Cloud Atlas (2004)

by David Mitchell

Other authors: See the other authors section.

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▾LibraryThing recommendations

Ghostwritten by David Mitchell (1999)
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (2005)
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The Accidental by Ali Smith (2005)
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▾Member recommendations

80
If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino (Ludi_Ling)
Ludi_Ling: Different yet both well-written approaches to meta-fiction.
50
Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban (Rynooo, browner56, pfeldman)
browner56: Highly imaginative works, particularly the phonetic recreations of the English language
40
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess (sturlington)
73
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood (sturlington)
62
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell (pgmcc)
pgmcc: Really enjoyable set of related stories with the author's well deomonstrated skill
30
The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson (one-horse.library, PghDragonMan)
PghDragonMan: A theme of reincarnation used to balance Karma flows through the story.
20
Number9Dream by David Mitchell (PghDragonMan)
20
Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann (novelcommentary)
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Black Swan Green by David Mitchell (PghDragonMan)
10
Girl Reading by Katie Ward (rarm)
rarm: Girl Reading isn't as intricately constructed as Cloud Atlas, but both books use linked stories to carry a theme through the centuries and into the future.
54
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (jbvm, souloftherose)
jbvm: Without giving anything away, after you've read both you'll understand my recommendation.
souloftherose: Both novels are occasionally experimental in style with interconnected short stories. They are also both very good.
10
Gods Without Men by Hari Kunzru (Tinwara)
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The Castle of Crossed Destinies by Italo Calvino (Ludi_Ling)
Ludi_Ling: For those interested in disparate yet intertwining narratives of a somewhat fantastical nature.
10
Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison (hippietrail)
00
Flesh and Blood by Michèle Roberts (luciente)
luciente: Similar structure of nested stories
66
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond (hippietrail)
00
Mobius Dick by Andrew Crumey (alzo)
11
The Island of the Day Before by Umberto Eco (hippietrail)

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▾Member reviews

English (337) Dutch (4) Finnish (1) Danish (1) Spanish (1) German (1) Czech (1) All languages (346)

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http://www.bostonbibliophile.com/2013/01/review-cloud-atlas-by-david-mitchell.ht... (

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bostonbibliophile | May 20, 2013 |

wow. i couldn't read past about 75 pages.

i think i must require pictures in my post modern novels. (

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usefuljack | May 17, 2013 |

wow. i couldn't read past about 75 pages.

i think i must require pictures in my post modern novels. (

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usefuljack | May 17, 2013 |

Book drags on. The stories are pretty good, but the last one kept dragging on and on. The movie looks more interesting than the book!
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sweetchuckie | May 14, 2013 |

It took me a while to think about what I would say in this review.

On the positive side, David Mitchell is an excellent writer and storyteller. Each of the stories in the book are terrific in their own right. There were a few slow spots, but I wanted to finish each one (which is my criteria for a good story).

On the negative side, I had a very hard time grasping the common thread that ran through these stories. I got the idea that they were intended to be illustrative of the ultimate downfall of civilization. But why start in 1830, and why pick the periods that were chosen? I also recognized the reincarnation theme in the comet birthmark. But why was this significant?

In the end, I felt as if the author was trying to be extra clever, and since i couldn't understand much the cleverness, he left me behind. I have a hope that if I go back and read this again in a year, I will recognize more of the cleverness. If so, I will post additional comments attesting to my increased understanding. But that begs the question, why write a book that the reader has to read twice to understand? (

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grandpahobo | May 11, 2013 |

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▾Published reviews

1 review

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thingScore 100

Cloud Atlas is powerful and elegant because of Mitchell's understanding of the way we respond to those fundamental and primitive stories we tell about good and evil, love and destruction, beginnings and ends. He isn't afraid to jerk tears or ratchet up suspense - he understands that's what we make stories for.

added by souloftherose | editThe Guardian, A. S. Byatt (Mar 6, 2004)

▾Other authors

» Add other authors (16 possible)

Author name	Role	Type of author	Work?	Status
David Mitchell	—	primary author	all editions	confirmed
Brick, Scott	Narrator	secondary author	some editions	confirmed
Campbell, Cassandra	Narrator	secondary author	some editions	confirmed
Guest, Kim Mai	Narrator	secondary author	some editions	confirmed
Heyborne, Kirby	Narrator	secondary author	some editions	confirmed
Lee, John	Narrator	secondary author	some editions	confirmed
Matthews, Richard	Narrator	secondary author	some editions	confirmed
Mĳn, Aad van der	Translator	secondary author	some editions	confirmed

▾Work-to-work relationships

Contains

Sample of CLOUD ATLAS by David Mitchell

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▾Common Knowledge

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Series (with order)

Canonical title

Cloud Atlas

Original title

Cloud Atlas

Alternative titles

Original publication date

People/Characters

Important places

Chatham Islands, New Zealand

Zedelghem, Belgium

Buenas Yerbas, California, USA

England, UK

Nea So Copros

(show all 11 items)

Important events

Related movies

Cloud Atlas (2012 ∙ IMDb)

Awards and honors

Arthur C. Clarke Award Shortlist (2005)

Booker Prize Shortlist (2004)

British Book Award (Literary Fiction, 2005)

British Book Award (Richard & Judy Best Read of the Year, 2005)

Gaylactic Spectrum Nominee (Novel, 2005)

(show all 17 items)

Epigraph

Dedication

For Hana and her grandparents.

First words

Beyond the Indian hamlet, upon a forlorn strand, I happened on a trail of recent footprints.

Quotations

Oh, once you've been initiated into the Elderly, the world doesn't want you back.

Sometimes the fluffy bunny of incredulity zooms around the bend so rapidly that the greyhound of language is left, agog, in the starting cage.

The stationmaster's whistle blew on time, the locomotive strained like a gouty proctor on the pot before heaving itself into motion.

"Are you mad?"
Always a trickier question than it looks. "I doubt it."

Souls cross ages like clouds cross skies.

Last words

(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)

Disambiguation notice

Publisher's editors

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Publisher series

▾References

References to this work on external resources.

Wikipedia in English (2)

Cloud Atlas (novel)

Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2007 August 18

▾LibraryThing members' description

Book description

The book consists of six nested stories that take us from the remote South Pacific in the nineteenth century to a distant, post-apocalyptic future. Each tale is revealed to be a story that is read (or watched) by the main character in the next.

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▾Book descriptions

Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0375507256, Paperback)

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

(retrieved from Amazon Thu, 03 Jan 2013 05:32:46 -0500)

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▾Library descriptions

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-apocalayptic world.

» see all 9 descriptions