What do you think of David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas?

I have to personally disagree with you about the central story: this was by far my favorite part of the book, and still haunts me whenever I think about it. I'm fascinated by language, and the development of language throughout the book is completely plausible (unlike Atwood's future speak in Oryx & Crake, which felt false and forced). What I loved most was the direct line between the "outermost" story and the "innermost" story, how a great amount of time separated them, but not a lot was different.

A few things that might help make sense of this book:
Mitchell's piece in the Guardian about rereading Calvino's If on a winter's night a traveller: http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/generalfiction/story/0,,1221892,00.html

Mitchell on the seeds of ideas that grew into Cloud Atlas: http://www.readysteadybook.com/dmcloudseeds.html

An excerpt:

"So my Chatham Island notebook contains mostly questions – but some struck me as having a contemporary resonance. Is non-violence a viable defence if your enemy doesn’t share your conscience? Are all civilizations condemned to extinction by their strengths? What are the modern tribes? Nations? Corporations? Demographic strata? Can Globalism be considered a civilization? Will it, fueled by consumption, one day consume itself? How will its remnants be “Moriorized”? Is history a fiction? Is the future a fiction based on the present?

These questions are the seeds that grew into Cloud Atlas."

I know we know fiction is fictional (!) but it becomes problematic when a character you have invested time and interest in (Timothy Cavendish) turns out to be the main player in a movie and that the other section, concerning Luisa Rey, is not only a character in a crime novel but a fictional character in a crime novel which plays a bit part in a fictional movie about a fictional book publisher. After a while the whole thing - rather than building some significance from this accumulation of fictions - just crumbles away. I Know it's not real, i know it's a novel and i've read many books which make you question the "reality" of what you have in front of you but with this one everything just dissipates and you're left feeling like you have just wasted your time.

I think it's a very personal preference. I don't think I would've liked the book as a whole if I didn't latch on to certain small moments in each story, such as the image of Zach'ry telling the central story (an homage to the oral origins of storytelling, and slightly reminiscent of Heart of Darkness), Frobisher's descriptions of Zedelghem, and Adam's encounter with the volcano people (forgive the vague details: it's been a year since I read it). I think this is why I get so defensive of this book: those scenes resounded with me so much that they have become a part of my world.

Also, the fact that I have a huge crush on David Mitchell (Ghostwritten intrigued me, his good looks and speech impediment won me over) doesn't hurt his case. I often wonder if I hadn't been a fan already what I would've made of him after reading this book. Though I'm inclined to think I would still want more...

I took the plunge after loving the first two pages and I continued to love it. I'll admit that for much of the book I felt he was more techincally dazzling than heartfelt, but by the end I was so moved, just profoundly so. More than any other book I've read recently, I keep coming back to the book in my mind...

I loved the outer two stories and the inner two stories. The sheer variety of the book amazes, of course.

I'm intrigued by zan's post, but I have to say I didn't see it as being about storytelling. The main idea for me: What hope is there for humanity, given the way we treat each other? (Answer: a little.) As a cyclical vision of human history, it's awesome.

I thought the book was beautifully structured, despite the gimmicky bits - much more than a loosely connected set of individual tales. An unexpected treat, and I will definitely be reading more of Mitchell. Which is great because No 9 Dream didn't appeal to me in the least when it came out (the covers made it sound trendy, pseudish and possibly wilfully obscure). I will certainly read it now.

Jace's perpetual sense of danger, semi-lucid understanding of the world, neurotic cogitations, sex preoccupation, topography of 'popularity', career aspirations, etc., all of these seem impressively appropriate to me, precise and well-considered for a 13-year old growing up in an isolated backwater. I'm aware of how unliterary it is to claim a novel's 'realness' is its quality -- especially a very poetic novel -- but there's something admirably sincere to me in the character of Jace. What I mean is: I was a lot like him, and I appreciate the care with which he was drawn.

My weird nagging issues on this are totally mechanical, though -- he does so much to toy with the idea that there's a mechanical in-the-book connection between all these characters, but he doesn't have one! For some reason this bugged all hell out of me: why keep hinting that you've got a concrete, non-thematic explanation for the form when you really, really don't? The many airy allusions to reincarnation are blown apart by (among other things) Luisa Ray: Cavendish would have been born around the point Frobisher died, so why is there a character from a thriller shoehorned between them? This wouldn't normally be a problem, but there's something about the form that leads you to believe the second halves of the story will give you a change to figure something out about the connections -- not something thematic, but something physical -- and yet with a lot of those second halves he seems to be writing purely for plot, just enjoying wrapping up the tales themselves, as if most of his content was on the page by the middle section, and everything thereafter is just tidying up.

