MetaFilter book club: Cloud Atlas

January 15, 2010 2:50 PM

This weekend's MetaFilter book club discussion on LibraryThing: Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell. (Previously on MetaFilter, MetaTalk.)
posted by russilwvong to MetaFilter Gatherings at 2:50 PM (36 comments total)

Cloud Atlas Shrugged?
posted by qvantamon at 2:52 PM on January 15, 2010

It's one of the best books I've ever read, but... we sure do talk about it a lot.
posted by ORthey at 3:00 PM on January 15, 2010

jesus i need to get off my ass and buy this book already. the number of times i've gone into a bookstore to buy it and for one reason or another failed to is ridiculous.
posted by shmegegge at 3:06 PM on January 15, 2010

Is the topic of this thread gonna change about a third of the way down the page?
posted by carsonb at 3:10 PM on January 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

About a week and a half ago I went to every bookstore in my area looking for it, partially due to it being referenced on MeFi many times over the years. None of the normal shops had it in stock; I finally found a copy in a box of extra stock (not on the shelves) at a charity used bookstore for $3.00.
posted by D.C. at 3:25 PM on January 15, 2010

Previously.
posted by Eideteker at 4:22 PM on January 15, 2010

A book by David Mitchell?? Count me in!

Oh. I see. Don't tease me like this.
posted by av123 at 4:34 PM on January 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

Is this something I would have to read books to understand?
posted by jeoc at 5:40 PM on January 15, 2010

"jesus i need to get off my ass and buy this book already. the number of times i've gone into a bookstore to buy it and for one reason or another failed to is ridiculous."

My girlfriend read it a while ago and her reaction was that it didn't live up to the hype. Decent book, nothing earth-shattering. That was a while ago—I should probably point her to the book club and have her actually voice her own opinions instead of just giving my vaguely remembered reminiscence. Still, I wouldn't rush to buy it.

(As a side note, I do think it's hilarious that she gets so miffed when people are like, "Oh, you're a librarian. You must love reading books!" She gets miffed because she's a reference librarian, and reading books isn't what she does for a living, but she finishes 8-10 books per week, to my 2-3. It's like, well, c'mon, you do love reading books. It's just not a causal relationship. But anytime I say something like "causal relationship," she's like, "We're not on Metafilter.")
posted by klangklangston at 5:50 PM on January 15, 2010 [5 favorites]

You know who else enjoyed Cloud Atlas?
posted by purephase at 7:56 PM on January 15, 2010

But anytime I say something like "causal relationship," she's like, "We're not on Metafilter."

I was recently ranting to my boyfriend about how someone on TV was employing the post hoc fallacy, and he sighed and said, "you've just been on Metafilter, haven't you?"
posted by scody at 7:59 PM on January 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

You know who else enjoyed Cloud Atlas?

great. now I won't read it. thanks, hitler.
posted by shmegegge at 8:53 PM on January 15, 2010

I picked up this book on MeFi's recommendation like 2 years ago. It's one of my favorite books ever. Been through a couple of copies. (I have a habit of giving them away.) It does seem to come up a lot. At least I can involve myself in the discussion without any extra work!
posted by absalom at 9:46 PM on January 15, 2010

Add me to the list of people who kept hearing about this on MeFi and meaning to check it out. I finally did: while at first I thought it was pretty good, I ended up thinking it was fucking incredible. One of the best books I've read in a long time. Thanks MetaFilter! *hugs*
posted by freebird at 11:23 PM on January 15, 2010

The cool thing about Metafilter is that all sorts of thoughts I would have forgotten are archived somewhere. I thought I made an observation about Cloud Atlas that I liked, and yup, here it is: David Mitchell's The Cloud Atlas is a contemporary example of nested pataphor.
posted by painquale at 11:36 PM on January 15, 2010

A book by David Mitchell?? Count me in!

Me too!
posted by turgid dahlia at 11:53 PM on January 15, 2010

It's OK.
posted by gaspode at 4:27 AM on January 16, 2010

I really enjoyed this book. I want to encourage people to visit here for an intelligent and illuminating discussion of Cloud Atlas between David Mitchell Ramona Koval from ABC Radio National's The Book Show.
posted by honey-barbara at 5:48 AM on January 16, 2010

I was recently ranting to my boyfriend about how someone on TV was employing the post hoc fallacy, and he sighed and said, "you've just been on Metafilter, haven't you?"

