Cloud Atlas (20th Anniversary Edition)

ByDavid Mitchell & Gabrielle Zevin

Release Date: 2004-08-17
Genre: Literary Fiction

Score: 4.5

4.5

From 1,287 Ratings

Description

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A new edition of the timeless, structure-bending classic that explores how actions of individual lives impact the past, present and future—from a postmodern visionary and one of the leading voices in fiction

Features a new afterword by David Mitchell and a new introduction by Gabrielle Zevin, author of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

One of the New York Times’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century • Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize • A Kirkus Reviews Best Fiction Book of the Century

Cloud Atlas begins in 1850 with Adam Ewing, an American notary voyaging from the Chatham Isles to his home in California. Ewing is befriended by a physician, Dr. Goose, who begins to treat him for a rare species of brain parasite. The novel careens, with dazzling virtuosity, to Belgium in 1931, to the West Coast in the 1970s, to an inglorious present-day England, to a Korean superstate of the near future where neocapitalism has run amok, and, finally, to a postapocalyptic Iron Age Hawaii in the last days of history.

But the story doesn’t end even there. The novel boomerangs back through centuries and space, returning by the same route, in reverse, to its starting point. Along the way, David 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 video game, 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.

Reviews

Cloud Atlas Hilarious
5
By music9man
A thoughtful but hilarious romp about civilization’s misguided dictators. Music9man
Yawn
2
By Sdfrdeghfrjed
I thought it would be better than the movie but not really
Wonderful but...
4
By leavin
This book is a work of art in terms of character development and interlocking stories. HOWEVER if you have not experienced the writing style of David Mitchell or seen Cloud Atlas as the movie first, this book may be a bit challenging and quite extraneous to read. It's a whole collection of stories that effortlessly fit together if you can open your mind to the differences and similarities of each character and their time period. It is an amazing book and I have never read anything like it before. It's weirdly strange, yet so utterly captivating!
Wonderful
5
By LC in PHX
This novel was amazing from start to finish. The first jump between characters was a little disconcerting but I found myself quickly immersed in each new narrative. The quality of the writing is so vivid that it's more like watching a movie in your head than reading a book. I will definitely be reading the author's other works, and can't wait to see the movie based on this one.
A masterpiece!
5
By Jon Les
Sometimes I sit on my balcony, watch the traffic and just think about life. What is it all about; what’s the point? What does my life amount to? I don’t mean this in the whiny or sad way, more in the pensive/intellectual way. I had always kind of come up with a blank at the end of my thoughts, that is, until I read Cloud Atlas. I know that the book, and subsequent movie, are quite divisive, so I’m not going to tell you that this book is going to change your life or that it’s going to be some majorily profound expereince for you. However, in some small way, the book did change mine. David Mitchell’s masterpiece somehow managed to teach me about what it’s all about.

There’s one other interesting thing I learned reading this book. The simplest of all messages can take in excess of 500 pages to really convey. It’s the beauty of the written word, and something that Mitchell thoroughly taps into. To be honest, the central message of this book has been done before. It has just never been done quite like this—or anything like this for that matter.

This is one of those books i’ll be coming back to for a very long time.
Excellent
5
By Sailing Sue
The characters Mr. Mitchell creates are so imaginative and strong. I will be thinking about this book for a long time to come.
Excellent book.
5
By Crazy MikeF
Reading this book helped to understand some of the elements of the movie. I have a bad habit of starting to watch a movie hafway in, then getting around to watching the beginning of the flick. You can't do that with this film adaptation. So i read the book. Very well written. Is this a new genre? Multiple story lines, seemingly different but tied together by trascendental threads woven throughout? I found this book very mentally challenging - but there is a reward for the reader that sees it thru.
Crud Atlas
1
By Chandler Court
This book came highly recommended and I was highly disappointed. I found the Luisa Rey and Sonmi characters too bland and virtuous and the Timothy Cavendish and Robert Frobisher characters too whiny and craven. The chapter in future Hawaiian pidgin was just annoying. It's okay not to like business or capitalism, but the future as imagined here seems to consist entirely of recycled clichés from bad science fiction movies made in the last 40 years from Soylent Green to Running Man to Rollerball. I was told this book was groundbreaking but I found it boring, heavy-handed and derivative.
Lucciano
3
By JCLucci
Very difficult to follow theme in this book, not sure what author was trying to convey. Maybe when I see the movie the answers will reveal themselves.
Cloud Atlas
2
By Really258
Ugh. Scattered and confusing. Not what I thought it was going to be. Very loosely associated in "lives". I struggled through this book to my disappointment.