Book : Cloud Atlas...
Discussion
...by David Mitchell.
Finished it last night, its an astonishing piece of work. The kind of book that makes you wonder why other authors even bother.
Incidentally, his other novels "Ghostwritten" and "Number9dream" are also excellent.
Edited to add a brief description from a review site:
Cloud Atlas tells six different narratives, told in parts and out of order at times, constructing a novel with their intersections and coincidences. Each story is at first partially told. It begins with an American notary's journals during a South Seas voyage, This follows with a story in 1931 of a English cad working as an amanuensis for a blind, syphilitic composer. It jumps to reporter in the 1970s investigating a cover up at a nuclear reactor, then a futuristic fast food robot struggling to achieve sentience, and finally a Hawaiian ruminating on a post-apocalyptic life. Then the unfinished stories are completed in backwards order. David Mitchell's novel explores the intersection of history and humanity as they echo through time. Cloud Atlas has received mostly positive reviews with The Independent saying, "Cloud Atlas is a singular achievement, from an author of extraordinary ambition and skill, setting himself challenges that would drive most authors to madness. For the third time in a row, Mitchell has excelled himself."
>>> Edited by neil.b on Wednesday 19th January 12:24
Finished it last night, its an astonishing piece of work. The kind of book that makes you wonder why other authors even bother.
Incidentally, his other novels "Ghostwritten" and "Number9dream" are also excellent.
Edited to add a brief description from a review site:
Cloud Atlas tells six different narratives, told in parts and out of order at times, constructing a novel with their intersections and coincidences. Each story is at first partially told. It begins with an American notary's journals during a South Seas voyage, This follows with a story in 1931 of a English cad working as an amanuensis for a blind, syphilitic composer. It jumps to reporter in the 1970s investigating a cover up at a nuclear reactor, then a futuristic fast food robot struggling to achieve sentience, and finally a Hawaiian ruminating on a post-apocalyptic life. Then the unfinished stories are completed in backwards order. David Mitchell's novel explores the intersection of history and humanity as they echo through time. Cloud Atlas has received mostly positive reviews with The Independent saying, "Cloud Atlas is a singular achievement, from an author of extraordinary ambition and skill, setting himself challenges that would drive most authors to madness. For the third time in a row, Mitchell has excelled himself."
>>> Edited by neil.b on Wednesday 19th January 12:24
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