Cloud Atlas
by David Mitchell
Random House
In "Cloud Atlas," two-time Booker nominee David Mitchell once again constructs a book with a narrative that defies convention. His first novel, "Ghostwritten," bedeviled readers with nine characters and nine scenes, all of which seemingly had nothing to do with one another. His second, "Number9Dream" careened among so many storylines that it was almost impossible to follow.
By comparison, "Cloud Atlas" is straightforward. The book consists of six narratives spanning 600 years, starting with a 19th century voyage and ending on a post-apocalyptic Earth. All the narratives are in the form of a recorded document — a journal, or a taped interview — and each document plays a role in the narrative that follows it. What makes this narrative tactic rise above mere gimmickry is the way the separate storylines call out to one another, implying links that Mitchell leaves the reader to discover.
The book begins with a massacre of the Moriori by rival tribe Maori (with the help of some approving European colonialists) and things don't get much prettier from there. There are corporations obscuring truth to build faulty nuclear power plants, armies of genetically engineered slave laborers and elderly folk put out to pasture in totalitarian nursing homes.
Mitchell clearly believes the moral he tries to illustrate in each of these narratives is important, enough so that he spells it out for us, writing:
One fine day a purely predatory world shall consume itself ... for the human species, selfishness is extermination ... if we believe leaders must be just, violence muzzled, power accountable & the riches of the Earth & its Oceans shared equitably, such a world will come to pass ... It is the hardest of all worlds to make real.
The problem with this idea is that this is just not very compelling. It's admirable that Mitchell wants so much to decry the human abuse and exploitation that continues to this day, but his voice never distinguishes itself from the chorus of others that say the same thing. One is inclined to ask "so what?"
It would be one thing if Mitchell's thoughts were a jumping-off point rather than a crux, but unfortunately the latter is true. Not only that, but Mitchell seems intent to continue banging away at this idea, repeatedly showing us how by failing to believe in justice, the characters in his novel breed violence.
Interestingly, Mitchell seems to realize that the moral center of his book is hardly new, and offers the following quote as a pre-emptive strike against criticism: "The Ghost of Sir Felix Finch whines, 'But it's been done a hundred times before!' — as if there could be anything not done a hundred thousand times between Aristophanes and Andrew Void-Webber! As if Art is the What, not the How!"
In Mitchell's case, this is almost a fair defense because his "how" is so brilliant. The thing that transforms "Cloud Atlas" from just another dull book to a maddening quandary is Mitchell's prose, which is radiant. The chasm between Mitchell's ideas and his prose is as wide and troubling as the San Andreas fault. How can a book be so incredibly well done and yet have so little to say?
Mitchell's previous novels have demonstrated his capacity for invention and mimicry, and this skill is put to thorough use in "Cloud Atlas." The six narrators range in tone — from Melvillian to tawdry mystery novel to futuristic noir — yet Mitchell makes them all sound true. He captures the conventions of each genre he imitates, and then like a good puppeteer makes them dance for his (and our) pleasure.
Consider the following excerpt. In it, Mitchell upends the classic master-apprentice relationship by having the apprentice cuckold his master. Not only that, but it is told in the form of a letter between friends, and is carried off with a good deal of suspense:
J. came to my bed at midnight, and during our athletics, my door was barged. Farcical horror! Thank God J. had locked it on her way in ... Unlocked my door and there stood Ayrs, a cane in each hand, mummified in his moonlit nightshirt. Hendrick stood behind him, silent and watchful as an Indian totem. 'Make way, make way!' Ayrs pushed past me. 'Find a pen, grab some blank score paper, turn on your lamp, quickly. Why the deuce do you lock your door if you sleep with the windows open? The Prussians are gone, the ghosts'll just drift through the door.' Garbled some balderdash about not being able to fall asleep in an unlocked room, but he wasn't listening. 'Have you got manuscript paper in here or should I have Hendrick go and get some?'
Mitchell's narrators stand up to rigorous inspection and speak in voices completely different from one another. Some are innocent as the proverbial lamb, others street smart, and one may not even be human. Yet Mitchell makes them all believable.
It is the narrators and Mitchell's prodigious ability to churn out prose that is at once refreshing and efficient that make "Cloud Atlas" worth reading. There are several books that will offer a more original analysis of the plight of civilization. There are few, however, that will offer a more engaging read.
Review originally ran in Flak Magazine, October 2004