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Cloud Atlas (novel)

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For other uses, see Cloud atlas (disambiguation).

Cloud Atlas
First edition book cover
AuthorDavid Mitchell
Cover artistE. S. Allen
LanguageEnglish
GenreScience fantasy, drama
Published2004 (Sceptre)
Publication placeUnited Kingdom
Media typePrint (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages544 (first edition, hardback)
ISBN0-340-82277-5 (first edition, hardback)
OCLC53821716
823/.92 22
LC ClassPR6063.I785 C58 2004b

Cloud Atlas, published in 2004, is the third novel by British author David Mitchell. The book combines metafiction, historical fiction, contemporary fiction and science fiction, with interconnected nested stories in different writing styles that take the reader from the remote South Pacific in the 19th century to the island of Hawaii in a distant post-apocalyptic future. Its title references a piece of music by Toshi Ichiyanagi.

It received awards from both the general literary community and the speculative fiction community, including the British Book Awards Literary Fiction award and the Richard & Judy Book of the Year award, it was also short-listed for the Booker Prize, Nebula Award for Best Novel, and Arthur C. Clarke Award. A film adaptation directed by the Wachowskis and Tom Tykwer, and featuring an ensemble cast, was released in 2012.

Plot summary

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The book consists of six nested stories; each is read or observed by the protagonist of the next, progressing in time through the central sixth story. The first five stories are each interrupted at a pivotal moment. After the sixth story, the others are resolved in reverse chronological order.

The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing (Part 1)

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In the mid-19th century Chatham Islands, American lawyer Adam Ewing keeps a journal while his ship is repaired. He witnesses a Māori overseer flog enslaved Moriori Autua. Aboard the ship, Ewing’s only friend, Dr. Henry Goose, diagnoses him with a fatal parasite. Meanwhile, Autua stows away in Ewing’s cabin. After Ewing informs the Captain, Autua proves himself a skilled seaman and is allowed to work for passage to Hawaii.

Letters from Zedelghem (Part 1)

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In 1931 Zedelghem, near Bruges, disowned and penniless English musician Robert Frobisher writes to his lover, Rufus Sixsmith. He becomes amanuensis to aging composer Vyvyan Ayrs, expanding Ayrs’s melody into Der Todtenvogel, which earns critical praise. Encouraged, Frobisher begins composing his own music. He has an affair with Ayrs’ wife, Jocasta, while her daughter Eva remains wary. He secretly sells Ayrs’ rare books, discovers the first half of The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing, and asks Sixsmith to find the rest. As summer ends, Jocasta thanks him for reviving Ayrs’s creativity, and Frobisher agrees to stay until the following year.

Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery (Part 1)

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In 1975 Buenas Yerbas, California, journalist Luisa Rey meets elderly Rufus Sixsmith in a stalled elevator and tells him about her late father, a war correspondent. Sixsmith warns her that the Seaboard HYDRA nuclear plant is unsafe, then is later found dead in an apparent suicide. Suspecting foul play, Luisa believes the plant’s executives are eliminating whistleblowers. From Sixsmith’s hotel room, she retrieves Frobisher’s letters. Plant employee Isaac Sachs gives her a copy of Sixsmith’s report, but before she can go public, assassin Bill Smoke rams her car—containing the report—off a bridge.

The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish (Part 1)

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In early 21st-century London, 65-year-old vanity publisher Timothy Cavendish sees a sales boom after his client kills a critic. Threatened by the client’s brothers, he seeks refuge, but his brother Denholme tricks him into entering an abusive nursing home, which Cavendish initially mistakes for a hotel. A failed escape attempt leads to public punishment. He mentions reading Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery. As he settles in and begins plotting an escape, he suffers a stroke.

An Orison of Sonmi-451 (Part 1)

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In 22nd-century Nea So Copros, a Korean state rooted in corporate culture, an Archivist records Sonmi-451’s testimony via an orison, a holographic recording device. Sonmi-451 is a clone, or "fabricant," working as a waitress at Papa Song's, part of a society where vat-grown clones serve as cheap labor. Their awareness is suppressed through a chemical-laced food called "Soap," and after twelve years, they are promised retirement in Honolulu.