So beyond the center section, I was mostly just chopping through to get the thing done, pushing through a lot of pages looking for some connections that didn't seem likely to crop up.

The one connective gesture that's really interesting me is the recurrence of the cars/bridges/escape thing. (Ha, especially since Black Swan Green says the Dhonts died in a car accident.) Dhont runs over the pheasant, or whatever, and from there on Luisa's rammed off a bridge escaping the island, Cavendish rams through the nursing-home gate and escapes, there's a car crash in Sonmi's escape from the university, and there's the bridge collapse in Zachry's and Metonym's escape from the island in the center bit. My fear, though, is once again that Mitchell's hinting at connection here without having anything very specific in mind, nothing beyond "and they will all have some sort of crisis/escape moment involving cars and/or bridges."

(I'm also amazed that a guy who's certainly not embarrassed about genre-fiction cliches and lame revelations didn't offer some sci-fi style linkup -- what, suddenly he's above that kind of thing?)

My point's that there's a total thematic connection, which is all I necessarily need. But since he's certainly not afraid of sci-fi revelations (or too self-consciously "literary" for them), and since he's dropping hints about birthmarks and reincarnation, I'm wondering what stops him from putting a concrete link in -- you know, the kind of corny mechanical stuff a sci-fi writer would do, where some bit of puzzle explains the recurrence.

On a different note, the Frobisher parts seem the most interesting -- possibly the most independent in Mitchell's mind from the notion of the book as whole, which might explain why it finds its way into Black Swan Green. Most of the sections of Cloud Atlas deal with power vs weakness and exploitation in a very grand and direct way -- colonialism, corpocracy, etc. It took me a while to decide that the power dynamic he was working with in the Frobisher bits weren't related to the WWI stuff, but the rigidity of, like, polite society, which was kind of fascinating to me. Frobisher's bits seem like they're the most lacking in an enemy, or any grand displays of force or power or oppression: it's interesting for him to take up the drawing room as one (smaller) arena for the same stuff.

this is totally OTM. i'm reading Black Swan Green now. stop giving the game away, nabisco.

...although part of me wonders where the frobishers (if i remember right) can come into anything since that section was a movie within a book (and the Louisa Rey [sp?] thing was a thriller within the movie withing the book). all superficially very clever but actually not very tight. strange though, because i think Mitchell IS very clever but the devices he uses make him appear wanting in some way.

so far BSG is decent. written like a boys own story & with that pace. the 70's cultural references are so forcefully shoehorned, though, that most stick out like a sore thumb and a few have made me groan.

Maybe he wanted to get close to the corny mechanical stuff but not pull the trigger? Because you're right, he's obviously aware of that sort of thing. Maybe he was afraid of falling off the cliff into the Valley of Corniness? Anyway.

Wait, this is the second time this has gotten confused: the only one that seemed to be honestly fictional was the Luisa Rey one! Cavendish was "real" -- he appears in a film for Somni, but that's theoretically because he says, at the end of his segment, that he's publishing his story and optioning the movie rights.

Which of course creates one of many loose threads, which is that Rufus Sixsmith and Frobisher's letters appear in the Luisa Rey "fiction," so ... who knows. I guess we should presume the author drew those things from reality? Or, hell, that Luisa's story is more of a "true crime" tale? Ha, once again, my word to Mitchell: if you don't have the connections worked out, don't just toss them in there and pretend we'll enjoy puzzling over them!

i can't believe this book hasn't been marketed in a major way to teenagers. if i was a parent or teacher i would be urging kids to read it.

I think that if I were to re-read 'Cloud Atlas' I would have to read from the middle story "Sloosha's Crossin'" outward, ie., backwards in time, although I thought the Timothy Cavendish, Luisa Rey and Zedelghem stories were bunk. "Sloosha's Crossin'" and "Orison of Sonmi-451" were, however, brilliant. Jest Memr'yn'n'Writin' on 'em's got me thinkin'o how great they were.

he seems a bit neil gaiman

except he can write circles around him!

he's the neil gaiman of writing

I'm reading CA now, at last. It's awesome - literally, what this novelist can do with his genre is a little awe-inspiring. Then again, I felt that with Ghostwritten first time out, and it seemed to creak a bit more on second reading.

Maybe, though, that more jaded doubt is to underestimate his ability with small things. What really struck me with GW was not just the structure and diversity, but the level of detail, of style, voice, observation. DM's capacity to see, remember and place things is part of what can be awesome about him - the London section of GW, for instance, has so much scattered truth about London in it; the Tokyo section is so full of little beauties. And I think his style - brisk, lyrical, droll - is still switched on a lot of the time in CA.

