"'I dreamt of a...nightmarish café, brilliantly lit, but underground, with no way out. I'd been dead a long, long time. The waitresses all had the same face. The food was soap, the only drink was cups of lather.'" --Vyvyan Ayrs, "Letters from Zedelghem" (Mitchell 79)
So far, all six stories have been introduced. First, "The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing", a tale of a man in the 1800s who helps a stowaway slave aboard his ship home. Second, "Letters from Zedelghem", the letters written by Robert Frobisher, a young and hopeful composer working under the wing of the once great Vyvyan Ayrs (as an amanuensis, basically Ayrs's musical scribe), to his beloved Rufus Sixsmith. Third, "Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery", the 'fictional book' (as mentioned in the fourth story) about a journalist who is on the brink of discovering a deadly secret about a nuclear power plant. Fourth, "The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish", the memoir of an elderly publisher who is tricked deviously by his brother and sent to a nursing home. Fifth, "The Orison of Sonmi-451", the futuristic interview of the fabricant who fights for the right of equality. And sixth, "Sloosha's Crossin' An' Ev'rythin' After", the even more futuristic telling of a Valleysman named Zachry who is constantly haunted by the devil, known as Old Georgie.
The order of the stories is as follows: "Adam Ewing" (Part 1), "Letters" (Part 1), "Half-Lives" (Part 1), "Ghastly Ordeal" (Part 1), "Sonmi-451" (Part 1), "Sloosha's Crossin'", "Sonmi-451" (Part 2), "Ghastly Ordeal" (Part 2), "Half-Lives" (Part 2), "Letters" (Part 2), and "Adam Ewing" (Part 2). Interestingly enough, David Mitchell utilizes a full-circle ending as a way of connecting all of the story lines together. Up until "Sloosha's Crossin'" (meaning all Part 1's), the stories have been ordered from past to future, but once the stories start going backwards (meaning all Part 2's), they will be told from future to past. I am currently almost finished with "Sloosha's Crossin'" (a little more than half-way through the novel).
Compared to the movie, the stories have more character, back story, and heart (which I enjoyed and applauded; as I mentioned in the first post, I'm reading Cloud Atlas for the original experience that made readers all over the world giddy about this book). Most are written in first-person, if not third-person omniscient (referring to the "Luisa Rey" story), which allows the reader to "get inside the character's head" and experience the character's emotions. However, the stories are all told in different vernaculars. Here, is a sentence from the "Adam Ewing" story compared to a sentence from the "Sloosha's Crossin'" story:
"An admixture of urussium alkali & orinoco manganese will calcify my Parasite & laphrydictic myrrh will disintegrate it." --Adam Ewing, 1800s (Mitchell 36)
"Such barb'ric buggahs are them painted Kona, bros." -- Zachry Bailey, future (Mitchell 299)
Both of these sentences are rich in color and character, and they definitely convey the setting (as well as the issues each character is facing) of each story line. While Ewing's worries about a parasite that has plagued him aboard the ship in the 1800s, Zachry must constantly fret over his and his family's safety when the Kona, a cannibalistic tribe, raid their villages in the future. Each character in the stories uses their own unique mother tongue in describing their tales.