Sonmi is rescued by Professor Mephi and student Hae-Joo Im, who help her gain self-awareness and attend university. She watches The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish, but the session is interrupted when a student announces Mephi's arrest. Authorities are ordered to interrogate Hae-Joo and kill Sonmi on sight.

Sloosha's Crossin' an' Evrythin' After

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On post-apocalyptic Big Island, the peaceful Valley Folk worship the goddess Sonmi. Zachry Bailey blames himself for his father's death and brother’s enslavement by the cannibalistic Kona tribe. Members of a technologically advanced society called Prescients occasionally visit, and Zachry is wary of one named Meronym, who asks him to guide her up Mauna Kea. After she saves his poisoned sister, he agrees. At the ruins of the Mauna Kea Observatories, Meronym explains the orison Zachry found and reveals Sonmi’s true story.

On their return, the Kona ambush the Valley Folk. Zachry and Meronym escape, and she takes him to a safer island. Years later, Zachry’s son recalls this tale, suggesting it may be true—he now possesses Sonmi’s orison.

An Orison of Sonmi-451 (Part 2)

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Hae-Joo Im reveals that he and Mephi are part of Union, a rebel group opposing the corporate government. Disguised, Hae-Joo takes Sonmi to a ship where she witnesses how retired fabricants are slaughtered and turned into Soap, with leftovers used in the food served at such establishments as Papa Song's. Union aims to awaken all fabricants and thus depose the country's corpocracy. They ask Sonmi to write abolitionist Declarations, which she does. She is later arrested in an elaborately filmed government raid.

Sonmi tells the Archivist she believes the government orchestrated her journey to stoke fear of fabricants. Her final wish is to finish watching Cavendish’s story.

The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish (Part 2)

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Having mostly recovered from his mild stroke, Cavendish teams up with fellow nursing home residents—Ernie, Veronica, and senile Mr. Meeks—to escape. They seize a resident's son's car and celebrate at a pub, where staff nearly recapture them. In a rare lucid moment, Mr. Meeks rallies the drinkers, sparking a brawl that secures their escape. Cavendish later reveals his secretary blackmailed the gangsters. Back home, he reads the second half of Luisa Rey’s story and plans to publish it, whilst also writing a screenplay about his experience.

Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery (Part 2)

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Rey escapes her sinking car but loses the report, and Sachs dies in a plane explosion orchestrated by Smoke. After Seaboard acquires her newspaper, Rey is fired. Smoke booby-traps a copy of the report at a bank, but Joe Napier—head of plant security and an old friend of her father—rescues Rey. Rey finds another copy aboard Sixsmith’s yacht, Starfish. Smoke and Napier kill each other in a shootout. Rey exposes the corrupt corporate leaders, and Sixsmith’s niece later gives her the final eight letters from Frobisher to Sixsmith.

Letters from Zedelghem (Part 2)

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Frobisher continues assisting Ayrs while composing his Cloud Atlas Sextet. He falls for Eva, believing she shares his feelings, despite his affair with her mother. Jocasta, suspicious, threatens him. Ayrs increasingly plagiarizes Frobisher’s work and threatens to accuse him of raping Jocasta if he resists. Despondent, Frobisher rents a hotel room to finish his sextet and dreams of reuniting with Eva, only to learn of her engagement to a Swiss man. Ill and disillusioned, he completes his sextet and writes one final letter to Sixsmith with the sextet and The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing enclosed. Frobisher then sits in a bathtub and ends his life.

The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing (Part 2)

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The ship makes port at Raiatea, where he observes missionaries oppressing the indigenous peoples. On the ship, Ewing falls further ill and realizes that Dr. Goose is poisoning him to steal his possessions. Autua saves Ewing after he is thrown overboard, and Ewing resolves to join the abolitionist movement.

