
"He who would do battle with the many-headed hydra of human nature must pay a world of pain & his family must pay it along with him! & only as you gasp your dying breath shall you understand, your life amounted to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean!" Yet what is any ocean but a multitude of drops?"

Pranav Mutatkar

This book is in top running to be one of my favorite books of all time. All the more surprising because it looked like it would be exactly the opposite while I was reading the first 50 pages. 

It's a book that I find hard to recommend to people because it is dizzyingly ambitious and for some they don't really understand it and for others, it misses the mark. The problem of recommending it is that it is one of the books that is a good book until you reach the last 20 pages at which point you understand and it becomes a spectacular book. 

The structure is hard to explain. It is a series of 6 short stories that are broken in half and continued in descending order. The all are only tangentially related to each other until the end when you realize the thematic elements that bind them all. 

Cloud atlas quite simply (I could probably write more poorly written paragraphs) is like those Russian dolls that fit inside each other (Russian nesting dolls?). None of the stories are necessarily true or false, but they are what could be true. See, the whole theme of the book for me was this idea that through our actions we birth consequences and futures that we can scarcely imagine. It is our courage and bravery to defeat predacity and be kind that will ultimately birth a better future.

All the stories are possibly imaginings of distance futures and perhaps distant pasts, however you choose to look at it, but we have the ability to change the past/future because it is always evolving on what we human beings decide to do. 

Try getting past the first section of the book and if you can, I think you will enjoy it. And if you get to the end, I feel like you will be dazzled if not have your life changed.

CLOUD ATLAS, David Mitchell's bestselling Man Booker Prize-shortlisted novel which was also one of Richard & Judy's 100 Books of the Decade, has now been adapted for film. In this enhanced edition you can read the original novel along with a new essay by David Mitchell about the transformation of his novel into a film, and watch four exclusive videos about the book and film. The major motion picture, directed by Lana Wachowski, Tom Tykwer, and Andy Wachowski, stars Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Susan Sarandon, Jim Sturgess, Ben Whishaw, Jim Broadbent Hugo Weaving, Doona Bae, James D'Arcy, Zhou Xun, Keith David and Hugh Grant. The novel features six characters in interlocking stories, each interrupting the one before it: 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. Mitchell's other novels are GHOSTWRITTEN, NUMBER9DREAM, BLACK SWAN GREEN and A THOUSAND AUTUMS OF JACOB DE ZOET, all published by Sceptre. www.sceptrebooks.com Facebook: Sceptre Books Twitter: SceptreBooks

Sunyi Dean

Worth a reread and would read other books

Very good writing but lost me in places. I am sorry for not writing a longer review but my own writing has taken all my time this week!

Omar Fernandez

Thoughts a week after finishing the book
Cloud Atlas really surprised me. I knew people loved the book, but I didn’t know what to expect. The book has 6 “novellas” all loosely inter-related but each intriguing on its own. It kept me reading thanks to the many great characters and scenarios. 

In general, my notes showcase what stood out to me while reading. David Mitchell’s philosophical musings are really good. 

Time is what stops history happening at once; time is the speed at which the past disappears.

For my full notes, see my full notes doc

Trevor Berrett

I don't know what to write about this book except that I loved it. Each of the six stories were wonderful reads. How could one writer execute so many distinct voices and styles so well? The book gets a lot of criticism because the connection between the stories is not apparent except that some of the names and features of the characters are the same. However, the title of the book offers a clue as to how the stories flow from one to the other and then back again. It was brilliant! Why it didn't win 2004's Booker I'll never know. It should last anyway, however.

Cloud Atlas a Novel

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