Cloud Atlas (novel)

The novel consists of six stories, united by the fact that the protagonist of each subsequent story is somehow connected with the protagonist of the previous one. The first five stories are divided in half, and after the first half of the first story follows the first half of the second story, the first half of the third and so on to the sixth story, which is given in full. After it follows the second half of the fifth story, the second half of the fourth and so on until the second half of the first story. From the point of view of chronology, the novel describes events sequentially first from the past to the future, and then again returns to the past.

• The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing . The first story takes place on Chatham Island , a remote archipelago in the Pacific Ocean, where Adam Ewing, an artless notary from San Francisco during the California Gold Rush, awaits the completion of repairs to his ship. Traveling around the island, Adam gets acquainted with the English doctor Henry Gus and learns that the indigenous people, Moriori , were enslaved by the warlike people of the Maori . Having made friends with the doctor, Adam confesses to him that he is seriously ill, in response to which Gus promises to take up his treatment on the way to his homeland. After the ship sets sail in his cabin, Adam discovers a Moriori native named Atua, who escaped from slavery, secretly sneaked into the ship and asks for help. Despite the risk of being accused of having aboard a fare dodger, Adam helps Atua get a job on the ship. Adam takes Dr. Gus’s medicine, but feels worse and worse.
• Letters from Zedelgem . The second story takes place in 1931 in the Belgian city of Zedelgem, from where Robert Frobisher, a young English bisexual , adventurer and unrecognized musician, writes letters to his friend and lover Rufus Sixsmith. Finding himself without money and fleeing from creditors, Frobisher embarks on an adventure: he goes to Belgium, finds there an elderly composer Vivian Aires, who has not been involved in music for a long time, and offers him his services as an assistant and personal secretary. Ayres accepts the offer of Frobisher and returns to composing music, and he, in turn, enters into a love affair with his wife. At Ayres’s house, Frobisher reads with interest the old book , Adam Ewing’s Pacific Journal . He is amused by Ewing's naivety, who does not see that Dr. Gus is not actually treating, but poisoning him.
• Half-lives. The first investigation of Louise Rey . The third story is written in the style of a detective thriller and takes place in 1975 in Buenas Yerbas, a fictional city in California . The young journalist Louise Rey accidentally meets Rufus Sixsmith, an elderly nuclear scientist. He reports that the new nuclear power plant, which they plan to open in the vicinity of Buenas Yerbas, poses a serious danger. Shortly afterwards, Sixsmith mysteriously dies. Investigating what is happening, Louise realizes that the powerful corporation that owns the power plant, not only organized the assassination of a potential informant, but did not stop at anything to eliminate everyone standing in her way. In the things of the deceased Sixth Smith, Louise discovers Frobisher’s letters and finds out that the early dead composer managed to publish only one work - “The Cloud Atlas Sextet” . Meanwhile, the corporation-hired killer overtakes Louise. Chasing her in a car, he pushes a journalist's car off a bridge.
• The Last Judgment of Timothy Cavendish . The fourth story is written in a humorous style and is happening in the UK at present. At the age of 65, Timothy Cavendish, a London-based publisher who publishes books with the money of authors, falls off wealth: the book of his gangster client becomes a bestseller. Unexpectedly, the client’s brothers, the same gangsters, demand that Cavendish “share” the profit, threatening to deal with him in case of refusal. In vain trying to collect the required amount, Cavendish in desperation turns to his brother, with whom he has a bad relationship. Annoyed by Timothy's requests, his brother refuses to give him money, but offers to hide in a certain remote hotel for a while. Cavendish flees from London, reading the manuscript Half-Life. The first investigation of Louise Rey . " Arriving at the hotel, Timothy realizes that he is trapped: in reality, this place is a nursing home , from where no one is going to let it out.
• Orizona Sonmy 451 . The fifth story is written in the genre of dystopian science fiction and occurs in the future in the totalitarian state of Ni-So-Kros, which developed from modern Korea . The basis of the state is corporate culture , and residents are divided into “purebred” (people born naturally) and “products” (artificially grown slave clones genetically modified to perform various types of work). The narrative is conducted in the form of an interview between the “factory” girl, sentenced to death, “Sonmi 451” and the “archivist” (English archivist ^[1] ), a civil servant recording her story. Originally created as a worker in a fast food restaurant, the Sonmi 451 becomes an experimental experiment in the Ascension experiment (an attempt to develop the “manufacturer” to the level of “purebred”). Having escaped from the closed world of "factories", Sonmi-451 discovers for itself a completely unfamiliar world of reality, the existence of which she did not suspect. One of the highlights of her new life is an old film called The Last Judgment of Timothy Cavendish . Eventually, Sonmi 451 begins to realize that its “ascension” is not an accident, but part of the struggle that people from the underground are waging with a totalitarian system.
• Crossing near Listen and all the rest . The sixth story takes place in the distant post-apocalyptic future on the Big Island of the Hawaiian Islands , where an old man named Zakri tells a story from his youth. After a catastrophic event that destroyed most of civilization on the planet, the surviving people returned to paganism and tribal relations. The island on which Zakri lives is inhabited by the people of the Valley - his fellow tribesmen, peaceful farmers who worship the goddess Sonmi, as well as the barbarian Konov hostile to them. Periodically, the island is visited by ships of the "foreseeing," a much more developed tribe. After another visit, a “foreseeing” woman named Meronymus remains to live in Zakri settlement. She wants to visit the peak of the Mauna Kea volcano , a place that the inhabitants of the Valley are afraid of because of the mystical “temples” on its peak. Zachry reluctantly agrees to become her guide. Later it becomes clear that in reality the “temples” are the ruins of the Mauna Kea Observatory . Meronymus shocked Zakri by telling him that the goddess Sonmy was actually a human being and showing him the “Orizon” - an unusual device that allows to see and hear Sonmy. After their return, the Valley is attacked by Konov, who exterminate its inhabitants, and the remaining are taken into slavery. Zakri and Meronim manage to escape from the island with difficulty. In conclusion, Zachry’s son says that part of the incredible story that his father told may be true, since he got the “Orizon” of Sonmy, whom he often watches, although he does not understand her language.

Then the other five stories end up in reverse order.

Mitchell about his book:

David Mitchell in his interview said that the name of the book was inspired by the music of the same name by Japanese composer Toshi Itiyanagi , who was Yoko Ono's first husband: “I bought the CD only because of the amazing name of the composition.” The title of Mitchell’s previous novel, Dream No. 9, was inspired by a passage from Yoko Ono’s third husband, John Lennon ^[3] .

The book’s style was influenced by the Italian writer Italo Calvino ’s novel “ If a traveler once a winter night ”, which consists of several incomplete interrupted tales. Mitchell’s invention was to add a “mirror” to the center of the book so that each story could be brought to an end ^{[4] [5]} .

Mitchell noted that when describing Robert Frobisher and Vivian Ayres, he used the images of the great English composer Frederick Delius and his personal secretary Eric Fenby ^[4] .

The novel was filmed by directors Tom Tykver and Lana and Andrew Wachowski . Production began in September 2011 at the Babelsberg studio in Germany with a limited cast, which was supposed to cover all the storylines. The film was released in North America on October 26, 2012.

In October 2012, Mitchell wrote an article in The Wall Street Journal entitled “Translating Cloud Atlas into the Language of the Cinema,” which described the work of directors as translators of the work into another language. He noted that he was satisfied with the end result of the work as a successful translation ^[6] .

• Atlas compiled by the sky

• David Mitchell discusses Cloud Atlas on the BBC Channel Culture Show
• Cloud atlas website full review
• David Mitchell Cloud Atlas , Ted Joya Review