Background and writing

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In an interview with The Paris Review, Mitchell said that the book's title was inspired by the music of the same name by Japanese composer Toshi Ichiyanagi: "I bought the CD just because of that track's beautiful title." Mitchell's previous novel, number9dream, was inspired by music by John Lennon. Both Ichiyanagi and Lennon were husbands of Yoko Ono, and Mitchell has said this fact "pleases me ... though I couldn't duplicate the pattern indefinitely."[1] He has stated that the title and the book address reincarnation and the universality of human nature, with the title referring to both changing elements (a "cloud") and constants (the "atlas").[2]

Mitchell said that Vyvyan Ayrs and Robert Frobisher were inspired by English composer Frederick Delius and his amanuensis Eric Fenby.[3] He has also noted the influence of Russell Hoban's novel Riddley Walker on the Sloosha's Crossin' story.[4]

Reception

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Cloud Atlas received positive reviews from most critics, who felt that it managed to successfully interweave its six stories.[5] On Metacritic, the book received an 82 out of 100 based on 24 critic reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".[6] The Daily Telegraph reported on reviews from several publications with a rating scale for the novel out of "Love It", "Pretty Good", "Ok", and "Rubbish": Times, Independent, Observer, Independent On Sunday, Spectator, and TLS reviews under "Love It" and Daily Telegraph and Sunday Times reviews under "Pretty Good" and Literary Review review under "Ok".[7] According to Book Marks, from American press, the book received a "positive" consensus, based on eleven critics: six "rave", one "positive", and four "mixed".[8] The BookScore gave it an aggregated critic score of 9.0 based on British and American press.[9] In the November/December 2004 issue of Bookmarks, the book was scored four out of five. The magazine's critical summary reads: "Critics on both sides of the Atlantic rave over Cloud Atlas, British novelist Mitchell’s third novel".[10] Globally, the work was received generally well with Complete Review saying on the review consensus, "Not quite a consensus, but most very impressed".[11]

The BBC's Keily Oakes said that although the book's structure could be challenging, "David Mitchell has taken six wildly different stories ... and melded them into one fantastic and complex work."[12] Kirkus Reviews called it "sheer storytelling brilliance."[13] Laura Miller of The New York Times compared it to the "perfect crossword puzzle," in that it was challenging to read but still fun.[14] The Observer's Hephzibah Anderson called it "exhilarating" and commented positively on the links between the stories.[15] In a review for The Guardian, Booker Prize winner A. S. Byatt wrote that it gave "a complete narrative pleasure that is rare."[16] The Washington Post's Jeff Turrentine called it "a highly satisfying, and unusually thoughtful, addition to the expanding 'puzzle book' genre."[17] In its "Books Briefly Noted" section, The New Yorker called it "virtuosic."[18] Marxist literary critic Fredric Jameson found its new, science fiction-inflected variation on the historical novel now "defined by its relation to future fully as much as to past."[19] Richard Murphy said in the Review of Contemporary Fiction that Mitchell had taken core values from his previous novels and built upon them.[20]

Criticism focused on the book's failure to meet its lofty goals. F&SF reviewer Robert K. J. Killheffer praised Mitchell's "talent and inventiveness and willingness to adopt any mode or voice that furthers his ends," but noted that "for all its pleasures, Cloud Atlas falls short of revolutionary."[21] Theo Tait of The Daily Telegraph gave the novel a mixed review, focusing on its clashing themes, saying "it spends half its time wanting to be The Simpsons and the other half the Bible."[22]

In 2019, Cloud Atlas was ranked 9th on The Guardian's list of the 100 best books of the 21st century.[23]

In 2020, Bill Gates recommended it as part of his Summer Reading List.[24]

Awards and nominations

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The book won the Literary Fiction Award at the 2005 British Book Awards and the Richard & Judy Book of the Year Award.[25] It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.[26] It was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 2004,[27] and the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 2005.[28]

Structure and style

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The book has been described as incorporating elements of metafiction,[29] historical fiction, contemporary fiction, (post)apocalyptic writing and science fiction into its narrative.[30][31][32] The book's style was inspired by Italo Calvino's If on a winter's night a traveler, which contains several incomplete, interrupted narratives. Mitchell's innovation was to add a 'mirror' in the centre of his book so that each story could be brought to a conclusion.[33][3]

