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)

wonderful

you have to read to understand the amazing stories its pages withold so very good

Cloud Atlas is a remarkable book.

Excellent writing and interweaving stories of significance. Alll the readers were also very good. the movie could not do justice to the depth of this book.

Awesome book

Thoroughly enjoyed the production of the book!! Narrators were wonderful, really brought the book to life. I would recommend this book to everyone!!

Steady Roll Downhill

This book starts a bit confusing and only gets worse. Once I caight on to the general idea, I rather enjoyed part 2. Part is a disjointed and tedious mess. It's so bad I had to give it up for a while---that Hawiian guy was driving me nuts. It is like listening to some street dude drone on poinlessly for hours.

It never really comes back together. Sometimes novel ideas are bad ideas for novels. This doesn't work.

Not as dramatic as the movie, but subtly strong

There's probably a whole lot of room for analysis in the various parts of the stories. I haven't the mind for doing it, since it brings me back to writing analytical essays on The Great Gatsby back in school once upon a time.

If you enjoyed the film version of this, I recommend the book for the completion of certain details on the Sonmi timeline, which is far more complicated than the movie is able to show you.

That said, Luisa Rey's part 2 story kind of made me consider beating myself with a heated toaster. It started to feel like it was making stuff up in order to fill a word count, so that it wasn't shorter than the rest of the book's parts.

The storytelling pace is pretty different, given the way the story is broken up. You really have to look at each piece as its own set of storytelling goals. The last part, for example, is not particularly any more dramatic than the second-to-last, or the third.

At times, I felt as though the themes described by the author are perhaps themselves more interesting than the stories the author chose to describe those themes. In other words, he tells you a story and makes you think about X and Y, which are themselves the interesting topics. The characters and stories are sometimes less memorable, by comparison.

Good book, but I wouldn't rush it if you've got your eye on something else.

Interesting but flamboyant

I found the stories entertaining, with some interesting visuals and even funny situations. Frankly though, and I don't mean to insult my intelligence, I found the author’s writing style hard to follow, and rather flamboyant at times. The author's use of the English language is quite impressive, but does he have to make a delivery effort to make it difficult to understand?

This audio book is very difficult listen when it shouldn't. The stories are at times interesting, but frankly not too exciting, hence the need to be flamboyant.

Great "read", murky message

So, I was wondering what the point was & in the end I got it all laid out for me. A moral preaching. I thought there was an error in the recording when suddenly the first section just cut off in mid-sentence (could never figure out what the purpose of that was). Despite these oddities, I really enjoyed the book. It's engaging, keeps you wondering.

Cloud Atlas: An experience

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

The story was engaging and enthralling. The performances were done by a different actor for each story arc, giving the strong sense of jumping forward and backward, as the story does.

What other book might you compare Cloud Atlas to and why?

While it is not a book, the Movie Memento (2000) has a similar plot arrangement wherein the story is not told A to B but rather meets in the middle.

Which scene was your favorite?

The ordeal of Timothy Cavandish was a laugh riot and an exciting escape story.

If you could rename Cloud Atlas, what would you call it?

I've never been good with names but Cloud Atlas is spot on.

A joy from start to finish

If you could sum up Cloud Atlas in three words, what would they be?

Unique, breathtaking, soulful

What other book might you compare Cloud Atlas to and why?

Cloud Atlas is unique in my experience

What does the narrators bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

More than most books, this one seems made to be listened to. There are six characters whose storylines weave together to form the novel. It lends itself perfectly to having six different narrators.

If you could take any character from Cloud Atlas out to dinner, who would it be and why?

SonMie--but I wouldn't take her out to dinner (the question makes me feel like I'm doing a book report in middle school). I would just like to dwell in her presence for a while.

Any additional comments?

I didn't want it to end. As soon as I finished listening I went back and listened to specific characters' stories again.

What a book!

It is written so well, throws you into a sea of emotions and existential questions!