Anyway I'm only 3 chapters in! So not gonna read thread for spoilers.

But Black Swan Green by the way - a eloquent defence of it upthread, but I found it remarkably disappointing, regularly misjudged and redundant; odd from an author whose instinct so often seems so good. Maybe the links between CA and BSG will slightly redeem the latter for me.

wish i hadn't read BSG before reading CA, because i missed the significance of the frobisher/eva references in BSG. still, i love both, although nabisco is otm™ about the mechanical vs thematic connections. the thematic stuff was way stronger, and the mechanical stuff was a little frustrating. i kept thinking that the birthmark stuff was weak and was waiting for some kind of payoff. it seems like mitchell agrees, at least judging from the winky part about the structure of 'cloud atlas sextet' where he writes something like "revolutionary or gimmick? i won't know until it's finished." ghostwritten did almost the exact same thing to much better effect imo, although cloud atlas is way more entertaining and probably better written (it's been so long since i've read ghostwritten, i don't remember the prose very well).

looking forward to his new one: http://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Autumns-Jacob-Zoet-Novel/dp/1400065453/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1265140939&sr=8-1

Just finished "The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet".

He's done away with the clever forms, and just allowed his narrative sleight-of-hand to exist on a chapter by chapter basis. The prose style is, when dealing with the European characters, a gorgeous Melville pastiche, like the first part of Cloud Atlas. It's denser than his previous books and very rewarding. I preferred Black Swan Green to Mitchell's previous books; when he keeps his social commentary bubbling underneath a more urbane coming-of-age story--or in Jacob de Zoet's case, a romance--it has more resonance. Mitchell is one of my favourite authors and "de Zoet" is his best book.

Sounds great! Think this is going to be a good summer book for me. Cheers, Ówen.

I have to warn you, though, that this is another one of those one-sitting reads. I read Cloud Atlas in a feverish three days and this one in two. Don't start it when you have work to do.

Hmm, yes, thanks for that as well. Do love those books, and the experience of one-sitting reads, where they briefly take over your life, but it's nice to have a clear run at 'em.

oh shit, I didn't realize this was out.

it's not. looking forward to it though.

it's out in two weeks here and in two months where you are.

dang. well I already added it to my library hold list.

any euros want to send me a copy? i can paypal you for it!

i think you could buy it from amazon.co.uk if you are that eager.

I really loved this (Thousand Autumns). Not much more to say yet, in terms of it's placing within his work. I guess you could say it's more traditional, but then so was BSG in a way. Still some genre shifts (an abortive attempt to become a Kurosawa film/ninja story, for example). I suppose culture clash as dialectic seems like a natural thing for him to (re-?)explore, but it works great as a straight story - one of those books I can happily recommend to friends who make fun of 'serious' literature. So yeah, dug this.

thanks to jaymc, nabisco, and n/a for pushing me to buy Cloud Atlas and Black Swan Green.

Ghostwritten is excellent too. I like Number 9 Dream as well but it's pretty different from his other books so I hesitate recommending it.

He's done away with the clever forms, and just allowed his narrative sleight-of-hand to exist on a chapter by chapter basis.

^^ I really like the idea of this. I mean, I do like his attraction to (and skill with) those narrative tricks that seem a tiny bit geeky or sci-fi -- I don't think that's a problem. But I remember half-wondering if Black Swan Green was maybe his simple way of seeing how things worked without that kind of structure and pure invention (you know, start "small," do a short, contained story with a young narrator in a setting you know), and I like the idea of his continuing that way...

I like Number 9 Dream as well but it's pretty different from his other books so I hesitate recommending it.

I love number9dream! It's better than all but the center section of Cloud Atlas. So entertaining, with a really solid emotional foundation. Maybe it's the ending people don't like? Yeah, it's a little gimmicky, but very effective.

Look forward to reading number9dream. Liked Cloud Atlas a lot (wd agree the central section is the strongest), would by and large agree with the James Wood review of Thousand Autumns, really good in lots of ways, but does have a weird lack of purchase, not a bad thing necessarily, but having subsequently read Black Swan Green which I thought was wonderful, does feel like a bit of a loss.

Still, more power to his elbow imo, imaginatively delightful and with a strong heft of non-conventional emotional content.

Maybe it's the ending people don't like?

I think it's the Goatwriter section that people really dislike, it's pretty much the worst thing he's written. The book as a whole takes the Murakami homage thing a bit too far, although I love the video game bits and the gangster subplot in the middle.

so excited to read his new one.