Fallacisterical?
posted by nebulawindphone at 8:25 AM on January 16, 2010

Hmm. I picked it up back in 2007, before I was on metafilter, because I heard he was inspired by Riddley Walker (which is, uh, amazing), but I just didn't like the story in the first part enough to keep reading into the second. Which is probably too bad, because I know the central stories are supposed to be the best part. But I tend to be most into things when they're both conceptually interesting and have really juicy stories--is the plot of the intertwining stories juicy enough for me to pick it up again?
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 8:26 AM on January 16, 2010

For what it's worth, PhoBWanKenobi, my wife couldn't stand the first story, but kept going and ended up really enjoying the rest of the book, particularly the two central stories. Might be worth giving it another shot.
posted by EarBucket at 9:09 AM on January 16, 2010

Fun enjoyable book, cute gimmick, but not, I dunno, Nabokov or something.
posted by FelliniBlank at 9:20 AM on January 16, 2010

Update: No, I remembered wrong, and since my girlfriend is also a MeFi member, I have to correct myself. She did love the book and recommends it highly. It's some other cloud book that I was thinking of that she was underwhelmed by. She just volunteered to read it again if I can find two copies at the library.
posted by klangklangston at 12:05 PM on January 16, 2010

Yay! We were going to do this book in my real life book club, but I was the only one who ended up reading it. I'm glad to have another chance to discuss it.

EarBucket: For what it's worth, PhoBWanKenobi, my wife couldn't stand the first story, but kept going and ended up really enjoying the rest of the book, particularly the two central stories. Might be worth giving it another shot.

The two central stories were definitely my favourites too. I also remember feeling like I had to force myself to read through the first part, but once I got to the second part I liked it and kept going. I'd say it's worth it to give it another shot.

I'm reading Oryx and Crake right now and feel like Mitchell must have been influenced by Atwood while writing the dystopian parts of Cloud Atlas.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 12:24 PM on January 16, 2010

I didn't like that book particularly much. It seemed pretty uneven. It's a collection of tenuously related novellas, the best of which are OK, the worst terrible.

I'm baffled as to why this is such a big hit on Metafilter. The gimmick that links the stories together is pretty pointless. The prose isn't brilliant, especially his faux 19th century stuff which has archaic terms randomly shoved into modern business-school sentence structure without any complex punctuation or nested sub-clauses or run-on sentences. The characters aren't particularly distinctive or memorable. The plotting is pretty much non-existent: the detective solves her case by being passively handed a dossier of incontrovertible proof for no particular reason.

I just don't see anything particularly impressive there.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 12:34 PM on January 16, 2010

I was impressed with the range of styles and the structure. It symmetrically pleasing way and in the end crystallizes into a weaved together whole that shouldn't work, but it did for me and he takes a huge gamble that he's going to keep you reading until you begin to see things resolve. I was impressed, delighted and entertained.
posted by Skygazer at 1:38 PM on January 16, 2010

I suspect it's a bit like "The Da Vinci Code" or "Avatar": the central gimmick is impressive enough that people don't notice most of the other elements kind of suck.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 2:05 PM on January 16, 2010

I'm baffled as to why this is such a big hit on Metafilter. The gimmick that links the stories together is pretty pointless. The prose isn't brilliant, especially his faux 19th century stuff which has archaic terms randomly shoved into modern business-school sentence structure without any complex punctuation or nested sub-clauses or run-on sentences. The characters aren't particularly distinctive or memorable. The plotting is pretty much non-existent: the detective solves her case by being passively handed a dossier of incontrovertible proof for no particular reason.



Holy cow. You missed the point entirely. I mean, really, really, really missed it, did not even begin to see the barest outline of it. Or at least, the point I got out of it.

SPOILERS

The overarching theme of Cloud Atlas, what drives the novel and the narratives, the single central conceit is that life goes on. It is one of the singlemost life-affirming books I've read, and not in the Chicken Soup horseshite way, but in a way far more profound and resonant. That in light of slavery and the horrors of imperialism there are those who can believe in man's innate goodness, even after nearly murdered for avarice. That a suicide can be an act of will that represents a conscious, meaningful decision. That people will seek the truth when it could mean their being killed. That even the most powerless and frail can overcome the most systemically oppressive settings. That the thirst for knowledge and justice persevere in a society seemingly lost to banal consumption oblivious to its pending downfall. That at the end of the world life wills itself to go on.

The point of Cloud Atlas is this will, the individual's will to love, live, create, seek justice, pursue truth, be free, and even die, all are glorious manifestations of existence, and that they endure in light of the worst atrocities and the most devastating damage that we people and societies inflict on ourselves and our world. The structure of the book unifies this idea, that this will to live exists regardless of time or place.

