Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

This is one of those books that you read to watch the author work his art. The plots are perfectly good too, but really the way the book is crafted is what stands out.

It's a set of six interlocking stories, set one inside another like matruyshka dolls. It gave me the feeling of looking at an atom and then zooming out, seeing molecules, cells, matter, organisms, ecosystems, planets, only to zoom out into space and see a planetary system, which looks like an atom again.

I really don't want to describe too much of the plots here because part of the pleasure of this book is discovering how they interlock for yourself, so I'll just give a few thoughts about various aspects.

I liked the way the various plots, and the novel as a whole, ended. I felt that they all ended with something of a positive feeling, even, somehow, when there was a death - AND the author managed to do this without getting cheesy! The ending of the whole book really seems like it should be cheesy, but it didn't feel cheesy to me.

The author uses various language patterns to represent different characters and places in time and space, including, in one section, that peevish habit of using misspelling to convey dialect and accent. This does make the book more difficult to read, but I would say it's worth it for the effect. I didn't like this effect in Mark Twain's writing and I do tend to skim over Hagrid's speeches in Harry Potter, but I think the effect was put to good use here.

It took me longer than usual to get into this book, but I happily fell into its universe after about 120 pages. If you do undertake to read it and find you aren't so very into it, I'd give it at least 150 pages before giving up.

Finally, because I like to be warned of these things, there is one scene of rape in this book. It is not really necessary to the plot, but I've certainly seen more gratuitous rape in literature. It is not experienced in first person - it is narrated by a helpless bystander - and karma is balanced out in the end. It caused me to wince and cringe, but not cry or have nightmares.

Overall, I think this is a love or hate kind of book, but I would recommend reading it because I have a feeling it will be turning up in English classes in a few decades. It's full of symbolism and shit that I'm just not good at, so I'm sure kids will be bullshitting essays about it for years to come!