I do like Number9Dream, it just feels different from the rest of his books.

I think it's the Goatwriter section that people really dislike, it's pretty much the worst thing he's written.

Really? It didn’t bother me, and there wasn’t much of it anyway. It’s just for fun -- silly wordplay, a fairy tale, a meta joke with a good punch line.

I've been meaning to read this one, one of my art teachers loves it. It sounds quite great.

read this for the first time a few weeks ago and fell in love... i thought i had written on this thread but i guess it was ~~one of my past lives~~~~~

new one was really well written but I had trouble getting as excited about it as his other books.

also:

(SPOILER)

it wasn't clear to me why the British ship just stopped attacking the city. Were there clues about this that I missed, or is it just supposed to be a mystery?

I finished Ghostwritten a couple of hours ago. The middle sections – Holy Mountain, Mongolia, Petersburg – are engrossing. The last eighty pages really tail off though.

after slagging him off speculatively two years ago i still have yet to read him, although i did take home a copy of cloud atlas the other day

SPOILER

it wasn't clear to me why the British ship just stopped attacking the city. Were there clues about this that I missed, or is it just supposed to be a mystery?

de Zoet standing on the lookout tower about to be annihilated by the captain of the brit ship reminded the captain of the brit ship of his own son who had been lopped in half by a chain gun some years earlier. (it makes sense in the context of the book)

huh ok, I guess I missed that, thanks.

ghostwritten was like 80% of a superamazing book, and 20% of lead-up with no follow through. it felt like the kind of foreplay that goes on too long and everybody gets chafed or bored or tired and just kind of tuckered out, and you say 'oh, that was nice' but don't really feel into it any more.

That's about right. I found Laura Miller's rather tetchy review, which I read, to my regret, before I'd finished the novel. When I did, my mind kept returning it, and she's right in suggesting that the novel's a virtuoso performance without giving us a clue about what Mitchell cares about or where he'll go next.

i remember liking the end of ghostwritten, it was a nice surprise to find myself in a doomsday sci-fi story (seemed very asimov-y iirc, not in a bad way)

what was the last section? tokyo underground?

Yeah -- about the Tokyo bomber.

lol, i forgot about that until you mentioned it. the last thing i remembered was the radio show.

oh god that damn chapter was endless.

he's the neil gaiman of writing

― thomp, Sunday, June 8, 2008 12:29 AM (2 years ago) Bookmark

do you know, i think i might stand by this? enjoying this a great deal though, wish i could remember what happened to the copy of number9dream i bought like five years ago

I am going to hear him read tonight. Is the new book worth buying in hardback?

It's a nice looking thing (at least in its European incarnation), and well, having a book in hardback can increase the pleasurable sense of ceremony reading a new book can bring. It wasn't my favourite of his - plenty to be getting on with tho.

just finished ghostwritten. i think i liked it more than cloud atlas, even--less of a focus on a specific reincarnative weirdness and more a generalized kind of... butterfly effect? the way things ripple across the sections is pretty amazing, and he does it in this incredibly beautiful way that makes certain themes and objects and ideas actually kind of echo instead of being all DO YOU SEE DO YOU SEE.

i love, too, what he does with the practice of reading--the way you have to give up entirely on your training to expect an ending or a conclusion; you simply read and trust mitchell to make everything interesting. as in cloud atlas i was bummed out every time a section ended and then immediately enthralled by the next one.

the only bit that dragged was the bat segundo radio show. i didnt like bat very much, and i was a little sad that the book climaxed in that bit. although the conversation between the zookeeper and the noncorprum almost sent shivers down my spine!

"Please don't worry, Bat. I traced the caller. He won't interrupt us again."

I loved the Holy Mountain section; that's what hooked me.

i think i'm enjoying this (ca) a lot more for how i'd been warned off some stuff by the above posts

tbh the endings of the second halves so far are causing a sort of inner 'haha YESSSS' for the most part

the the people at the top of the thread were weirdly down on cloud atlas, dunno what their problem was

i liked it even though i criticised it a bit.

the way things ripple across the sections is pretty amazing, and he does it in this incredibly beautiful way that makes certain themes and objects and ideas actually kind of echo instead of being all DO YOU SEE DO YOU SEE.

think this pretty well encapsulates the probs i have with cloud atlas and why i still find ghostwritten a better book.

as in cloud atlas i was bummed out every time a section ended and then immediately enthralled by the next one.

