Oftentimes unwieldy to those with relatively poor vocabulary (myself, of course, included), David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas is a set of tales too compelling to take time judging its issues. Mitchell can be any kind of author he'd like and he has proven it with this book, masterfully shifting tones without diminishing its readability.
Six loosely intertwining tales of deceit, love, conspiracy and death are told in a circular narrative (beginning ends in the beginning). Each tale beholds one person reincarnated in a different era. Adam Ewing, a notary man builds friendship with a Moriori slave who eventually comes to aid his ordeal, 1850. Robert Frobisher, a bisexual composer, sends letters of his journeys to his one true love Rufus Sixsmith, 1931. A young journalist named Luisa Rey sets out to investigate an unsafe nuclear power plant, 1975. Timothy Cavendish, a vanity press publisher flees the maiming hands of the brothers of his client. In Neo So Copros, a town set in a dystopian future, is Somni~451, a genetically engineered fabricant who soon calls for rebellion. Zachry, a Pacific Islander tells the story of his youth, how he witnessed science and civilization fall in the post-apocalyptic society on the Big Island of Hawaii.
There's little complaint when the book did drag a tiny until the other half where it builds up and conjures a certain sympathy. That painful pinch in the heart where the characters commence with their climactic endings, painful, sweet, heartwarming.
David Mitchell crafts a compelling book. The kind that tucks you in at night and reminds you how your life is not yours it only seems fitting to live it well.
VERDICT: 4.5/5
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