I felt it was time to write my Cloud Atlas
review. Beware, there will be spoilers ahead. And lots of them. I will summarize the story
so I can make my point. If you haven't
read the book and you don't want to be spoiled, stay away from this review.
Thank you for your understanding.
The book is divided in 6 sections, each one
telling the story of a different character in a different kind of narrative.
The language changes according to the period, and the way the story is told
represents an important aspect of the characters' lives or personalities.
The first part, 'The Pacific Journal of Adam
Ewing', tells the story of an young American man and his voyages through the
Pacific. The story is told by his own hand, in the form of a journal, as you
may have already guessed by the title. But that isn't just it: it is a
published journal. The journal was published and edited by Ewing's son, as some
footnotes show. The journal is missing some pieces in the beginning, and it
also ends abruptly, in the middle of a sentence. Ewing is an interesting,
albeit annoying, character. He is self centered and very naive. But it isn't
until the next part of the book that some things, that we might have already
guessed, become clear.
This is actually something I really liked in
this book. All narratives are connected, and not only superficially. We
understand the characters better through the eyes of the other characters, we
understand their motivations and, sometimes, we even question what we know
about them and how we should approach them.
Some people argue that the style of the
narrative can be seen as 'gimmickry', that is actually just a bunch of
narratives, one after the other, each of them, individually, containing no
importance at all. I have to disagree. The beauty of this novel is in the
details, the connections, and the unity the stories make. Each story is nothing
on its own. We need the other stories to make sense of what we read, to get the
whole picture. Besides, we live the story through the characters eyes. We know
the stories the characters know. I'll explain this in an instant.
The second part is called 'Letters from
Zedelghem'. It is a series of letters written by Robert Frobisher to his friend
Rufus Sixmith. Frobisher is reading Ewing's journal. His book is torn, so it is
missing a piece. The piece we don't have access to until Frobisher finds the
rest of the book. So, you see, we only read what Frobisher had access to, we
only know what he knows. If he hadn't found the rest of the book, we would
never know how Ewing's story would end, if he would realize all the things that
we had already realized (and were confirmed by Frobisher's reading).
Next, comes Luisa Rey and her 'Half-Lives: The
First Luisa Rey Mystery'. A journalist who is in danger because she is trying
to find out a big truth. She meets Rufus Sixmith and he gives her a lead about
a project he was working on. We can see Luisa is determined, very smart, and a
skilled journalist. Oh, she also is the one to give us an important clue to
figure out the whole story: a comet-shaped birthmark. She also listens to the
music made by Frobisher and reads the rest of his letters to Sixmith. We get to
know a little bit more about him, what happened to his dreams of become famous
for his work. Her piece is written in third person, and it feels like a mystery
novel.
'The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish' comes
next. Cavendish is hellish annoying. He is an editor and decided to write his
memoir. And that is what we are reading. He is the exact kind of unreliable narrator:
he changes the events to suit his need, he is prejudicial, arrogant,
egocentric, prone to attack people if things don't go as he wishes. Basically,
he is a jerk. But he considers himself to be really important and to hold all
the answers. He is also reading a manuscript for a book called 'Half-Lives: The
First Luisa Rey Mystery'. This calls the question: who is Luisa Rey? Cavendish
hints she might be a real person, but this is hard to believe. Even though
Frobisher questions the veracity of Ewing's narrative, and his existence, it is
easier to believe Ewing was a 'real' person. This does not happen, to me, with
Luisa Rey. I believe she needs to be a real person, or, as another possibility,
Luisa Rey may be part of another layer of the same reality. Otherwise, she
would mess up with the whole timeline and story. Or maybe that is what the
author wants. So, is Luisa Rey a real person in a fictional narrative
(Cavendish's narrative)? Or a real person in a real narrative, a fictional
character in a fictional narrative? The answer is, I don't know. And that is
the beauty of it, the not knowing.
Again, we only know the end of her narrative because Cavendish gets the
second part of the script.
We also get to know what became of Cavendish
later on, what happened to his memoirs. Something really interesting is that
Cavendish himself wants his memoirs to become a movie, he gives directions to a
director throughout all his narrative. And his memoirs turn out to be a movie,
which is seen by Somni -451, in my favorite part of the book 'An Orison of
Somni-451'. Her narrative, a transcript from her interrogation. It happens in
the future, in a dystopian society, where people are manufactured to serve
certain purposes. Somni's: to serve at a dinner. But Somni is different, she is
one of the 'fabricants' (genetically manufactured clones) to ascend - to be
more than their purpose allowed them to be. She is really smart. I mean,
really. And she likes Cavendish's memoirs movie. Her story is my favorite. She
is just so awesome, selfless, kind, and lovely. Something I found really
interesting in this story was the name of things. Somni's society is incredible
capitalistic. People have to spend money. They watch disneys, search things on
their sonys, wear their nikes, and so on. It was really smart to make brand
names the names of the things they represent. Something else is the language.
No major changes, but some minor ones, changes that might happen to the
language eventually.
Now we come to the last narrative. It would be
interesting to point out that all the other narratives have to parts. And they
are in order. We now 'Sloosha's Crossin An' Ev'rythin' After'. It has only one part. We can say it serves as
a bridge for the other narratives. In order we have: Ewing, Frobisher, Rey,
Cavendish, Somni, Zachry, Somni, Cavendish, Rey, Frobisher, Ewing. Zachry, the
narrator, is the only one who doesn't exactly fit with the others. His people
worship Somni as a goddess, but he doesn't have a comet-shaped birthmark and no
other visible connection to the other characters. Now his friend, Meronym,
does. His story was really difficult for me to read. I had to read it out loud.
The changes to the language were significant, and sometimes I could only
understand what he meant by the sound the words made. Now, Zachry's chapter
connect past and present as well. The whole book should be read as a cycle.
Things come and go, things repeat themselves. I don't believe we can say
Ewing's chapter really starts the book. But we can't say Zachry does either.
There is no real beginning. The characters are all part of a cycle, a loop that
never ends. When one story finishes, the other began. And, at the same time, we
can say that the same story begins again as well. We have the same
participants. They are only slightly changed. And their story will keep on
going. Zachry's story opens the way to the same story, to the same cycle to
begin again at the same moment it is ending.
I thought this book was brilliantly done. I
spent some time with such a book hangover that I could not read anything else.
This book is brilliant. Truly. I recommend ten thousand times over. Seriously,
read this book!
Rating: 5/5
