Legit Lit: Cloud Atlas

I vowed to read Cloud Atlas post-haste after hearing a bit of it read aloud at Symphony Space during an evening of Selected Shorts featuring author David Mitchell. After turning the last page rather breathlessly on Monday night, I dragged Ed to see the movie (all two hours and 45 minutes of it). This post will be a struggle to write because I don't want to give away too much about either one; here goes nothing.

First of all, David Mitchell can write. This guy's phenomenal. His books are nothing short of enthralling, and I highly recommend any of the ones I've read. I'm not sure that Cloud Atlas is my favorite, but that's only because they're all so good. I can say with confidence, however, that Cloud Atlas is certainly the most ambitious of his offerings that I've paged through. For those who don't know, it is split  into six different stories which take place in six vastly different time periods, beginning in 1849 and reaching hundreds of years into the future. The first half of the book works through the first halves of five of the stories, which are presented chronologically. The sixth story is told in its entirety in the middle of the book, then the second halves of each of the stories are told in descending order so that the book begins and ends with Adam Ewing's 1849 journal. This structure is interesting for a lot of reasons, but one of the most compelling aspects for me was already knowing what would happen to Mitchell's world as I read the second half of the book. It still managed to pack quite a few surprises.

Mitchell definitely does not have a "type" as far as genres go. I wrote in a previous post about his dexterous somersaulting between historical fiction, coming of age stories, and post-modern experimental works. His virtuosity is visible in full force in Cloud Atlas. Each of the six stories is told in a completely different style, and masterfully so. Adam Ewing's 1849 journals reminded me of the dreadful old journals I had to read in college penned by pompous, venerable Americans from the 17th and 18th centuries (differing only in that Mitchell's work is not dreadful). The 1970's detective story read like any chronicle of a hard-boiled gumshoe, complete with some lame jokes and characters all trying to sound like they're infinitely more badass than everyone else. The modern-day farce told by elderly British Timothy Cavendish had a romping tone, and the sixth story was written entirely in an invented pidgin (which was tough to read at first, though I got used to it.) All this, remember, in one book. Each of the primary characters is connected to another character in another time period somehow, and I anxiously flipped pages as I sought to discover these links. The book was simply riddled with subtleties, and I highly recommend it to the thoughtful reader. Reading it is thrilling in the way that climbing a high mountain is: You'll be left speechless by the view, but your lungs and legs will be burning by the time you get there. For the adventurous soul, it's well worth the trip.

Two of Tom Hanks's roles. Recognize him?

I'm very glad I saw the movie version and enjoyed it very much, though, as is always the case, the book was better. Obviously, changes had to be made - for one thing, the book is 500 pages long. One major difference between the novel and the film is that the stories crosscut with each other frequently on the screen instead of proceeding along in stately order as they do in the book. I thought this was a very effective adjustment, and it made the connections between the plotlines easier to see for the benefit of those who didn't have the book's background. The movie features the same few actors appearing in time period after time period, often wearing thick make-up and elaborate costumes so that they can play characters of different ages, races, and even genders. This was an element that was largely absent in the book and added a whole different layer of meaning to the movie, which I saw mostly as arbitrary but Ed saw as pivotal. It will be interesting to hear what he thinks after reading the book. The movie was directed by two different parties: Tom Twyker took the central stories, and Andy and Lana Wachowski oversaw the shooting of both the most historic and most futuristic of the scenes which bookended Twyker's work. I much preferred Twyker's approach. The central stories held on to a great deal of the gentle nuances that shaped Mitchell's book, while the Wachowskis traded a lot of the pivotal conversations and powerful event sequences in the book for flashy chases and fight scenes.

The minute the credits started to roll, Ed announced that he was definitely going to read the book; he'd been on the fence before. I said that I assumed he'd like the movie, and he said that yes, he had, but that he could tell there were many more subtleties in the book that didn't make it to the screen and was anxious to read them for himself. I'd say this statement pretty much sums up my rationale for preferring the novel to the film. I enjoyed both, but I sort of resented the way that much of the intricate, meaningful detail had to be either eradicated or blasted at the audience at full volume. I know the directors had to make things obvious, but I hated to see the deliciously labyrinthine story pruned down. I recommend seeing Cloud Atlas - somewhat less heartily than I recommend reading it - but only with the caveat that those who wish to indulge in both should do themselves the favor of reading it first.