$16.00
ISBN-13: 9780375507250
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 8/2004
Cloud Atlas is composed of six interconnected stories, which are split in half and reassembled so that the stories nestle inside one another, like a Russian doll. Each story is set in a different time and place. In one story we are in Belgium in the 1930's, in another we are in post-apocalyptic Hawaii in the distant future. Mitchell is masterful at weaving these story lines together. We are not force fed the clues. They do not feel constructed, but surface suddenly and naturally from the page with the power of an epiphany. A number of the characters appear in other books in Mitchel's oeuvre, which adds a dimension of discovery to further readings. Though Cloud Atlas is a literary novel with a somewhat complicated structure, it is engaging the entire way through. In the chapters "An Orison For Sonmi-451" and "Sloosha's Crossin' an' Ev'rythin' After", both set in the distant future, Mitchell's style reflects a few hundred years of linguistic evolution. Some words have been truncated, the meanings of others have shifted slightly, and trademarked names like "Sony" have come to replace generic nouns like "television". Though it takes a few pages to ease into the new 'rules' of these chapters, Mitchell never sacrifices clarity for style. While his novels explore the complexity and suffering intrinsic to Being human, he doesn't succumb to the overwhelming nihilism of our age. I always come away from his books feeling profoundly uplifted. Cloud Atlas is a delight to read.
