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)

Sort of interesting sextet

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Sure. It was interesting how each story took some time to understand what was going on and what was being said.

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

No other book compares with any in my library.

What about the narrators’s performance did you like?

The multiple narrators kept the story fresh and interesting. Although I did have some difficulty listing to story 6's narrator.

Who was the most memorable character of Cloud Atlas and why?

Timothy Cavendish. Most funny story in the book.

Any additional comments?

This was an interesting read for someone who has patience. I am looking forward to "hearing" the song, Cloud Atlas Sextet in the movie. Also, maybe the movie can clarify some parts of the book.

Best AudioBook of the century?

Would you listen to Cloud Atlas again? Why?

If you love the English language and all of its great authors, you will love this book and this audio performance. I can only compare this to Moby Dick in its complexity or Charles Dickens in its story telling. The audio recording would have delighted Orson Wells. What is wonderful about this book is that it moves along at a nice clip, with stories that make you laugh out loud or gasp. Your mind is intoxicated. I am half way through the book and my greatest fear is that the book will end and I will have to rejoin the real world.

David Mitchell is a genius, the actors superb.

"Innovative or Gimmicky?" Definitely Gimmicky

The book is the literary equivalent to the really bad joke that half way through the telling the jokester has to explain the joke.

The book's gimmick is explained near the end of the book just in case you missed it during the telling.

None of the 6 stories are particularly engaging and using the gimmick of the book to tie them all together is at best a very tenuous thread.

Overall, I did not enjoy the book very much. The performers did a great job the but story is neither entertaining nor engaging.

As Frobesher says "one won't know if it will work until it is done". It didn't work, at least not for me.

What did I just finish?

Overall, this was a good listen, however I am very confused by the ending. I'm not sure I comprehended the story. It was interesting how all the separate stories connected with each other, but I can't say I understand the story. The author did a great job creating individual characters and grasping how characters from different time periods spoke, so that is what kept me moving forward. Now I just need someone to help me understand the story.

Easy listening it ain't

This is an extremely clever book filled with nuances and devices that would, I think, be better appreciated in the written form; to state the obvious, it's much easier to flip back in a book than it is to scan back on a listening device. But you (who am I kidding, I mean me; it's all about me) feel pretty darned smart while listening to the second half of the book when you find that not only do you really get it, but that you are also able to make "aha" connections between parts early on in the book that made almost no sense at the time. This isn't a mystery (although one of the stories within the book does take the form of a mystery, of sorts) but I often felt as if I would have been better able to keep up with the story if I had been taking notes; then again, that probably would have interfered with my ability to sleep on the subway while listening to some of this book. On an almost entirely positive note, some of the narration is excellent and the fact that the book is split up into six different stories with different narrators makes it very easy on the ear, if a little taxing on the brain.

I am confused

on 1st story and the reader reads so fast I cannot keep up with what is going on. I will keep listening

5 stars for 5

This novel is comprised of five very distinct stories all incorporating the theme, as Dr. Goose put it, "the weak are meat and the strong eat." The stories are wedding cake tiered upon each other meaning 4 of the stories are split into 2 parts with only the 5th, top tier, being told from beginning to end. Readers beware that the first story ends in the middle of a sentence so that you'll think something is wrong with the recording. None of the other stories do that.

Two of the stories are voiced with English accents, which I found a liitle disconcerting for the first several minutes, but I soon became accustomed. Actually, I was compelled to pay attention to the conversation (mostly first person narrative) due shearly to the fact that David Mitchell is so witty, humorous, and cleaver, I didn't want to miss anything.

I've never heard anything like the top tier story told from a Pacific Islander point of view. The Pidgen English of this narrative was also a little disconcerting at first, but after awhile I found myself marveling at the amazing vocabulary the author put together to pull this off. It must have taken an enormous amount of time and research.

I picked this book due to the good reviews and I'll pass it forward, though not for anyone looking for a light read.

Strung out across centuries

This far-reaching set of interconnected stories has a lot of reach, and it takes you many hours of listening before you start to put it together. When you do, it's a fascinating concept carried to a conclusion that gets stretched a bit. The writing is virtuosic; as Mitchell jumps between centuries, so do his dialog and style.

Disjointed

While the individual stories are interesting, the connection between them is tenuous and not inspiring. This is the first in aprox. 20 audio books that I haven't been able to make myself finish.

skip the movie, skip the book - do audio!

What made the experience of listening to Cloud Atlas the most enjoyable?

Excellent narration! I watched the movie afterwards and it stunk. The audio book easily ties all the story lines together and the different voices and accents make it difficult to put down.

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

Unique. I've never read (Listened to) anything like it.

Which scene was your favorite?

The guy in the old folks home was hilarious from the start. I replayed parts from this section over and over and kept laughing.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

It was an experience. You have to listen to this audio to get the whole deal. Better than ANY movie I've seen in the past year.

Any additional comments?

SKIP THE MOVIE AND THE BOOK........this one was MADE for audio!