Cloud Atlas

After seeing Cloud Atlas on the screen, I decided I'd better read David Mitchell's novel Cloud Atlas (#259) on which it was based to see if I could make any better sense out of the book than the movie.  Not really.  I didn't realize until I had the book in my hand that David Mitchell also wrote The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, which got rave reviews from the literary critics several years ago, but which I had very mixed feelings about.  (See my post of 11/1/10.)  The same is true of Cloud Atlas.

In case you haven't seen the movie or read the book, it's basically a set of six different novellas, each one moving forward in time.  The sixth story, set far in the future, is told from beginning to end in the middle of the book, but each of the other five narratives has been split in two, and the second half of each of these tales is told in reverse chronological order after the far future story.  Every one of the these tales is told in a completely different writing style and each story in and of itself is interesting. 

However, the break between these sections made me feel that I was reading six books simultaneously, which I don't ever like to do.  Mr. Mitchell has included connections from one story to the next, but they're not all that obvious.  I was fine with that, but I disagree with the cover blurbs which gush about "...how their souls drift across time like clouds across the sky."  The movie version worked that interpretation to death by recasting the principal actors as the different characters in each timeline.  Connections, yes; same souls, no: I just didn't buy that.  If you've only seen the movie version, it's pretty true to the book about halfway through, but then tends to go off on its own little frolics for each set of characters, so if you leave the theater with a big "Huh?" in your mind, I don't think it's your imagination.   I do think Mr. Mitchell did a better job here in tying up the loose ends in the different sections, which was more satisfying for me as a reader. It would probably be worth your while to spend the time to find out if this is true for you as well.  Even if it's not, you'll enjoy some beautiful prose even if you're frustrated by the novel's construction.  Let it be noted, though, that I did not recommend this Mitchell book for my husband to read, either.  Didn't like it that much for him to spend a considerable amount of time plowing through it.