Mitchell has said of the book:

Literally all of the main characters, except one, are reincarnations of the same soul in different bodies throughout the novel identified by a birthmark ... that's just a symbol really of the universality of human nature. The title itself Cloud Atlas, the cloud refers to the ever changing manifestations of the Atlas, which is the fixed human nature which is always thus and ever shall be. So the book's theme is predacity, the way individuals prey on individuals, groups on groups, nations on nations, tribes on tribes. So I just take this theme and in a sense reincarnate that theme in another context ...[34]

Textual variations

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Academic Martin Paul Eve noticed significant differences in the American and British editions of the book while writing a paper on the book. He noted "an astonishing degree" of variance and that "one of the chapters was almost entirely rewritten".[35] According to Mitchell, who authorized both editions, the differences emerged because the editor assigned to the book at its US publisher left their job, leaving the US version un-edited for a considerable period. Meanwhile, Mitchell and his editor and copy editor in the UK continued to make changes to the manuscript. However, those changes were not passed on to the US publisher, and similarly, when a new editor was assigned to the book at the US publisher and made his own changes, Mitchell did not ask for those to be applied to the British edition, which was very close to being sent to press. Mitchell said: "Due to my inexperience at that stage in my three-book 'career', it hadn't occurred to me that having two versions of the same novel appearing on either side of the Atlantic raises thorny questions over which is definitive, so I didn't go to the trouble of making sure that the American changes were applied to the British version (which was entering production by that point probably) and vice versa."[36]

Film adaptation

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Main article: Cloud Atlas (film)

The novel was adapted to film by directors Tom Tykwer and the Wachowskis. With an ensemble cast to cover the multiple storylines, production began in September 2011 at Studio Babelsberg in Germany. The film was released in North America on 26 October 2012. In October 2012, Mitchell wrote an article in The Wall Street Journal called "Translating 'Cloud Atlas' Into the Language of Film" in which he compared the adapters' work to translating a work into another language.[37]

