Cloud Atlas: A Novel
David MitchellA 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.
| status | Copy #1 (4439): in |
|---|---|
| genre | Sci-Fi |
| publisher | Modern Library |
| publish date | November 20, 2012 |
| popularity | checked out 7 time(s) |
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Yet another “3.5 stars”. “Cloud Atlas” is not as good as David Mitchell’s later novel “Bone Clocks”. It is NOT that David Mitchell is a bad writer (“Bone Clocks”, for instance has some amazing and memorable chapters)-but so far, he has problems (structural and otherwise) with his novels-and ends up with a finished product that is less (as opposed to greater) than the sum of it’s parts. This was a rare case where I thought the movie was arguably better than than the book. Kim Stanly Robinson’s “The Years Of Rice And Salt” covers very similar territory and does it much better (so maybe the Alt.Lib should get a copy?!)