Cloud Atlas SPOILER POST #!
Because there's just so much to discuss in regards to Cloud Atlas, I thought we might try something new and maybe split up the conversations a bit. This post is for discussing the book as a whole and the individual stories within the book. Later, we'll have a post specifically for comparing the book and the movie. We can always add more posts if it seems warranted, too.
Those of you who haven't read the book are welcome to read and join in as you see fit, just remember that there will be spoilers!
Here are some of my thoughts about the book to get the ball rolling:
Overall, I liked the book. It had some flaws, though. The main was is that it was way overwritten. Words, words, words. I felt that almost all of the stories could've been trimmed way, way back. Well, all of them, actually, but the Sonmi story I liked well enough that I didn't mind that there were pieces of it that could've been taken out without altering the story. I'm not one of those people who thinks that writing should be purely utilitarian or I'd never survive a Stephen King novel, but I did feel that some of the stories, particularly Adam Ewing's and Zachry's just went on way, way too long. Luisa Rey seriously could've been cut back to almost nothing and that would've been fine with me.
Another thing I had issue with was the way the writing style was adjusted for each period. To give credit where it's due, David Mitchell did a wonderful job with this from a technical standpoint. The first four stories do read stylistically true for their time periods. The other two, well, he was consistent enough to make them convincing. However - and especially considering that some of the stories were first person and some were third and one was a mix of the two - all this really did was highlight to me that these were separate stories which feels awkward when you consider that the basic point of the novel is that these stories are all tied together. Also, it just happens that I hate the writing style of the Ewing story - it's a real problem for me when I'm reading books actually written in that time period. That brands would become nouns in a corporate ruled world makes sense (some of that happens today, after all - consider "Pass me a Kleenex" or "Please Xerox 10 copies of this document before the meeting") but it made for awkward reading. I was specifically so bewildered by "disney" meaning "movie" that I missed an important plot point because I just couldn't figure out what Disney movie had the scenes Sonmi was watching - I did not realize until after the fact that she was watching a movie about Cavendish. Because Zachry's story was set in Hawaii, I read his dialect as a form of Hawaiian Creole English, a/k/a Hawaiian Pidgen, which I generally can understand pretty well. It did take me several pages to stop thinking about it and just read and every time I stopped and started again I'd have to get "warmed up" again. I think that story would've been better served if the dialect had been used sparingly for emphasis.
Speaking of, well. I know that each of the protagonists is a different incarnation of one soul because that is what the author explicitly says. I would not have come to that conclusion on my own. I think you can take reincarnation out of the story all together and still have it work without destroying the central premise. Each of these lives touches the other lives and they're all still connected. Some of the connections worked better than others. The "disney" thing made me not understand the connection between Sonmi and Cavendish at first and then disregard it. Did I miss it or is there no real explanation of how Sonmi becomes a god figure for Zachry's people? The Cavendish/Rey connection is bewildering. Is Rey a fictional character (within the novel)? Cavendish is 65 in 2012, meaning he was born circa 1947...which would've been about when Luisa was born if she were a real person. If Luisa Rey is a fictional character and her story imagined, what relevance does she have and why should she have the birthmark and meet Sixsmith and recognize the Cloud Atlas sextet when she hears it?
The Cavendish story was my least favorite, although I did like the escape story. I wouldn't have minded the Rey story if it was much, much shorter. Neither of these stories really felt like they had much weight to me, not in the way the others did. My favorite was the Sonmi story, flaws and all. I liked but didn't love the Zachry story. I did not like the first half of the Frobisher story but liked the second half a lot and cried during his suicide letter. I wasn't terribly interesting in the first half of the Ewing story but other than the writing style didn't actively dislike it. The second half was more engaging and I did like the ending.
What did you think of the nested story structure? I didn't like it at first but then did because I like the way the Ewing story ends and I think a lot of the impact of that ending would've been softened too much if it had been told from start to end in one shot.
Other thoughts?
Those of you who haven't read the book are welcome to read and join in as you see fit, just remember that there will be spoilers!
Here are some of my thoughts about the book to get the ball rolling:
Overall, I liked the book. It had some flaws, though. The main was is that it was way overwritten. Words, words, words. I felt that almost all of the stories could've been trimmed way, way back. Well, all of them, actually, but the Sonmi story I liked well enough that I didn't mind that there were pieces of it that could've been taken out without altering the story. I'm not one of those people who thinks that writing should be purely utilitarian or I'd never survive a Stephen King novel, but I did feel that some of the stories, particularly Adam Ewing's and Zachry's just went on way, way too long. Luisa Rey seriously could've been cut back to almost nothing and that would've been fine with me.
Another thing I had issue with was the way the writing style was adjusted for each period. To give credit where it's due, David Mitchell did a wonderful job with this from a technical standpoint. The first four stories do read stylistically true for their time periods. The other two, well, he was consistent enough to make them convincing. However - and especially considering that some of the stories were first person and some were third and one was a mix of the two - all this really did was highlight to me that these were separate stories which feels awkward when you consider that the basic point of the novel is that these stories are all tied together. Also, it just happens that I hate the writing style of the Ewing story - it's a real problem for me when I'm reading books actually written in that time period. That brands would become nouns in a corporate ruled world makes sense (some of that happens today, after all - consider "Pass me a Kleenex" or "Please Xerox 10 copies of this document before the meeting") but it made for awkward reading. I was specifically so bewildered by "disney" meaning "movie" that I missed an important plot point because I just couldn't figure out what Disney movie had the scenes Sonmi was watching - I did not realize until after the fact that she was watching a movie about Cavendish. Because Zachry's story was set in Hawaii, I read his dialect as a form of Hawaiian Creole English, a/k/a Hawaiian Pidgen, which I generally can understand pretty well. It did take me several pages to stop thinking about it and just read and every time I stopped and started again I'd have to get "warmed up" again. I think that story would've been better served if the dialect had been used sparingly for emphasis.
Speaking of, well. I know that each of the protagonists is a different incarnation of one soul because that is what the author explicitly says. I would not have come to that conclusion on my own. I think you can take reincarnation out of the story all together and still have it work without destroying the central premise. Each of these lives touches the other lives and they're all still connected. Some of the connections worked better than others. The "disney" thing made me not understand the connection between Sonmi and Cavendish at first and then disregard it. Did I miss it or is there no real explanation of how Sonmi becomes a god figure for Zachry's people? The Cavendish/Rey connection is bewildering. Is Rey a fictional character (within the novel)? Cavendish is 65 in 2012, meaning he was born circa 1947...which would've been about when Luisa was born if she were a real person. If Luisa Rey is a fictional character and her story imagined, what relevance does she have and why should she have the birthmark and meet Sixsmith and recognize the Cloud Atlas sextet when she hears it?
The Cavendish story was my least favorite, although I did like the escape story. I wouldn't have minded the Rey story if it was much, much shorter. Neither of these stories really felt like they had much weight to me, not in the way the others did. My favorite was the Sonmi story, flaws and all. I liked but didn't love the Zachry story. I did not like the first half of the Frobisher story but liked the second half a lot and cried during his suicide letter. I wasn't terribly interesting in the first half of the Ewing story but other than the writing style didn't actively dislike it. The second half was more engaging and I did like the ending.
What did you think of the nested story structure? I didn't like it at first but then did because I like the way the Ewing story ends and I think a lot of the impact of that ending would've been softened too much if it had been told from start to end in one shot.
Other thoughts?