This is basically what I loved most about this. I was particularly super-pissed when the Somni story ended on a cliffhanger, and for 2 pages at least of "Sloosha's Crossin'..." was convinced there was no way it could live up to it. But then of course "Sloosha's Crossin'..." quickly became my favourite.

the only bit that dragged was the bat segundo radio show. i didnt like bat very much, and i was a little sad that the book climaxed in that bit. although the conversation between the zookeeper and the noncorprum almost sent shivers down my spine!

― max, Friday, July 23, 2010 6:25 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark

What are other people's interpretations of this final chapter? I've never had the opportunity to discuss it with anybody.

for what its worth im not opposed to the idea of a dialogue (well monologue, almost)-only chapter, and in certain ways i like the "concept," i just found it irrtating because the character is so irritating, and a lot of it felt forced

I'm in the middle of Cloud Atlas, and absolutely love it.

They're making it into a movie with a pretty impressive cast , to put it mildly.

It seems almost impossible to make a satisfying 2 1/2 hour movie from this book. Do you think they'll try to do all six stories?

I just checked it out of the library, a few weeks after reading Ghostwritten and Black Swan Green.

I wish they would stop making films of popular books.

I haven't read this yet (carefully skimming the thread) but enjoying Ghostwritten. Pretty sure Tom Tykwer has never actually made a good film.

Just finished cloud atlas about an hour ago, <3ed it, and I'm stoked they're making a movie because the same thought occurred to me several times while reading it. tbh they could film the orison of somni and zach'ry sections alone and I'd be a happy camper.

'Cloud Atlas' was the first book I read of David Mitchell and it was a tough read. I was impressed and read all the others after, just finished 'The Thousand Autumns...'. The thing with 'Cloud Atlas' was that I didn't know what to expect, with the others it was different. It was also the only DM book I did not read in English but in its Dutch translation. Now, I try to read books in the language in which they are written. For some reason 'Cloud Atlas's compositional structure was a bit too much for its own good, I thought 'Ghostwritten' was a better idea. The part with the dj show was ace, a nice variation on the last chapter of Ulysses (Ali Smith did the same in one of her books, but this for me is a more funny variation, just a talk-sick dj ranting on and on like a real radio dj).

Even though I think 'The Thousand Autumn's...' story progresses slowly, there are so many things going on at the same time I could not stop reading. I'm already waiting for the next book.

I thought The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet was decent, but my least favorite of his. Maybe it's just not my type of book, but the first half was an uphill slog through 18th century medicine and trade agreements, and I didn't care for the main character. But, it definitely picks up speed and suspense towards the middle, and ends quite well.

To n/a's question way up thread, the answer is his hair color.

Paris Review interview. Long, not very exciting, but charmed to learn that in youth he wrote poetry under a pseudonym taken from the Stainless Steel Rat.

I never read any of those, despite them heavily populating the science-fiction section of my local library. Were they any good? (Bearing in mind that I would read anything, bad, good, dull - my critical markers weren't set too high).

I loved them when I was eleven. May have been my favourite books.

Is the Paris Review available anywhere in London, does anyone know? Would like to get the current issue for the Norman Rush interview, but ordering a single issue from their site is absurdly expensive...

My abiding memory of the Stainless Steel Rat (wasn't aware there were novels!)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/35/Stainless_steel_rat_prog171_carlos_ezquerra.jpg/250px-Stainless_steel_rat_prog171_carlos_ezquerra.jpg

I was aware of the books, but I never read them, preferring to read about Jim diGriz's exploits in the pages of 2000AD (^^^that prog's cover takes me back!).

they were better than 'bill, the galactic hero'

read a lot of shit from 11-15, i did

I began Number9Dream. n/a, any advice?

ha ha - what do you need advice on? anything in particular?

(note: I read Number9Dream like five years ago and have a terrible memory so I am not going to be able to offer anything useful on it)

oh at the top I say I like Number9Dream more than Cloud Atlas? that's weird, I don't know why I said that. But referring back, I do see my five year estimate was accurate! So good for me!

My current ranking:
Ghostwritten
Cloud Atlas
Black Swan Green
Number9Dream
Jacob de Zoet

but I like all of them

Paris Review is available at the LRB shop.

I was blown away by #9dream - maybe even more than I was by all other Mitchell except BSG and (haven't read) the Thousand Autumns.

Have you read any Murakami, Pinefox?

I'd currently rank them:

Ghostwritten
Cloud Atlas
Black Swan Green
Jacob De Zoet
Number9Dream

Number9Dream never really gelled for me but it certainly had its moments.

I like Number9Dream best, though the center section of Cloud Atlas is probably my favorite thing he's written.

Number9Dream
Cloud Atlas

Ghostwritten
Jacob de Zoet
Black Swan Green

oh at the top I say I like Number9Dream more than Cloud Atlas?

