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Cloud Atlas

By David Mitchell

(118)

| Hardcover | 9780340822777

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Critics

CLOUD ATLAS by David Mitchell

Review by Devon Shepherd (JUL 19, 2010) While David Mitchell is undoubtedly a talented writer, and ideas abound in the centuries-spanning, globe-trotting narratives that make up Cloud Atlas, I couldn’t help but feel slightly disappointed with this bo ... (read full critics)

mostlyfiction published on Thu, 30 Sep 2010

'Cloud Atlas' by David Mitchell

At one point I considered discussing it as part of Reading Matters Online Book Group and put it up for vote in February 2006. It lost out to Orhan Pamuk's Snow and it went back onto my pile of unread books once again. When I finally worked up the cou ... (read full critics)

readingmatters published on Tue, 28 Sep 2010

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11 Reviews

2 people find this helpful

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Having just finished Italo Calvino’s 'If on a winter’s night a traveller', I found it interesting that Mitchell adopted a similar approach to non-linear form, though made it uniquely his own. Perhaps because this is the first book I’ve read by this author - but in the ... (continue)

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Having just finished Italo Calvino’s 'If on a winter’s night a traveller', I found it interesting that Mitchell adopted a similar approach to non-linear form, though made it uniquely his own. Perhaps because this is the first book I’ve read by this author - but in the beginning I wondered whether Mitchell truly was brilliant or if all the reviews were precipitous in exulting his genius and that much of what I was reading was merely a precocious feat towards showcasing his lexical breadth. I’m happy I was much impressed for the former. The book really convinced me of his ridiculously virtuosic ability (not only his mention of Liszt in "Letters From Zedelgheim" but also Japanese electronic musician Cornelius come to mind). That said though, I should add that I felt it was a very "po-mo" read, and the familiar tendency to cut rapidly here and there reminds me very much of current editing styles in film/video - perhaps more appealing for a younger, more ADD prone audience.
Additionally his meticulous research for his historical and geographical pastiche is awesome. What I had noted in the first half as curious depictions of the idiosyncratic racialisms and profound prejudices of human nature (characteristic of the periods for each story) I felt was amazingly and elegantly addressed to conclusion in the second half. I still feel a bit dumbstruck at how adeptly he skips along dimensional warps. Bravo and encore!

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Lydia said on Mar 17, 2009 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

2 people find this helpful

David Mitchell is my favourite author. He is so young and talented. He can write all kinds of work: romance, thriller, detective story, drama, history, philosophy, humour, political commentary, etc., and accomplish them to perfection. Cloud Atlas is a showcase of his skills.
Highly recomme ... (continue)

David Mitchell is my favourite author. He is so young and talented. He can write all kinds of work: romance, thriller, detective story, drama, history, philosophy, humour, political commentary, etc., and accomplish them to perfection. Cloud Atlas is a showcase of his skills.
Highly recommended, though it's not easy to read.

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Tracy W said on Apr 11, 2007 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

2 people find this helpful

My best reading in 2005

Complicated structure, intriguing plot, beautiful storytelling. Probably the best book I read in 2005.

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s tsui said on Jan 15, 2006 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

A friend of mine gave me a copy of this book for World Book Night. She said thought I'd love it but I'm afraid I just didn't! I'm not sure if I was missing something important or that there really wasn't as much connection between the stories as I was hoping. It seemed like the first story and the l ... (continue)

A friend of mine gave me a copy of this book for World Book Night. She said thought I'd love it but I'm afraid I just didn't! I'm not sure if I was missing something important or that there really wasn't as much connection between the stories as I was hoping. It seemed like the first story and the last two had a connection with the idea of slavery, barbarism, cannibalism and the way humans treat each other. But then there was a story about an old (bigoted) man imprisoned in a mental hospital and a young girl reporter out to condem a nuclear power plant as being unsafe, as well as a young musician down on his luck in Europe.
The stories progressed in time to a tribal Hawaii post-apocalyptic world, every story containing the story before it. Up until the future and then it went back in time back to the very begining. Going through the first half of the book I didn't care for any of the stories until the clone girl's story. The girl journalist may have been the worst, if you're going to all the trouble of setting your story in the 70s, and making a big deal of the fact that someone has a VW Beetle, and you make the major plot point hang on getting a copy of a secret report in the trunk of the Beetle, you should probably have done enough research to know that the "Trunk" of Beetles is actually where they keep their engines! (I know I had to rebuild mine twice!) That and I think really great literature, even modern literature about the 70s, should not have car chases! *Insert Eddie Izzard's joke about car chases in books here*
The story I did like was the one about the clones, it was your fairly typical clone slave race, post-apocalyptic world, but I enjoyed the first half of that story quite a bit. The 2nd half it unfortuantely got a bit too ordinary, down to the cliched Soylant Green Is People ending. Made me wonder if the whole book was just supposed to have been funny and I was missing something. In the 2nd half of the stories I think the one about the musican was probably the least objectionable. The last half of the 19th century story was just very odd, talking about racism and slavery and colonialism in a way that was just very anachronistic. The preaching on the last few pages of the story had the subtletly of a ton of bricks and was just far too over the top to be taken seriously. Especially when it seemed to be the opposite point of all the stories to that point.
Overall this book confirmed that modern literature just really isn't my thing.

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Robot-mel said on Mar 14, 2011 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

Well, a brilliant book, not least because of the structure, looping back on itself half-way through (similar to David Lynch's idiosyncratic pic ' Mullholland Drive' - though with less horror and sex). Really a collection of short stories woven together with a temporal leitmotif. A milestone of the g ... (continue)

Well, a brilliant book, not least because of the structure, looping back on itself half-way through (similar to David Lynch's idiosyncratic pic ' Mullholland Drive' - though with less horror and sex). Really a collection of short stories woven together with a temporal leitmotif. A milestone of the genre.

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Ian Hodgson said on Jun 26, 2010 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

“Spent the fortnight gone in the music room reworking my year's fragments into a 'sextet for overlapping soloists': piano, clarinet, 'cello, flute, oboe, and violin, each in its own language of key, scale, and color. In the first set, each solo is interrupted by its successor; in the second, each in ... (continue)

“Spent the fortnight gone in the music room reworking my year's fragments into a 'sextet for overlapping soloists': piano, clarinet, 'cello, flute, oboe, and violin, each in its own language of key, scale, and color. In the first set, each solo is interrupted by its successor; in the second, each interruption is recontinued, in order. Revolutionary or gimmicky? Shan't know until it's finished, and by then it'll be too late.”
Something like an improvement on 'If On A Winter's Night…'. Making it a more satisfying read. The suggested interconnections are subtle but powerful.

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Kaeru said on May 3, 2010 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback