Cloud Atlas

A Novel

By: David Mitchell

Narrated by: Scott Brick, Cassandra Campbell, Kim Mai Guest, Kirby Heyborne, John Lee, Richard Matthews

Length: 19 hrs and 48 mins

Publisher's summary

By the New York Times best-selling author of The Bone Clocks

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize

A postmodern visionary and one of the leading voices in 21st-century fiction, David Mitchell combines flat-out adventure, a Nabokovian love of puzzles, a keen eye for character, and a taste for mind-bending, philosophical, and scientific speculation in the tradition of Umberto Eco, Haruki Murakami, and Philip K. Dick. The result is brilliantly original fiction as profound as it is playful. In this groundbreaking novel, an influential favorite among a new generation of writers, Mitchell explores with daring artistry fundamental questions of reality and identity.

Cloud Atlas begins in 1850 with Adam Ewing, an American notary voyaging from the Chatham Isles to his home in California. Along the way, Ewing is befriended by a physician, Dr. Goose, who begins to treat him for a rare species of brain parasite.... Abruptly, the action jumps to Belgium in 1931, where Robert Frobisher, a disinherited bisexual composer, contrives his way into the household of an infirm maestro who has a beguiling wife and a nubile daughter.... From there we jump to the West Coast in the 1970s and a troubled reporter named Luisa Rey, who stumbles upon a web of corporate greed and murder that threatens to claim her life.... And onward, with dazzling virtuosity, to an inglorious present-day England; to a Korean superstate of the near future where neo-capitalism has run amok; and, finally, to a post-apocalyptic Iron Age Hawaii in the last days of history.

But the story doesn’t end even there. The narrative then boomerangs back through centuries and space, returning by the same route, in reverse, to its starting point. Along the way, Mitchell reveals how his disparate characters connect, how their fates intertwine, and how their souls drift across time like clouds across the sky.

As wild as a videogame, as mysterious as a Zen koan, Cloud Atlas is an unforgettable tour de force that, like its incomparable author, has transcended its cult-classic status to become a worldwide phenomenon.

List of readers:

• The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing, read by Scott Brick
• Letters from Zedelghem, read by Richard Matthews
• Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery, read by Cassandra Campbell
• The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish, read by John Lee
• An Orison of Sonmi-451, read by Kim Mai Guest
• Sloosha’s Crossin’ an’ Ev’rythin’ After, read by Kirby Heyborne

This audiobook is available exclusively as an audio download!

Note to customers: The complicated format of this novel makes it seem that the audio may be cutting off before the end of a story, accompanied by a change in narrator. However, this is the author's intention, so please continue to listen, and the stories will conclude themselves as intended.

©2004 David Mitchell (P)2004 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

• 2005 Audie Award Nominee, Literary Fiction

"[Mitchell's] exuberant, Nabokovian delight in word play; his provocative grapplings with the great unknowables; and most of all his masterful storytelling: all coalesce to make Cloud Atlas an exciting, almost overwhelming masterpiece." ( Washington Times)

"[ Cloud Atlas] glows with a fizzy, dizzy energy, pregnant with possibility and whispering in your ear: listen closely to a story, any story, and you'll hear another story inside it, eager to meet the world." ( The Village Voice)

"A remarkable book....It knits together science fiction, political thriller, and historical pastiche with musical virtuosity and linguistic exuberance: there won't be a bigger, bolder novel next year." ( The Guardian)

Love it

It was amazing. I laughed, I loved, I cried. 10 out of 10 would read again.

So dope

This should be required reading in school or something like that, so so good. Transcends even itself in the thoughts it inspires

narration skills lacking in this prest

I live this book. I love the movie. I love it's message. listening to it was a disappointment. The male and female narrators were, boring. Cavendish saves it with his narration, making the pages come alive. Best recommendation? Read the book or watch the movie.

This might be better to read in print

I saw the movie several years ago and thought it was profound. I was searching for a thought provoking read and thought I'd revisit the title in book form. I already knew the gist of the story and appreciated the details expressed in the book that weren't fleshed out on film. However, I had a bit of trouble keeping up since parts were very fast paced. I had to go back a few times to see if I missed a nuance of connection. I loved the story and the premise but I think it could be better appreciated by reading it in print form. 😉

Top 5 of all time

I was completely floored by this masterpiece. Perhaps one of the finest novels ever written.

Clever writing

This "novel" is really 6 short stories. The gimmick is that the second story starts in the middle of the first and the third starts in the middle of the second and so on. Only the sixth story is complete and then we get the finish of the fifth, fourth, third, second and first stories. The stories occur in the 1840s, 1930s, 1970s, present, 100+ years, 200+ years.

On one level, the author is making his philosophical point that mankind is inheritently greedy and willing to kill and enslave other humans. The ultimate result is a corpocracy that destroys everything as we see in the final two stories.

On another level is a great wordsmith who gives each story a different voice and even a different language while staying true to his message. In the second story, a composer writes to his physicist friend(see third story) that he has conceived a major work which he will call the "Cloud Atlas Sextette." Each of the six parts will be a different instrument and will be interrupted by the next part and finished in descending order by the remaining parts: 12345654321. The composer asks: Is this a conceit or genius? And each listener should probably ask the same question.

The readers are excellent and it is immediately clear which of the six stories is being read. There are a lot of interesting discussion issues raised by this book. I would buy it again but I imagine that many would not really enjoy it.

Brilliant

I've contemplated listening to this book for quite some time, but was wary because of some negative reviews. I am so glad I took the risk. This may be one of the most brilliantly written and narrated books I've experienced. Even if one doesn't immediately get all the connections between the stories, each one is noteworthy in inself. I found myself thinking back on it long after it was complete. I definitely need a second listen, and look forward to it.

Great narration

Where does Cloud Atlas rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

This is an interesting book ... I think you either really like or you don't. This is in the top 1/3rd of what I have listened to.

If you’ve listened to books by David Mitchell before, how does this one compare?

This is the first.

Have you listened to any of the narrators’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Loved the narration. It really helped with the different stories ... and I particularly like the last segment on Hawaii. Intriguing.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

I have a tough time seeing how a film of this book would work. And based on the previews on TV, I am not confident that it will turn out well.

Any additional comments?

As others have noted, this is actually a series of short stories ... some are connected better than others.

Not difficult to keep track of the characters

I don't know why some reviewers think this is a difficult listen. Maybe they just have too many other things going on while they listen to audiobooks. Focus people! ; )

It's a very entertaining story and I had no trouble following.

Ok, but not really living up to all the hype

Any additional comments?

Just prior to buying this audiobook I bought the hardcover Cloud Atlas. But it turned out it was a different novel, author Callanan. So I listened to this book (nice) and then read the other, wondering if it was in any way inspired by the more famous one. Answer, no. A completely different story, one about WWII and the little hot air balloon bombs sent aloft to the west coast of America by the Japanese as part of their war effort. It's also about some characters who seem soaked in Catch 22 sensibility, a love story involving a clairvoyant Eskimo and choices we all make about life and death. And I must say, I enjoyed it more. Relevance? If like me you've been caught up in the hype about the Mitchell book, it may prove a little disappointing. It certainly has merit and some sections are very strong, but others much less so. Be tolerant if you come on the ride.