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Cloud atlas by David Mitchell
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Cloud atlas

by David Mitchell

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4,805136408 (4.19)239
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English (134)  Dutch (1)  Finnish (1)  All languages (136)
Showing 1-5 of 134 (next | show all)
Interesting to see that not everyone loved this novel. I found the format of different tales, all except the middle one placed in two halves, clumsy. The characters mostly failed to be engaging, although I took a liking to Sonmi and the tortured musician. Some of the tales are interesting enough, although not prize winning, in their own right. The middle tale completely failed to engage me and I skipped most of it, as it by then seemed clear that the links between them were tenuous at best. There was a theme of slavery, that he could have illuminated in many better ways, but he did succeed in portraying the different ways we are enslaved. Reasonably skilled writing. ( )
  Tifi | Nov 2, 2009 |
almost every narrative voice was overdone and annoying in some way (too loquacious, too redneck, too many gimmicky x's, says "ruddy" too much, etc...) and the connections between characters merely existed, instead of being meaningful (like in the movie Babel, saying "we're all linked in some way" is not a profound statement). Also extremely heavy handed throughout, i.e. the Son-mi chapter & the ending journal entry. Unable to make an argument through symbolism or imagery. Deeply disappointing. ( )
1 vote phette23 | Oct 19, 2009 |
Absolutly fantastic!
David Mitchell has a unique ability to interweeve stories in a way which has captivated me. I spent the time it took me to read this book on the lookout for the little links and wondering where the story would take me next. It was almost disappointing when, half-way through, the layers of the tale ceased to increase in number.
I've been trying to decrease the number of books on my bookshelf, but this is one book this is not destined to a BookCrossing release. I look foward to reading more of David Mitchell's works in the future. ( )
  abigail.ann | Sep 1, 2009 |
Soaks you into possible and unlikely worlds and 'never ending' cleverly (dis)connected stories of (de)human condition. ( )
  Dettingmeijer | Aug 12, 2009 |
Rather than actually enjoying the story, which involved 6 different narratives of different characters in different times and places around the world, I found myself become more and more fascinated with the author as I read on. I also spent most of the book trying too hard to figure out what it was that linked them together, but I couldn't really figure out, except for one thing, which was the strange birthmark they all had, but I'm sure that there is something much deeper and more interesting than that. Seriously, though, talk about imagination! What I didn't like about the book was that it ended in midsentence. Noooo!!!

Is that annoying or ( )
  unlikelyaristotle | Aug 2, 2009 |
Showing 1-5 of 134 (next | show all)
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Series (with order)
Canonical Title
Original publication date
People/Characters
Important places
Important events
Awards and honors
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."
Last words
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
Disambiguation notice
Publisher's editors
Blurbers
Canonical titleCloud Atlas: A Novel, Cloud atlas
Original publication date2004
People/CharactersAdam Ewing, Robert Frobisher, Luisa Rey, Timothy Cavendish, Sonmi~451, Zach'ry (show all 7)
Important placesChatham Islands, New Zealand, Zedelghem, Belgium, Buenas Yerbas, California, USA, England, UK, Nea So Copros, Hawaii
Awards and honorsArthur 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), National Book Critics Circle Award finalist (Fiction, 2004) (show all 14)
DedicationFor Hana and her grandparents.
First wordsBeyond the Indian hamlet, upon a forlorn strand, I happened on a trail of recent footprints.
QuotationsOh, 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."
Last words(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
BlurbersChabon, Michael
DescriptionThe 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 cha... (show all)
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.

Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0375507256, Paperback)

From David Mitchell, the Booker Prize nominee, award-winning writer and one of the featured authors in Granta’s “Best of Young British Novelists 2003” issue, comes his highly anticipated third novel, a work of mind-bending imagination and scope.

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.

In his captivating third novel, David Mitchell erases the boundaries of language, genre and time to offer a meditation on humanity’s dangerous will to power, and where it may lead us.

(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:17 -0400)

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David Mitchell chatted with LibraryThing members from Sep 28, 2009 to Oct 9, 2009. Read the chat.

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