Cloud Atlas: A blurb about the book

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell


     As I a writer, I understand what it is like to have several short stories filed away at the back of the closet. There is sometimes the urge to tie those short stories together with a few hooks, and a piece of thread and form a novel. This urge should be avoided at all costs, even by a writer as talented as David Mitchell.
     Let me just say that Cloud Atlas is a collection of wonderful short stories. Each one has a unique voice. They are from different genres, and written in different styles which makes each one distinct and memorable, so that when the stories are broken up and interspersed one among the other, the reader is still able to travel from one time to another without becoming too confused. I say 'too' confused, because it is a little confusing trying to figure out exactly what it is that connects one story to another. Is it the birthmark? Is it the music, or the orison? Is it the clouds themselves? It would be better if the connection was intrinsic to the plot of each story, instead it seems like a mash up of coincidences and gimmicks.
     One of my favorite things about Mitchell's stories is that they move forward in time, via a car chase, or by boat, or even on foot. At some point in time they vicariously intersect. One character knew another, or one heard the other one's music, or one saw the other one's hologram, or one read the diary of another. Whenever we get bogged down in allegorical wish wash we somehow manage to plow forward.
     My least favorite story was An Orison Of Sonmi-451. The prose was regurgitated, like a voice over that would not shut up. It strikes me as a treatment for a screenplay. To be honest, they could have made a cool sci-fi movie out of this story alone, but no they had to get greedy. My favorite story was The Ghastly Ordeal Of Timothy Cavendish. It was written in a pithy, dishy voice that made me want to hear more. I can't even remember what connection it had to the other stories and I don't care. Maybe this is why I liked it.
     I love reading short stories. I think they are an art form unto themselves. Unfortunately, my gut tells me that somewhere a publisher told Mitchell that they couldn't publish it this way, and could he possibly turn it into a novel? People used to read short stories in magazines and now magazines are all side bars. I wish David Mitchell could have found a proper home for each of these excellent stories.
     The most annoying thing about the movie tie-in version is that the last few pages are an essay by Mitchell called Based On The Novel By. Just When I think I have a few more pages of the story to read, boom, it abruptly ends and I'm subjected to this giggly name dropping story about how the novel was turned into a movie. It's the most pretentious thing I've read in a long, long time
     I haven't seen the movie, and don't know how I'd be able to sit through it now that I've read the book because all I will be thinking is , how did they make a movie out of this beautiful mess?


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