Truth be told, it was this book’s title and cover-art images that interested me. Pen and ink illustrations along with satellite and radar images of clouds all hint at the book’s central them of our inter-connected lives, especially through the passage of time.
Let yourself roll with Mitchell’s ability to write six unique stories from disparate places and times. You’ll be asking, how does this relate, right up until the time it all invariably does!
Adam Ewing – a Pacific Ocean adventure circa 1850 which starts and ends this novel;
Robert Frobisher – a roguish, tragically talented pianist who composes his masterpiece sextet ‘Cloud Atlas’ which resurfaces in two of the other stories;
Luisa Rey – a 1970’s era tough-as-nails LA journalist who is in way over her smart little head;
Timothy Cavendish – an unlucky, lucky Brit who steals the show while living through a true nightmare;
Sonmi-451 – one unique human clone in a future populated with clones who serve burgers, clean nuclear waste and don’t get any kind of retirement benefits;
Zachary – a boy’s wild adventure in postapocalyptic Hawaii, which reads more like Huck Finn meets Bladerunner;
Cloud Atlas was adapted into a film in 2012.
