Cloud Atlas (2004)

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!
( )

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? ( )

kind of brilliant, kind of irritating. Very amusing set pieces in places, but the conceit and his showoffy cleverness got really tiresome. Since then I read 2 more of his books--I'd heard he was so brilliant I thought I'd give him another chance. I don't disagree that he's brilliant, but I also find him annoying and too much into his cleverly constructed chinese boxes. His other books they were all similar in that way, so I am now officially DONE with David MItchell! ( )

There was a big hoopla about this novel when it came out and, as I often do when that happens, I put it aside to read when things had quieted down. Sometimes those volumes fall through the cracks but, I'm quite happy to say, this one didn't. This may not be the best book I read this year, but it has a good chance of making the Final Four (as it were). Not only is it entertaining, it's captivating; it's the type of book you don't want to put down. Sure, part of this is that there are chapter cliffhangers, but most of it is simply good writing portraying characters you care about with themes that engage your attention.

There has been a lot of talk about the matryoshka doll structure of the book: six novellas nested inside each other, the first five split in half to contain the succeeding ones. This was interesting but, evidently, less so to me than to many other readers.

What I found much more thought-provoking was the structure's fractal nature. Each novella could stand in its own right as a story about greed and lust for power. Then, each novella referenced the chronologically preceding one as a side plot to tie them together into a larger novel that enriched those themes by adding a dimension of time and recurrence. Finally, there was a meta-story that Mitchell told, not in the plot lines themselves, but in the patterns drawn by those plots, that drove home Santayana's maxim about the fate of those who do not learn from history.

By speaking to us on so many levels simultaneously...by having each protagonist's tale echoed in the larger whole...Mitchell's message hums in the background of our minds even as we move between characters, stories and eras. It's very intelligently done.

If I have any quibbles about the book, it's that Mitchell got a little heavy-handed by the end. He seemed to lack confidence that the reader would catch what he was trying to say and resorted to having his first/last protagonist speechify to us. I felt a little let down and a little put off by this. I would rather he had just trusted his own, considerable powers of writing and a measure of intelligence on the part of his reader. What he wanted to say came through loud and clear long before that point.

Absolutely recommended. ( )

Who doesn't like stacks?

I was relieved that nothing plot worthy happened to me while in the middle of reading this book. ( )