Cloud Atlas! Great book, really. I read it for my book club, but I always meant to read it, ever since my buddy isanah suggested I should (and thank you for the recommendation, dear, it was well worth it).
I think my favorite part of the book is the same reason it's nearly impossible to summarize the plot. Cloud Atlas has a full six separate storylines, all of them told in... uh, well, it's like a matryoshka doll. It starts out with Adam Ewing's plot, switches abruptly to Robert Frobisher (who is a total little shit and also pretty clearly bipolar, though they don't have a lot to do with one another), changes to Luisa Rey THE MOST BADASS, then to Timothy Cavendish whom I abhor, then Sonmi~451 who is so goddamn amazing I can't even, then to Zachry who's... there? I guess? Then it folds its way back to Adam Ewing, moving step by step backwards into the past.
And the thing is, I think that's really cool. Part of what I think Cloud Atlas is about is the inevitability (or not) of the future: the structure at first contributes to that inevitability and then steps backward, questioning whether we really can't change anything, whether we keep living in circles, whether the cycle can ever be stopped.
Also, another cool thing: each part of the story is written in a different style. Adam Ewing is writing a travel journal, and Frobisher's writing to his... idk, boyfriend, Sixsmith. Luisa Rey's is a thriller/mystery/suspense, Cavendish is a Kafkaesque story (and hey, I found a new and fun trigger reading this-- JOY), Sonmi is a really cool Brave New World but better story, and Zachry is a post-apocalyptic thing. Plus, the language changes, moving from Adam Ewing's 18th-century prose to Zachry's future slang.
I guess the only reason I wouldn't give it a full five stars is... well, is there any point to the book? There are a bunch of themes, but I'm not sure they really tie together in the end, and the comet birthmark isn't really addressed as fully as I think it could be. The book is a really nifty read, but there wasn't really anything I felt the need to sit with the way I did after
Kitchen, for example, or
Good Bones and Simple Murders. Still, nifty read! And I want to try and do the same thing that Mitchell did, writing all these narratives that aren't connected on the surface, but are still very clearly part of the same story with all the underlying themes and connected meanings. It's cool, is what I'm saying. An excellent example of superlative craftwork, if nothing else. Read it for that.
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