Yeah, so far I think I agree.

I need to reread all of these, but I'm not much of a rereader.

i thought black swan green was great, though a little bit "neat" in the way it ended. but as far as that coming-of-age type of story goes, it was at the top of the genre.

yup.

i guess i would put cloud atlas/ghostwritten/black swan green above jacob de zoet too, but that makes it look like it's not good, and it is. really enjoyed it.

Nice lil piece abt what a Kate bush fan he is - http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jan/01/kate-bush-hero-david-mitchell

to answer question above: only read Murakami short stories. found them deeply unconvincing, or deeply shallow, or frustrating, or nugatory, or immature. wonder how far it's a translation problem and he is a much better writer really; was quite bamboozled by how mediocre he seemed in English sentences.

hence, while not doubting that #9dream must derive in part from DM's admiration of Murakami, am pretty certain that as a piece of writing in English #9dream is a million times better than, at least, the limited amount of M. that I have read in English.

I'm not a fan of Murakami at all, at all, but the charm of his writing-- and the thing that Mitchell emulates in number9dream-- at least, in my estimation-- is that episodic, non-sequitur quality that you find in classical Japanese literature. And, I'm told, Chinese lit too, but I haven't read any of that.

Mitchell takes the same idea, and has Eiji's adventure transpire like a stream-of-consciousness. The first time I read it, when the Yakuza section suddenly happened, it felt very much like Murakami, not to mention that Goatwriter chapter.

On another note, I reread De Zoet over Christmas and it's far and away my favourite of his. I was asked to interview him for a magazine, and started making inquiries, but later realized the editor was talking about this guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Mitchell_(actor)

sadly, in their home country this guy is a lot more famous

No disrespect to this guy intended.

On another note, I reread De Zoet over Christmas and it's far and away my favourite of his. I was asked to interview him for a magazine, and started making inquiries, but later realized the editor was talking about this [other] guy

that sux cuz he was by a decent margin the most interested and enjoyable of the handful of authors ive ever interviewed

ive thought about giving de zoet another shot because it took a second reading for me to really 'get' black swan green but i cant muster up the energy.

I like "...De Zoet" even more after letting it sink in and talking about it with my friends as they've read it.

apparently tom hanks is going to star in an adaptation co-written and co-directed by the wachowskis and tom tykwer of run lola run?

produced by ... michael bay?

i always thought it should be a 12-episode HBO miniseries broadcast in the same order as the book, w/ different directors for each segment doing 2 episodes each

unfortunately i am not in charge

your idea is better!

Much better, although conversely I don't think there's so much spilling out of Cloud Atlas that it couldn't be served well by a film adaptation. Hopefully they restrict Hanks to just one section rather than having him play several characters.

Luisa Rey section aside, the BBC might make a better fist of a Cloud Atlas series than HBO. Can't quite see an HBO-ised Timothy Cavendish story somehow.

It would be OK if Hanks just played the old gay bloke that Luisa Rey meets on a balcony

definitely, matt, HBO was just a placeholder

i think the most middle section of the book could be awesome – if it were done all dreamy and super-futuristic like

It would be OK if Hanks just played the old gay bloke that Luisa Rey meets on a balcony

Apparently playing Dr. Henry Goose: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1371111/

About one hundred pages into Jacob de Zoet, which I am so far enjoying more than his other books.

http://img2.timeinc.net/people/i/2011/news/111121/hugh-grant-300.jpg

hugh grant in makeup on set

i always thought it should be a 12-episode HBO miniseries broadcast in the same order as the book, w/ different directors for each segment doing 2 episodes each

― ban drake (the rapper) (max), Tuesday, April 12, 2011 10:03 PM (7 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

This is a great idea and would prob be better than the book which for all its effort never really shook the milquetoast Englishman tone

What an insult to Calvino frankly

J/k it was p good

nice try

Do u love this book max, cause I only like it it, its a bit stilted or something

yeah i do. i dont get 'stilted' at all from it--some parts dont succeed as well as others for sure. i think ghostwritten is better probably. (the others are all good too but not as easy to compare.) this guy is like my favorite working author though!

Ghostwritten is still my favorite, although a large chunk of the new one was beautiful.

It's a great book and I agree with Max (and suspect Alfred is correct about excellence of new book also) -- as living authors go, DM is brilliant and admirable and I like to celebrate him.

as I have said before I even thought no9dream, which no one here liked, was often staggeringly brilliant

I really liked Cloud Atlas, but I found Jacob de Zoet problematic. I seem to remember feeling it toiled somewhat. Pretty sure I wrote something on ILB, hang on.

