by Perry Cox

Created on: May 15, 2008   Last Updated: July 01, 2010

"Cloud Atlas" by David Mitchell was nominated for the Booker Prize; received rave reviews and has been touted as one of the greatest reads of all time. As such I delayed reading it for many months. After all, I was bound to be disappointed. "Cloud Atlas" is a novel told in six parts. Telling the tale of six radically different, yet undoubtedly linked lives it is a disjointed mish mash of a book. Rather than a novel this book reads like a collection of short stories combined by a loose connection and this is its strength and ultimately its weakness.

Covering six lives in vastly different times and places is daring, unique and refreshing as it moves away from the writer's obsession with structure, chapters and linearity. Instead Mitchell offers the reader a variety of writing styles as each of the six sections are told from different perspectives be it an unwitting American Adam Ewing, hero to a stowaway Moriori. This native is one of the last of his tribe following the Maori's ceaseless slaughter. Or that of Somni-451 a fabricant/clone who works in a futuristic Mc Donald's ceaselessly with no rest. Other sections of note include an opportunistic musician intent on fame and fortune at any cost and a young journalist determined to live up to the reputation of her father despite the danger she finds herself in. Add to this an old bookseller who finds himself unwittingly in the unfamiliar surroundings of a Nursing Home and we have a wide array of characters.

As you can see the time differences between the sections are huge and Mitchell reflects this in his varying styles. Each story is told from the point of view of its protagonist and Mitchell gives himself the task of writing in the style of that time. As such Adam Ewing writes in the descriptive language of an intelligent man in the 17th Century whereas Somni-451 tells her tale in a monotone fashion indicative of her life in slavery. Each narrative Mitchell achieves with varying degrees of success but on the whole all six sections left me in no doubt of his ability as he crosses genres effortlessly and provides convincing settings and interesting characters to peruse.

Mitchell's characters are a very strange bunch as I found it difficult to gain much empathy for them or their various plights. Their motives seemed largely selfish and Mitchell seems to be saying that motives are not an issue as long as the end result is worthwhile. The various settings however do invoke a variety of emotions with one tale leaving

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