Cloud Atlas - A Brief Review

The idea of interlinking narratives to form a larger whole — with their relationships often remaining obscured until a late reveal — already feels a little tired as a film concept. And, with modern fiction increasingly striving to emulate cinema, it doesn’t exactly impress from a literary perspective either. It might be understandable then to approach Cloud Atlas with more than slight apprehension. The cover notes offer little more than that the adventure is indeed an amazing one, and they kindly warn you to expect a composite narrative. Not exactly the most auspicious beginning. Fortunately, as those already familiar with David Mitchell will have already guessed, Cloud Atlas is much, much more than a funky narrative. In fact, it’s not a funky narrative at all really.

Cloud Atlas parts way with expectation in that the component parts of the novel work just as well independently of each other as they do as a whole. Rather than having obfuscation prevail until the last third, where the thread of continuity is sanctimoniously revealed, Mitchell instead favours a thematic link — where the infrequent overlaps in his tales function more as tasteful flourishes than as being fundamental to narrative completion. This is a far more subtle approach and one that I much prefer to the former, in which I find that authorial presence can become overwhelming by its contrivance.

Considering Cloud Atlas on a thematic level then, how does it fare? In my view, pretty well. It is ostensibly spiritual with rebirth as leitmotif, questions of morality figuring prominently, and no shortage of religious characters and occurrences. Indeed, I suspect that for the more pious reader a spiritual interpretation could well be the most compelling. One moment in particular stands out, where Mitchell artfully disproves a fictional religion in the course of the narrative, yet simultaneously accedes a latent supernaturalism. This makes a fitting tribute to the vagaries of agnosticism.

Unfortunately however, I put myself firmly in the atheist camp. In order to deliver on subtext, Cloud Atlas must offer up more than purely religious interpretation. This it does. Taken as a social and political discourse, I feel that the novel positively thrives. The questions of morality are of course universal, but it is when they are considered as a purely social function that they become the most profound. It is with expert irony that Mitchell compares greed to motivation and finds the answer to be no more than perspective. The pensive nature of Cloud Atlas is also in evidence in its structure, with the second half of the novel being an inversion of the first — an invitation to reflection.

If the novel does have a weakness, then it is that it does at times lack subtlety. Mitchell does sometimes give in to the temptation to have his characters explicitly explain his big ideas, which does seem a little as though he is underestimating his audience. Then again, of course, this could be construed as one of his strengths — the novel doesn’t creak and groan with the austerity of ‘big L’ Literature. Readability can sometimes be a controversial quality in a literary novel, so you do really have to admire the way that Mitchell has managed to sneak it into Cloud Atlas. By offering up his fragments as a pastiche of other novel forms, he is able to shamelessly incorporate those ‘cheaper’ qualities that make for a page-turner, all the while managing to retain his integrity. Not everyone will like it, but I for one am grateful.