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)

Astonishing, startling, and wonderful

This book eclipses any other I have read to date. Truly a masterpiece beyond prediction.
While listening, I felt a growing build-up until reaching the climax right at the middle of the book. Afterwards, as the stories are completed one by one, a feeling of incremental learning is provided.
The narration is remarkable. Each story is accompanied by a unique pace and expression.

Fantastic storytelling!

I literally just finished this book and I'm giving this 4.5 stars rounded down for now, but I have a feeling I'll probably end up changing it soon because if my gut is right, this book is going to live rent-free in my head for a while. This usually means I'll round my rating up instead of down but we'll see how I feel after giving my thoughts and feelings time to marinate for a little bit!

I think this is gonna be a tough book to review because I can't really get into it without spoilers as all the stories have a string of fate interconnecting them and it's hard to talk about them separately. Not only that, I feel like there's something about this book that's unexplainable and that you have to read it for yourself to experience and appreciate its brilliance. It's beautifully complex, whimsical and fantastical—what an imagination David Mitchell has and he's done an incredible job executing it! I have to admit that I initially struggled to get through the first chapters but I listened along with the audiobook this time and it really helped me get over that first hurdle. Honestly, I'm so glad that it made me want to keep reading because otherwise, I would've missed out on such a great book! Also, I would definitely recommend the audiobook as the performances by the various actors were done quite well and made everything come even more to life—my personal faves were Frobisher and Cavendish.

Cloud Atlas links the stories of six individuals—Adam Ewing, Robert Frobisher, Luisa Rey, Timothy Cavendish, Sonmi-451 and Zachary, and follows a timeline that spans from the 1800s to a post-apocalyptic future that sees a decimated world where humanity must re-evolve from hunters and gatherers once more. The overall arc is told in such a unique way and it's a bit hard to explain but it's basically like following a pyramid structure as the stories build upward until we hit the peak and then come back down again as each storyline and character arc concludes with stronger ties to one another. I loved the string of interconnectedness that winds through and connects each story in some way, although I thought this aspect was stronger on the other side of the pyramid as the stories concluded. By that point, I had also developed such a connection with certain characters that I found myself in tears by the time their stories ended—it was surprisingly very emotional!

I think the way Cloud Atlas is told really showcases Mitchell's brilliance because of how well he manages to not only give distinct voices to his characters but also manages to create vivid settings and events through the use of multiple formats such as diary entries, letters, interviews, and even stream of consciousness. Not only that but his use of languages was amazing; from the formal overtones of the 1800s to the newly made-up verbiage in the futuristic corpocracy to a de-evolved form of (what I think was) Hawaiian pidgin in the post-apocalypse. The stories also touch on various genres, from historical fiction to thriller/mystery, and science-fiction and all of them were just so well-written, you'd think that the author writes in all those genres all the time! This book was humorous and entertaining but also tackles heavy topics like slavery, exploitation, social injustices, poverty and inequality, consumerism, and the human capacity for greed and power. My mind was truly blown by how much it encompassed and I appreciated the writing so much!

Overall, I'm so glad that I finally ended up reading this book as it's one that I've had sitting on my shelf for the longest time! I'm so glad that I didn't give it away before giving it another shot because I have a feeling this will slowly work its way into my all-time favourites list. I'm also kind of tempted to check out the movie because the trailer looks brilliant and part of me wants to see these characters and stories come to life but I already spotted a few differences and I'm kind of worried that it just won't live up to my expectations! Has anyone read the book and watched the movie and if you have, was the movie (comparably) good/would you recommend it?

It took a long time to understand what was happening.

This was very we’ll preform and liked the story over all. Fuck they want my opinion. Pretty fantastic if you see it through.

Great performances

Best preformed audiobook I’ve found. Switching gears can be abrasive for a second but they’ll draw you in and take you home.

