Why Cloud Atlas? I don’t know. For someone such as myself, with a slightly sub-standard cranial capacity it was quite a challenge. It’s the story - no, it’s six stories - of people bound to each other through several (many) generations by... Well it’s not too clear on that point. I think the best way to explain it is to say that we’re constantly being re-incarnated with the same collection of souls. How we interact today, with cruelty or kindness to our fellow travelers will have an effect on our relations in some future life. Of course, I over simplify. If it were simply a tale of what-goes-around-comes-around that wouldn’t be so interesting. The type of karma described in Cloud Atlas does not manifest itself as some linear cause and effect equalizer of deeds. The karma in Cloud Atlas is more like that ball of Christmas lights that while packed away for a couple of seasons somehow managed to intertwine itself into a seemingly inextricable mass only to magically unravel and expose itself as an orderly string of lights, connected one to another, always and obviously.
As a would-be-writer of good stuff (I’ve somehow managed to publish some not-so-good stuff) I come across something like Cloud Atlas and think: That’s what I want to do! It is then that my limitations hit me. I struggle with Purple Prose. I hate it, but I fear my writing appears naked without it. My story lines too are simple: boy meets girl, boy meets problem, the problem comes between boy and girl, boy and girl beat the problem, some good guy dies so happy ending can become a tragedy and therefore turn into serious literature. Ugh!
I have no way of knowing what David Mitchell was thinking when he began writing Cloud Atlas - even though I did check for insight on Wikipedia. Maybe all he ever intended to create was a really exciting pirate story. I said maybe - so don’t complain to me that there are no actual pirates in Cloud Atlas. Did he sit down with the intention of capturing… hmmm. What did he capture? I’ve sometimes equated writing that works for me as hearing the perfect blues note. I don’t know exactly what it is but when I hear it, or read it, it rattles the dust off the soul. For a moment teleportation is not just science fiction, it’s real, and I’m someplace else where clarity of vision is the norm, harmony is inevitable and the warmth, wherever it’s coming from, is nourishing.
Someplace David Mitchell is saying, “For crying out loud, it’s only a book!” But for me Cloud Atlas successfully encapsulated all those little sparks of thought that are constantly darting about in my head making absolutely no sense at all: the contradictions of thoughts that can love and hate the same things at the same moment, the supposedly deeply held beliefs that aren’t so deep but are really equal parts faith and doubt. For the brief moment that I basked in the shadow of Cloud Atlas what once was a convolution of seemingly unrelated thoughts mucking up my psyche appeared orderly. Then, like that magic single note that only an Eric Clapton or B.B.King can find, that moment of clarity fades away.
And this is why I don’t write book reviews. I can’t tell you how many misspelled words there may have been in my edition of Cloud Atlas. I’m not entirely sure that commas weren’t over-used, or that semi-colons were used correctly. I read a book. I fall into it or I don’t.
So, why does Cloud Atlas inspire? Because, once again, a gifted author shows what can be achieved with nothing more than a collection of words. Why does it intimidate? Because while writing can be enjoyable in its own right, and life on the plateaus of blogdom can be fun, it’s the top of the writing mountain that we strive for. Luckily, inspiration and the desire to emulate will overtake intimidation.
“…only as you gasp your dying breath shall you understand, your life amounted to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean!""Yet what is any ocean but a multitude of drops?”
- David Mitchell