Is it a little gimmicky? Sure. Is the prose superb? Not really. Are the plots intricate and ingenuous? Of course not. But to focus on criticisms of the prose/plot/structure is in my mind missing the point entirely, it'd be like writing a review of what a piece of crap Lord of the Rings was because it had terrible dialogue and unbelievable plot/characters and long rambling sections of poetry and backstory that did nothing to forward the plot.
posted by Ndwright at 5:54 PM on January 16, 2010 [3 favorites]

Is it a little gimmicky? Sure. Is the prose superb? Not really. Are the plots intricate and ingenuous? Of course not.

In defence of luddites and philistines everywhere, at least two of those things are the reasons we read at all.
posted by turgid dahlia at 10:09 PM on January 16, 2010 [3 favorites]

It's a pity that the intention of the author alone (or the reader's perceived intention) is not enough to make a book enjoyable to read. Darn, pesky execution.
posted by mimo at 8:09 AM on January 17, 2010 [3 favorites]

I suspect it's a bit like "The Da Vinci Code" or "Avatar": the central gimmick is impressive enough that people don't notice most of the other elements kind of suck.
posted by TheophileEscargot Yesterday [+]

Oh my yes! I know exactly what you mean, just yesterday I was reminding the fellows down at the club of just how uppity and know-it-all, the servants have been since they've all acquired these irritating portable electronic noteb,ooks and begun making their opinions known on the iiinter-netttssss, why one, I believe one of the stable boys, it was, had the shameless insolence to attempt to discuss the works of my great great great great grand uncle....Sir William of the Shakespeare's with me while I being served late tea in the upper-library!

I dismissed him on the spot, and he shan't be receiving a letter of reference from me any time soon. At least not before I return from my North Pole expedition with the Archiduke of Uppensala, Sweden. Tut tut...and lord knows when and if we'll be returning from that as the landings for private sub-marines s known to be very dangerous. Luckily we stocked up on enough Russian caviar and a delightful Cuvee that will easily last us through the next decade or so...hurumpf...hurumpf...hurumpf......ho ho ho....oh I make myself laugh so....
posted by Skygazer at 2:49 PM on January 17, 2010

Oh my yes! I know exactly what you mean...

Yes, that's it! The gimmick of your post has almost completely obscured your point! Well done!
posted by mimo at 3:09 PM on January 17, 2010

GOOOOOOOD! Can you all just quit your cock fencing for a moment and let someone post a link to the Oprah review, puhleeeeese.
posted by Elmore at 3:47 PM on January 17, 2010

Now I want to be an Archiduke.
posted by matthewr at 4:29 PM on January 17, 2010

Well I guess I missed the point as well, but I enjoyed the hell out of it anyway.
The first [half-]section didn't really grab me, but after that I loved it.
My favorite part was The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish
posted by MtDewd at 4:58 PM on January 17, 2010

the central gimmick is impressive enough

I have to disagree. OK, I really enjoyed the book; enough to go straight out & buy & read his first - Ghostwritten - straight afterwards, and now I'm about to get started on another - Number 9 Dream.

(having said that, part of this is because I'm doing a lot of travelling these days, and they're easy reads, in an airport novel kind of way; entertaining & not too much digestion required)

*SPOILER TIME*

It's a collection of tenuously related novellas

The gimmick that links the stories together is pretty pointless

These statements sum it up pretty well. I'll see how #9Dream plays out, but from the first two I read, Mitchell seems to be a bit of a one-trick pony - he writes a bunch of novellas in different styles, and then "links" them together with interconnections that don't quite stack up. Or at least, not enough to really warrant more than about five minutes' thought.

For example, In Cloud Atlas, you have a number of characters (in different stories) who have the same comet birthmark. Between two of them, there is a suggestion of some kind of past-life memory, all of which hints at a notion of reincarnation. However, when one of them turns out to be merely a character in a pulp detective novel, where does that leave us?

The whole conceit falls down like a house of cards, unless you assume that the author of the detective potboiler had some kind of privileged insight into the whole reincarnation thing - an avenue not explored in the slightest, since the author doesn't have any role or mention in the story whatsoever, other than as a name; somebody who submitted a manuscript.

So, basically, you end up clutching at straws if you try to connect all the stories in that kind of sense. All you are left with is a series of stories within stories, which is hardly anything new or particularly inventive.

Ghostwritten is quite similar, only with less mature storytelling (especially in the science-fictiony parts), and with more physical intersection of characters' lives. But for what overall purpose? None, really, other than as a device to link novellas. Sure, in both books they have a common theme, but the linking doesn't really add anything other than an illusion of a greater design, which is sadly absent.
posted by UbuRoivas at 12:49 AM on March 8, 2010 [1 favorite]