Old Favorite

One of my favorites books of all time. Love the Russian Doll structure of the narrative. The weaving of the different stories unfolding and overlapping has captivated me for years. I always feel I pick up on some details I've missed every time I reread.

thoroughly enjoyed

Initially, I was concerned that I had made a mistake in choosing this book. Some of the reviews made me skittish and the first (of six) parts is quite difficult to listen to because of it's archaic language. In addition, this first part can make you worry that the book isn't going anywhere.
My patience was rewarded for the rest of the book however, and I include the very end-that picks up the tale of this first part again and is much easier to listen to 2nd time 'round.
The readers are all wonderful, but especially the reader of the sixth part. The sixth part also has strange language. But the reader is so good, that I was totally hooked by the second paragraph.
The overall plot was, at first, hard to find. The story is so temporally disorienting that I had to let go for a while and just enjoy the little subplots as they lay. I noticed little gems of connection and filed them away for later.
Then somewhere in the middle, revelation happened and I began to see Mitchell's point: Our past predicts our future, everything is cyclical and EVERYTHING is connected.
That which sails hopefully to an island paradise must later row from it in horror. (I promise that wasn't a plot spoiler in any way) These connections are perfectly nuanced and so finely finessed, that I didn't see them at first. (I suspect this was meant to be; by one of the finest writers of our time.)

I rarely read or listen to a book more than once but I am already looking forward to revisiting this again someday.

I laughed often with the kindly Mr. Cavendish


I will start by saying that the ghastly ordeal of Timothy Cavendish was a particularly clever bit of writing.



I am not entirely sure of all the subtleties that may fit his story, with that of the other five stories in Cloud Atlas(if any exist), but a more careful reading sometime in the future may explain it better to me. The other stories were also interesting, and I liked them all in varying degrees. 



Cloud Atlas is one of those books I may actually consider reading again, and that is saying a lot (I very rarely read a book twice). 



If you are contemplating paying a credit for this download, you should be aware however, that this book has a somewhat unconventional plot-thread(?) consisting of six stories. Each story is read or observed by the person in the next story. Each story ends abruptly, except the sixth story, which is finished at once. At this point the novel goes back to each of the other five stories to 'end' them, ending with the first last.




The six stories are: 



The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing

Pacific Ocean, circa 1850.



Letters from Zedelghem

Zedelgem, Belgium, 1931.



Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery.

Buenas Yerbas, California, 1975.



The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish

United Kingdom, early 21st century.



An Orison of Sonmi~451

Nea So Copros (Korea), dystopian near future.



Sloosha's Crossin' an' Ev'rythin' After

Hawaii, post-apocalyptic distant future.

evocative

One of my favorite books ever, partly because of its unusual structure. Cloud Atlas isn't really a novel in a traditional sense, but six stories nested inside each other. Mitchell writes each vignette in a wildly different setting and style, and offers only the slightest of devices linking each one to the next. There's a 19th century seafaring tale, a sardonic coming-of-age story set in the 30s, a piece after a 1970s suspense paperback, and... well, I won't give away the others. The lack of much direct connection between stories is the sort of choice that some readers will admire and some will think reduces the whole work to an exercise in self-indulgence.

I fall into the former camp. Mitchell has the virtuosity to make his design work, and each character voice, though very different from the preceding one, rings true. I think that readers who are looking for a clever device to tie it all together, obvious closure, or a sense of how seriously the author means us to take his fanciful constructs, are missing the point. I find this be a work that creates a series of impressions, like paintings or tracks on a music album, and lets them float together in the reader's mind, their mood and tone forming moving but elusive connections in the imagination. In this case, the sense of struggle and incompleteness that each story evokes in its turn came across in a way I found beautiful and affecting, even in the way one world gave way to the next without warning. The cyclical structure of the book and its recurring patterns reminded me of Buddhist ideas. Don't try to read Cloud Atlas just for plot, or you'll be disappointed; read it for the writing, conviction, imagery, and artistry.

What can I add?

I think my headline says it all. After spending such an indescribably wonderful time in the universe of Cloud Atlas, I have emerged with the understanding that I can't add anything to what has been written before.

This was a transcendent experience. The story structure could have been a gimmick. The various genres could have been a mess. The relative looseness of all of this could have been silly. None of that happened. Instead, David Mitchell has crafted a book that has everything I could have possibly asked for. It has six interlocking stories, each with its own merits and fascination. The end of the story, when I thought it would finish with a wimper (although a great wimper!), finished strong, bringing home the entire reason the novel exists. It was this finish that left me wholly satisfied.

