Why did I leave this book lying unopened on my bookshelf for about four years? I don’t know. However, while recuperating last week, I read it, and, boy am I glad I did. What a superb piece of writing it is. Maybe you’ve been out to see the movie by now (I haven’t), but Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell, is a story cycle. It is six interlinked stories, with each story ending on a cliff-hanger before going on to the next story, right up to story number six, then we pick up all the threads, revisiting first story five, then four, then three and so on. The range of genre and styles is astonishing, with everything from a sixteenth century travel journal to science fiction set in the twenty third century. I loved it all. Each story links to the others in a multiple of ways and the very last couple of pages sum up what it’s all about.
Here is what it is all about (don’t worry, no plot spoilers revealed here)
What precipitates outcomes? Vicious acts and virtuous acts. What precipitates acts? Belief.
The character, Adam Ewing, goes on to write….
Belief is both prize & battlefield, within the mind & in the mind’s mirror, the world.
What a great phrase! ….the mind’s mirror, the world.
If we believe humanity is a ladder of tribes, a colosseum of confrontation, exploitation and bestiality, such a humanity is surely brought into being……If we believe that humanity may transcend tooth and claw, if we believe divers races & creeds can share this world as peaceably as the orphans share their candlenut tree, if we believe leaders must be just, violence muzzled, power accountable and the riches of the Earth and its Oceans shared equitably, such a world will come to pass. I am not deceived. It is the hardest of worlds to make real.
With that, Adam decides to dedicate himself to the cause of the abolition of slavery, mindful of how he is likely to be vilified, and attacked for doing so, and how is father-in-law will say
only as you gasp your dying breath shall you understand, your life amounted to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean.
And Adam will reply
Yet what is any ocean but a multitude of drops?
What do you believe? What kind of world are you creating?
Heroes Not Zombies 
When you said you were whacked by a virus, I wondered… what treasures you may have brought back with you!
I’ll patiently wait for Cloud Atlas to come out on DVD. Andy Wachowski, Lana Wachowski (writters/directors of the Matrix) and Tom Tykwer together directed Cloud Atlas.
There’s a link to a great wee 3 minute interview with all 3 directors (below):
Wishing you every good health Bob
Brian
I read Cloud Atlas after I received it for Christmas. I’m about to pick it up again to read with one of my teenaged daughters. I’m very much looking forward to re-reading the book; I feel like there’s much more depth to it than I was able to plumb on my own in my first read-through.
I’m looking forward to seeing the movie; I missed it in the theatres.
I’m glad you’re feeling better!
Not so long ago my son kindly gave me Cloud Atlas on DVD as a birthday present. A few nights ago I had the pleasure of watching it, and it was absolutely captivating. A 2 3/4hour movie passed in virtually no time at all. At the end of the movie I was stunned silent, speechless- as the tears streamed down my face; capturing a deep resonance within me, releasing a tremendous river of emotion. The following morning when I awoke a string of words sprung into mind- I quickly wrote these down. They reminded me of your real-time A-Z of becoming, and of course your Cloud Atlas post.
•Love
•Truth
•Soul
•Connection
•Narrative
•Survival
•Courage
•Revolution
•Evolution
•Universal-Wound
•Purpose
•Control
•Greed
•Friendship
•Soul-ship
•Soulmate
•Inner-voice
•Growth
•Time?
•Becoming