References

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  1. ^ Begley, Interviewed by Adam (2010). "Paris Review - The Art of Fiction No. 204, David Mitchell". The Paris Review. Vol. Summer 2010, no. 193.
  2. ^ "Against all odds, David Mitchell's novel 'Cloud Atlas' now a film". Akron Beacon Journal. Retrieved 5 January 2024.
  3. ^ a b Turrentine, Jeff (22 August 2004). "Washington Post". Retrieved 19 April 2008.
  4. ^ Mitchell, David (5 February 2005). "The book of revelations". The Guardian. Retrieved 12 August 2020.
  5. ^ "Cloud Atlas". Critics & Writers. Archived from the original on 4 August 2016. Retrieved 12 July 2024.
  6. ^ "Cloud Atlas". Metacritic. Archived from the original on 6 February 2008. Retrieved 2 March 2024.
  7. ^ "Books of the moment: What the papers say". The Daily Telegraph. 6 March 2004. p. 190. Retrieved 19 July 2024.
  8. ^ "Cloud Atlas". Book Marks. Retrieved 11 July 2024.
  9. ^ "Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell". The BookScore. Archived from the original on 1 October 2015. Retrieved 12 July 2024.
  10. ^ "Cloud Atlas By David Mitchell". Bookmarks. Archived from the original on 28 August 2016. Retrieved 14 January 2023.
  11. ^ "Cloud Atlas". Complete Review. 4 October 2023. Retrieved 4 October 2023.
  12. ^ Oakes, Keily (17 October 2004). "Review: Cloud Atlas". BBC. Retrieved 2 August 2012.
  13. ^ "Cloud Atlas Review". Kirkus Reviews. 15 May 2004. Retrieved 2 August 2012.
  14. ^ Miller, Laura (14 September 2004). "Cloud Atlas Review". The New York Times. Retrieved 2 August 2012.
  15. ^ Anderson, Hephzibah (28 February 2004). "Observer Review: Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell". The Observer. Retrieved 2 August 2012.
  16. ^ Byatt, A. S. (28 February 2004). "Review: Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell". The Guardian. Retrieved 2 August 2012.
  17. ^ Turrentine, Jeff (22 August 2004). "Fantastic Voyage". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2 August 2012.
  18. ^ "Cloud Atlas". The New Yorker. 23 August 2004. Retrieved 2 August 2012.
  19. ^ Fredric Jameson, The Antinomies of Realism, London and New York: Verso, 2013, p. 305.
  20. ^ Murphy, Richard (2004). "David Mitchell. Cloud Atlas". The Review of Contemporary Fiction.
  21. ^ "Books", F&SF, April 2005, pp.35-37
  22. ^ Tait, Theo (1 March 2004). "From Victorian travelogue to airport thriller". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 2 August 2012.
  23. ^ "The 100 best books of the 21st century". The Guardian. 21 September 2019. Retrieved 22 September 2019.
  24. ^ Gates, Bill (18 May 2020). "5 summer books and other things to do at home". Gates Notes. Retrieved 13 April 2021.
  25. ^ post, The Conservatism of Cloud Atlas was published on You can annotate or comment upon this (21 June 2015). "The Conservatism of Cloud Atlas". Martin Paul Eve. Retrieved 5 January 2024.
  26. ^ "David Mitchell | The Booker Prizes". thebookerprizes.com. Retrieved 5 January 2024.
  27. ^ Fictions, © 2023 Science; SFWA®, Fantasy Writers Association; Fiction, Nebula Awards® are registered trademarks of Science; America, Fantasy Writers of; SFWA, Inc Opinions expressed on this web site are not necessarily those of. "Cloud Atlas". The Nebula Awards®. Retrieved 5 January 2024.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  28. ^ "The Arthur C. Clarke Award". The Arthur C. Clarke Award. Retrieved 5 January 2024.
  29. ^ Brown, Kevin (2 January 2016). "Finding Stories to Tell: Metafiction and Narrative in David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas". Journal of Language, Literature and Culture. 63 (1): 77–90. doi:10.1080/20512856.2016.1152078. ISSN 2051-2856. S2CID 163407425.
  30. ^ Hicks, Heather J. (2016), Hicks, Heather J. (ed.), ""This Time Round": David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas and the Apocalyptic Problem of Historicism", The Post-Apocalyptic Novel in the Twenty-First Century: Modernity beyond Salvage, New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, pp. 55–76, doi:10.1057/9781137545848_3, ISBN 978-1-137-54584-8, S2CID 144729757, retrieved 5 December 2023
  31. ^ Bayer, Gerd (14 August 2015). "Perpetual Apocalypses: David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas and the Absence of Time". Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction. 56 (4): 345–354. doi:10.1080/00111619.2014.959645. ISSN 0011-1619.
  32. ^ De Cristofaro, Diletta (15 March 2018). ""Time, no arrow, no boomerang, but a concertina": Cloud Atlas and the anti-apocalyptic critical temporalities of the contemporary post-apocalyptic novel". Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction. 59 (2): 243–257. doi:10.1080/00111619.2017.1369386. ISSN 0011-1619. S2CID 165870410.
  33. ^ Mullan, John (12 June 2010). "Guardian book club: Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 6 August 2010.
  34. ^ "Bookclub". BBC Radio 4. June 2007. Retrieved 19 April 2008.
  35. ^ Eve, Martin Paul (10 August 2016). ""You have to keep track of your changes": The Version Variants and Publishing History of David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas". Open Library of Humanities. 2 (2): 1. doi:10.16995/olh.82. ISSN 2056-6700.
  36. ^ Alison Flood (10 August 2016). "Cloud Atlas 'astonishingly different' in US and UK editions, study finds". The Guardian.
  37. ^ Mitchell, David (19 October 2012). "Translating 'Cloud Atlas' Into the Language of Film". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 19 October 2012.

Further reading

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