Among the best books I've ever experienced. I cannot recommend it any more than I am trying here. Just read it, listen to it, experience it. You will not be disappointed.

"Hold out your hands, look. . . "

Cloud Atlas (2004) is a composite novel comprised of six different stories, each one set in a different time and place, including Belgium in 1931 and Hawaii in the far future; each one featuring a different protagonist, including a conservative 19th-century American notary and a revolutionary future Korean clone; each one belonging to a different genre, including an epistolary novel and a campfire tale; each one evoking a different mood, including suspense and black comedy; and each one featuring an aptly different style (vocabulary, syntax, and orthography), including an elegant Oscar Wildean British English and a lyrical post-apocalypse transformed English ala Russell Hoban's Riddley Walker. Author David Mitchell's ability to make each story strand and voice unique and convincing is impressive, as is his clever arrangement and compassionate linking of the six stories, which refer backwards and forwards to each other in increasingly meaningful ways.

Tying the whole thing together is a set of potent themes relating to memory, history, story, identity, human nature, civilization, the past, and the future. "The mighty [Edward] Gibbon" and his masterpiece, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, are often referred to and quoted ("History is little more than the record of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind"), and most of Mitchell's inter-nested stories concern the heroic attempt of fallible individuals in a moment of crisis to try to make a better future by standing up for another person or for themselves or for the truth and so defusing the default predatory human mode of greed, will to power, and cruelty. In short, the novel is about the growth of the human soul in eras and cultures inimical to it.

The following excerpts from the novel demonstrate its richness and range of voices:

"My eyes adjusted to the gloom & revealed a sight at once indelible, fearsome & sublime. First one, then ten, then hundreds of faces emerged from the perpetual dim, adzed by idolaters into bark, as if Sylvan spirits were frozen immobile by a cruel enchanter. No adjectives may properly delineate that basilisk tribe! Only the inanimate may be so alive."

"I've manipulated people for advancement, lust, or loans, but never for the roof over my head."

"I saw my first dawn over the Kangwon-Do Mountains. I cannot describe what I felt. The Immanent Chairman's one true son, its molten lite, petro-clouds. His dome of sky. . . Why did the entire conurb not grind to a halt and give praise in the face of such ineluctable beauty?"

"In my new tellin', see, I wasn't Zachry the Stoopit nor Zachry the Cowardy. I was jus' Zachry the Unlucky'n'Lucky. Lies are Old Georgie's vultures what circle on high lookin' down for a runty'n'weedy soul to plummet'n'sink their talons in, an' that night at Abel's Dwellin', that runty'n'weedy soul, yay, it was me."

"What wouldn't I give now for a never-changing map of the ever-constant ineffable, to possess as it were an atlas of clouds."

Perhaps the thriller story feels odd-man-out by having the only third person narration and generally seeming less convincing than its fellows (though I suspect that may partly be Mitchell's point). The intimations of reincarnation glimpsed in most of the stories sit a bit uncomfortably with me. In the brave new corprocratic dystopia of Mitchell's first future, I'd think that more likely brand names would become nouns than "fords" for cars and "sonys" for computer/smart phones (though "starbucks" for coffee and "nikes" for tennis shoes sure sound right). And because the stories of Cloud Atlas progress from the past to the future and back again, each ending in mid-crisis on the way forward, I found the first half of the novel when I had no idea what kind of story would start in each new section more intriguing than the second when the aborted stories conclude, albeit suspensefully.

The six readers (four male, two female) of the audiobook are mostly quite good, especially Simon Vance as Robert Frobisher and John Lee as Timothy Cavendish, both men relishing Mitchell's spot on articulate, brilliant, cynical, educated British English for those two characters, and Cassandra Campbell was perfectly dignified, resigned, and hopeful as Sonmi-451.

At one point, Mitchell's disinherited young British bisexual composer writes to his soul mate about Cloud Atlas, his "sextet for overlapping soloists, piano, clarinet, cello, flute, obo, violin, each in its own language of key, scale and color. In the first set each solo is interrupted by its successor. In the second each interruption is continued in order. Revolutionary or gimmicky?" This obviously describes the novel. So is it revolutionary or gimmicky? I think it falls between those two poles, being too coherent to be revolutionary and too well-written and heart-felt to be gimmicky.