What's your response? Read it and find out.

books:

	• Cloud Atlas: A Novel David Mitchell Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2004 - 528 pages average customer review:based on 171 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

What's your response? Read it and find out.

We read this book for our book club, and it really turned out to be a unique one for us. One person just could not read it. She got too confused by the structure and stuck in the language of the first chapter. She gave up in frustration. Two people could read it, but hated it. They found it trite pretentious and precious. Two of us found it a quick read, and entertaining enough, but nothing particularly special. The last two readers thought that it was brilliant, and raved about specifics of a number of the chapters.

We haven't had a response like that to a book before in the last eight years of book clubbing. So you know something about it, at least. It makes a good book club selection.

The critics are equally divided. Some papers loved it and raved over it and compared Mitchell to Burgess and Pynchon. The New York Times thought that it was too clever for its own good. One newspaper in the UK refused to review it, calling it unreadable.

As is probably usual for me, I am firmly on the fence. I found it a very quick read (assuming that you do not let yourself get bogged down in the different dialects) and interesting enough. I think that I would probably agree that it is a little too smart for its own good. There are some passages where I get a sense of how strong a writer Mitchell can be, but he very nearly disguises it with the puzzle box form.

Gimmick or genius? The question paraphrases one of the characters in the book. Read it yourself and see what you think.

for more information click here

WOW!

I find it hard to belive people have been saying the book was difficult to read, im 17 and feeling rather smug...

This has to be one of the most fantastic books i have read, i seriously enjoyed it. I loved getting lost in the 6 different worlds and though the change in voices was great, esepecially in Slooshas Crossing.

Only moan is as i think someone put before, some of the books you just wanted more. Timothy Cavendish was a legand, halerious, had me in stitches....

Read it its great!

for more information click here

Amazing weird book

This was an unusual novel in that it really wasn't a novel but more of a series of essays ,written in different styles,and at the end difficult to conclude that there was a coherent theme. On the other hand, some of the writing was quite insightful and thought provoking.

for more information click here

A Pleasure to Read!

I choose this book for our book club and boy did I pick a winner! This book is amazingly well written and catches your attention from the first page. Everyone in the book club loved it! It covers all genres and is simply a beautiful piece of literature.

my new favorite book

Every so often I read a good book, and then mentally file it away in my brain under "Good Books." Cloud Atlas is the first book I have read in a long time (years) that is not just *good* but so good that I have to go around telling people that they simply must read it. For the first time in my life, the second I finished this book, I immediately turned back to the beginning to start reading it again. (And yes, I loved it even more the second time.) After I finished it the second time I even considered reading it again, but decided instead to re-read Satanic Verses to see if Cloud Atlas should surpass it as my #1 favorite book.

The book takes on a very original six-part structure, consisting of six separate novellas with different narrators. The first five novellas are essentially split in half, the first halves being told in chronological order, an entire novella marking the center, and then the second halves of the novella being told in reverse chronological order. If you like books that play with structure, I think you'll find this quite lovely. Other people have described this book as a "puzzle," with each narration adding a bit more to understanding the overall story, even though the individual novellas are quite different. This is why the book is completely re-readable.

The first novella is the story of Adam Ewing, a priggish voyager on the high seas, traveling in colonialist times. The language here is a bit thick, reminding me of Conrad's Heart of Darkness, although it isn't without humor. I'll admit that this was a bit of a barrier to get "into" the book, and it might be something you want to start when you have a lot of time, not when you want an airplane read. The second novella tells the story Robert Frobisher, composer and 1930s badass (my favorite of Mitchell's characters). Frobisher instigates a parasitic relationship with an admired composer, becoming his amanuensis (yes, actual usage of that word!) Frobisher is delightfully conceited, the talenteder-than-thou artist type with occasional flashes of raw honesty that are endearing. Next we move on to Timothy Cavendish, a crotchety old ne'er-do-well running a vanity publishing company who eventually finds himself trapped in an odd situation. Half Lives, the next novella, tells the story of a reporter at a tabloid who gets entangled in a dangerous intrigue in the 1970s. The Orison of Somni 251, which follows, is a very 1984 futuristic narration with tons of fun diction (i.e. "corporacy"). The only novella not to be split in half is Sloosha's Crossin', which, yes, is written entirely in some sort of vernacular, which is slightly maddening, but when you get used to it, makes you realize that the attention Mitchell plays to diction is impressive. In many ways, this part of the book was the most engaging-while there are tons of 1984 type stories out there, rarely do we hear about what happens afterwards. It played out on the almost universal cultural story of societies rising, then falling, then starting to be rebuilt all over again. Then Mitchell goes back and finishes out each novella in reverse chronological order, which crazily enough, structurally made sense, and was played out in a way which made the themes of the book resonate.

Read this book. Please. You've never read anything before like it. Even though it is a massive book (530 pages) dealing with a complicated structure, multiple narrators, a larger overarching story (all handled well, by the way), it was really the little things that made love it. Narrators that rang true. Humorous writing. Amazing attention to diction. I particularly loved how the last part of the book closed on a theme which was simple, but handled beautifully. I'm very much looking forward to reading Mitchell's other novels.

for more information click here

reviews: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, page 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20

hot

not?

What's your opinion?

Write a review and share your thoughts!

recommendations

15 Unforgettable Books I will Reread
Books I've Read - 2008 (Continued)
Best books I read in 2007
Not commuter fiction
My favorite books

search for books
atlas, cloud, novel

Impressum / about us