Here we go:

I... can't make up my mind. Some good things - there's a nice aesthetic tingle produced by yoking constructs of Dutch 18th C Enlightenment/language with Japanese, and also his brief thumbnail detail has a sort of... well, what I wd approximate ignorantly with Japanese brush strokes, or the fine detail of its poetry/art.

Yet, and yet, it's awful slow burning. Mitchell's good at little set pieces, but actually, not an awful lot is happening. Continual hints at mystery are beginning to produce an atmosphere of a type of magic realism, whereas Cloud Atlas details a sense of real magic, rather than gesturing towards a sort of totemic/symbolic/metaphoric spirituality, which always strikes me as half-baked, and not a little lubberly.

There's a touch of the TEFL about the language stuff and a touch of the history lesson about more than a few of the character speechs.

His style grates on me sometimes as well, with characters' thinking descriptions in a most writerly fashion. Noticed this as well in Cloud Atlas, but it mattered less.

i loved the new one, even the mystical mountain demon part

i liked no9dream, pinefox

Feel like for all the formal ambition he's p workman like, he could afford to be more outragous or something, I'm all spread yr wings and fly David mitchell - like riffing off if on a winters night a traveler but finishing the stories is kind of oddly in opposition to the sprit of the thing - don't get me wrong it's still p awesome in its own way I just found it k frustrating

eh i think IOAWNAT is the wrong referent here, obviously its a forerunner to this but what hes doing is grounded a lot more in sci-fi/fantasy than it is in postmodern text games

that being said he doesnt "finish the stories" in ghostwritten, maybe youd like it more?

Isnt cloud atlas a direct ionawnat reference tho

i dunno

I didn't like winter's night and I loved Cloud Atlas

yes, he says CA idea was taken from WNight, but from my POV he has taken something and vastly improved on it.

Presumably that is possible to do and many instances could be found - eg Elvis Presley and Bill Haley, or whatever (nothing against Haley)

omg you're the only one, pinefox! besides me! who doesn't like if on a winter's night! <3!

Crazy talk!

i like his novels a lot but am also biased cuz ive interviewed a couple of times and he was just super intelligent and engaged and fun to talk to and once took like an extra hour just to chat w/ me abt like japanese music and nabakov, and was really encouraging and kind abt my own writing

'ghostwritten' is his best book, i think, although there are stretches of 'cloud atlas' that are incredible i think some of the sections really lag, also hes better at beginning than ending mb

hes kindof a storyteller at heart tho, i think, like he cares abt his characters and what happens to them, it makes his more fractured stories less inventive/clever but also nicer to read cuz theyre not just chess pieces or w/e. when i talked to him abt 'black swan green' he talked a lot abt 'realism' and caring abt truth which is kinda in opposition to calvino, sort of

My favorite part of Jacob de Zoet was the final section: the sea captain's ruminations.

http://img2.timeinc.net/ew/i/2012/07/24/fl-cloud-atlas_510x383.jpg

http://img2.timeinc.net/ew/i/2012/07/24/fl-cloud-atlas-2_510x383.jpg

http://pdl.warnerbros.com/wbmovies/cloudatlas/widget/images/slideshow/5.jpg

http://pdl.warnerbros.com/wbmovies/cloudatlas/widget/images/slideshow/7.jpg

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more here http://insidemovies.ew.com/2012/07/25/cloud-atlas-photos-tom-hanks-halle-berry-exclusive-first-look/

long ass trailer http://www.joblo.com/video/player.php?video=cloud-atlas-long-trailer

Running time 164 minutes

why is this not a tv show

Haha wau this looks fucking terrible. I will definitely go and see it.

I'm assuming Tom Hanks's character has just been made up for the film version?

Where does that Guy Ritchie-style gangster subplot in present day London fit in?

As if that weren’t complicated enough, each cast member plays multiple roles ... “We thought about these individual characters as aspects of larger characters,” Lana Wachowski says.

I'm just trying to understand ... why we keep making the same mistakes ... over and over.

