Cloud Atlas

Synopsis: 'Souls cross ages like clouds cross skies ...' 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 Reagans 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 others echoes down the corridor of history, and their destinies are changed in ways great and small. In his extraordinary third novel, David Mitchell erases the boundaries of language, genre and time to offer a meditation on humanitys dangerous will to power, and where it may lead us.

Review: Disappointingly I didn't enjoy it. It felt like six short stories that were only wispily linked, some of the stories I liked and some I didn't which meant that I would have preferred more of one and much less of the other.

The first story we encounter is 'The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing'. Adam is a rather naive American notary writing his journal on board the Prophetess in 1850 as it makes it's way across the Pacific. It's enjoyable enough in it's way but not rivetting and the story stops abruptly .. literally in mid sentence.

The next story is 'Letters from Zedelghem' and this one I enjoyed. It's about an impoverished composer called Robert Frobisher who travels to Belgium, sometime between the two world wars, in order to throw himself at the mercy of a reclusive English composer in order to work as his amenuensis. Robert is a wastrel, immoral and self absorbed but his letters to his friend Sixsmith are at times hilarious.

'Dover an utter fright staffed by Bolsheviks, versified cliffs as Romantic as my ar*e and a similar hue'

We then come to ''Half Lives - The First Luisa Rey Mystery' which is a story set in California in the 1970's. Luisa is a journalist investigating corruption at a nuclear power plant. I wasn't that taken with this story, it was ok but it seemed more like a script for one of those made-for-TV movies destined to be shown on a Tuesday afternoon.

Next is 'The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish' about a 'vanity publisher' fleeing from the gangster brothers of his client. Timothy calls upon his brother for help, and heads for what he thinks is a kind of safe house/hotel hoping to lie low until the furore dies down. His ghastly ordeal continues when he finds he is confined in a nursing home from which there is no escape. This was another of the stories that I enjoyed, the tale is wittily told and Timothy is very funny.

'I was sent to my room without breakfast. I plotted vengeance, litigation and torture. I inspected my cell. Door, locked from outside, no keyhole. Window that only opened six inches. Heavy duty sheets made of egg carton fibres with plastic undersheet. Armchair, washable seat-cover. Moppable carpet. 'Easywipe' wallpaper.'En Suite' bathroom: soap, shampoo, flannel, ratty towel, no window. Picture of cottage captioned: A House is Made by hands, but a Home is Made by Hearts. prospects for break-out: p*ss poor'

Then we arrive at 'An Orison of Somni', a dystopian story set in Korea about a genetically engineered server at Papa Songs diner who is being interviewed, by the archivist, before her execution. This I found a mixture of both interesting and uninteresting but for this first part of her story anyway I was intrigued. A terrifying description of what life is like for a futuristic cloned server in a McDonalds/Burger King type outlet .. bred to work for 20 hours a day, incapable of independant thought, working tirelessly to earn their twelve stars which will enable them to retire to 'Xultation' in Hawaii (though this we find out later is far from the case).

'Hour four thirty is yellow-up. Stimulin enters the airflow to rouse us from our cots. We file into hygiener; then we steam-clean. Back in our dooroom we dress in fresh uniform; then gather round the Hub with our Seers and his Aides. Papa Song appears on His Plinth for Matins, and we recite the Six Catechisms together. Our logoman then delivers His Sermon. At a minute before hour five we go to our positions around the Hub'

The central story (and the longest as it was the only one not split into two) was 'Sloosha's Crossin' an' Ev'rythin' After'. A tale set in post-apocalyptic Hawaii and told by tribesman Zachry in heavy dialect. This tale together with 'An Orison of Somni' reminded me a bit of reading Will Self's 'The Book of Dave', the reading of which I would never willingly want to be reminded of. I stopped and stuttered so much over the two .. especially 'Sloosha's Crossin' that it disrupted the flow of the book entirely.

'Mis'ry'n'barrassment are hungersome for blame, an' what I blamed for losin' Roses was the dammit Prescient. That mornin' on Moon's Nest I got up an' hollered my goats an' droved 'em to Thumb pasture without even sayin' goodbye to Meronym. She'd got 'nuff Smart to leave me be, mem'ry she'd got a son o'her own back on Prescience I'

We then go into rewind .. and continue with the first five tales in reverse. Finding out what happened to each of our narrators/protagonists after the point in which we left them until we finally read what was written in the rest of Adam Ewings journal. This only works if you enjoyed all of the stories, if you didn't you approach them again with a kind of dread or ennui .. thankfully the one I enjoyed least was the central one so it wasn't too bad.

I can see it's ambitious, clever and well written .. I can see that lots of people will love it ... but overall I didn't enjoy reading it as much as I was hoping. It gave me knots in my head .. and my reading mojo, which was healthy and eager for challenges, is going to have to be coaxed out of a darkened room .. from whence it retired with a 'Cloud Atlas' induced migraine.