DEATH LIFE BIRTH FUTURE PRESENT PAST LOVE HOPE COURAGE

EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED

CLOUD ATLAS

matt it's part of the 'ghastly ordeal of timothy cavendish' bit in the book

i don't know if it's because it's completely transparent when done well but why does it seem like nine out of ten films have no decent way of ever representing 'and then he read a book', 'and then he wrote a letter', 'and then he watched a film'

this could turn out to be okay, i think

i dont really know what this is, but that trailer's pretty gonzo!

can i just

http://i.imgur.com/7GQ5M.png

This looks like it could turn into the adaptation of Never Let Me Go.

i like the ott display but if the movie leans as hard on the humorless right here right now vibes as the trailer implies its going to be maybe the worst

tom hanks narrating abt life

the book was fun i hope they kept it fun

can i just

― Hungry4Ass, Thursday, July 26, 2012 8:32 AM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol yes

is that tom hanks, because in that still he looks disconcertingly like john travolta

that is tom hanks

i don't know about this btw. i think cloud atlas actually is one of those bits of work which is guilty of 'reaching for significance' or whatever (sunt lacrimae rerum, ad infinitum) but it gets away with it due to props and skill on mitchell's part -- and those props and that skill include doing talky stuff really, really well, and being pretty adept at pastiche of familiar styles that doesn't look like he's just doing author x

and i don't know if that makes the wachowskis a good match. i know v little about the run lola run guy. also, are they directing different segments? that is probably a good idea if they are.

You would have to be actively trying to fuck up the Luisa Rey section in film, but they might manage it. The Cavendish section really needs to retain the comedy of the original. The Adam Ewing bit and the sci-fi sections could be really po-faced and terrible. I'm worried about what they'll do to the Frobisher character and his music.

ahah the music in the trailer is also kind of ... 'this is what i've been hearing in my dream!!! *circle of fifths*'

ctrl-h 'props' 'chops' on that post above. god i stared at that for like a minute going 'what is wrong here'

What if life
Is a book
Divided into seven parts?
What if the story of man
Dovetails from one chapter to the next?
What if
We spell it out for you in film?

There's no way the Wachowskis will not fuck this up. Between this and Baz Luhrman doing Gatsby, and Keira Knightley doing Anna Karenina, there are going to be some incredibly vulgarised movies of great books soon.

Bad books too: Life of Pi

Cloud Atlas is good but it's not in Gatsby/Anna Karenina territory! The thing about Cloud Atlas is that it would actually make brilliant schlocky Hollywood cinema but I don't really trust the Wachowskis not to blow it.

fantastic (long) interview: http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6034/the-art-of-fiction-no-204-david-mitchell

I liked the story about the businessman in Hong Kong and the mythical story best. I liked the dystopian stories least. (Dystopia seems hard to imagine or temporary, fleeting, and situated.)

"dammit weed" lol

so psyched.

http://www.thebookseller.com/news/new-david-mitchell-novel-out-next-autumn.html

I was a bit this way and that on de Zoet but this is goi to be grebt:

The Bone Clocks.

while i loved this book and plan on reading everything else of his i was in exactly the same position as nabisco

My weird nagging issues on this are totally mechanical, though -- he does so much to toy with the idea that there's a mechanical in-the-book connection between all these characters, but he doesn't have one! For some reason this bugged all hell out of me: why keep hinting that you've got a concrete, non-thematic explanation for the form when you really, really don't? The many airy allusions to reincarnation are blown apart by (among other things) Luisa Ray: Cavendish would have been born around the point Frobisher died, so why is there a character from a thriller shoehorned between them? This wouldn't normally be a problem, but there's something about the form that leads you to believe the second halves of the story will give you a change to figure something out about the connections -- not something thematic, but something physical -- and yet with a lot of those second halves he seems to be writing purely for plot, just enjoying wrapping up the tales themselves, as if most of his content was on the page by the middle section, and everything thereafter is just tidying up.

So beyond the center section, I was mostly just chopping through to get the thing done, pushing through a lot of pages looking for some connections that didn't seem likely to crop up.

before the second half i was CONVINCED there was some epic connection that was going to string them all together. my best guess was some kind of rift in time thing where adam ewing somehow travels through time to the post apocalyptic future. zachry refers to "pa n' adam" being captured by kona, so i thought maybe autua was zachry's father, and he and adam had traveled through time due to something that would conspire once they'd reached hawaii. would've worked out perfectly, too, since frobisher hadn't found the second half of adam's diary yet, and luisa hadn't read the second half of frobisher's correspondence yet. then some connection with the nuclear reactor, her father maybe? i hadn't worked out the details past that point. anyways, IMO kind of a missed opportunity and i do agree with nabs that it hinted too much at a connection that wasn't there. but oh well, still an amazing read. is the new one good?

also if luisa is fictional then so are zedelghem and pacific diaries, no? i got the impression it was true crime but as n points out that blows apart the reincarnation thing, although i think mitchell might have just legit fucked up in that regard, as there's an ironic in-joke where timothy cavendish says that he would edit out the suggestion that frobisher and luisa are the same person, at which pt the reader is supposed to knowingly lol like, dude you are that person too!