SPOILER ALERT: As I mentioned in the first post, "everything is connected". Part 1 of the "Adam Ewing" story ends in mid-sentence: "...the forenoon & morning watches so both starboard & port shifts might" (Mitchell 39) before the "Letters" story begins. Within the second story, Frobisher explains to Sixsmith how he has fallen in love with a journal he found in Vyvyan Ayrs's house written by a dying Adam Ewing, yet there is only half of a journal. Here, the connection is obvious. The "Ewing" story does not end in mid-sentence without a purpose. It actually merges the perspectives of the reader and the characters, so that now, the reader is now interconnected with the stories. Also in the second story, Vyvyan Ayrs dreams of a "nightmarish café" (referring to the quote at the top of the page), which is where Sonmi-451 worked in the fifth story. In the third story, "Luisa Rey", the older Sixsmith looks back on the letters written by Frobisher. When Sixsmith is killed, Luisa Rey discovers the letters and reads through them herself. In astonishment, she discovers that she has the same comet-shaped birthmark Frobisher once had: "Luisa shunts these aside to get a clearer view of a birthmark between her shoulder blade and collarbone...Coincidences happen all the time. But it is undeniably shaped like a comet" (Mitchell 122). Moving on to the fourth story, "Ghastly Ordeal", Timothy Cavendish is mailed a manuscript written by Hilary V. Hush, titled Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery. When I reached this part, my head spun. I wondered if this meant that so far, everything that happened...never happened. That feeling of uncertainty of what was reality and what wasn't, didn't really settle well with me. I didn't like the idea (and I still don't) that the first three stories never happened. Well wait until you hear what's next. In the fifth story, Sonmi-451 tells the Archivist (he's sort of like an interviewer) about a movie she watched called "The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish". My only reaction was to throw the book to the ground, but thankfully, I came to my senses. Still, I was frustrated. What is real and what isn't? What has happened and what is fiction? Anyways, Sonmi also mentions a birthmark between her shoulder blade and collar bone. The Archivist takes a look at it and remarks that it is in the shape of a comet. The comet-shaped birthmark is a symbol that further links the characters (Frobisher, Luisa, and Sonmi) together. Each of these three characters have something in common. They are all aspiring to turn their dreams into reality (Frobisher wants to become a composer, Luisa wants to become a famous journalist, and Sonmi wants to be equal to the purebloods of her time), and at the same time, there are obstacles in their way (Frobisher vs. Ayrs (I haven't gotten to this part in the book, but I know it should be coming up), Luisa has been pushed off a bridge at the end of Part 1, and Sonmi is on her way to her death). Going back to the stories, I have yet to describe how the sixth story is connected to all of the others. Well, all of the Valleysmen worship Sonmi, who they claim to be a Goddess, but Zachry learns from Meronym, who is a Prescient (a civilized human-being "in the future") that Sonmi actually used to be a human. It is very complicated and it is hard to wrap your head around it, but yes, everything really is connected in one way or another.
Some characters share similar experiences and must face similar events that occur in their lives:
"But no, we cross, crisscross, and recross our old tracks like figure skaters." --Timothy Cavendish, "Ghastly Ordeal" (Mitchell 163)
Here, Timothy Cavendish has just arrived via train to a town that stirs an old feeling and a sense of déjà vu. He realizes in life that we have a tendency to go back to our old methods/habits and revisit our pasts. This is definitely true--why else do we constantly go to our favorite vacation spot every year or maybe repeat our mistakes? Now, this does not pertain to only one person, but rather multiple people across time and space. Just as Timothy is oppressed by the nursing home's staff, other characters in the novel are equally as oppressed (a quote that I have taken with me from the Cloud Atlas movie is "I will not be subjected to criminal abuse" and it reminds me of the cruelty that people inflict on others within the stories). Some examples of these characters include Autua, Robert Frobisher, and Sonmi-451. In the "Ewing" story, Autua, the stowaway who Ewing helps, is always seen as a lesser man to the white crew members on the ship. Robert Frobisher, in the "Letters" story, is threatened by Vyvyan Ayrs who says that he will ruin Frobisher's reputation if Frobisher quits and leaves. While, on the other hand, Sonmi-451 is being oppressed more seriously. She is a fabricant, meaning she was created in a "wombtank" and not birthed by a mother, and she tries to fight for her right of equality alongside the purebloods, those who are birthed by a mother. At the end of her interview with the Archivist, she faces execution for challenging the status quo.
Finally, the universal theme of the story has begun to seep through the pages:
"Ah, I envied my uncritical, unthinking sisters." --Sonmi-451, "The Orison" (Mitchell 199)
Sonmi-451 is explaining to the Archivist how her mindset, behavior, and actions all began to change while she was working in Papa Song. She started using more complex words when conversing with others, wondering about the outside world beyond the café in which she worked, and doubting "the system" (these are all not expected of fabricants). When I read this quote, the aphorism "Ignorance is bliss" came to mind. While, Sonmi-451 is worrying about things that she didn't have to worry about before, the other fabricants go about their everyday lives of serving consumers. It's human nature, which is the universal human truth in this story, to be blissfully ignorant of the unknown and ugly.
Cloud Atlas has been a great read; it is daring, adventurous, and a fresh take on how all of our lives are interconnected. I will definitely continue on with this book, because as Robert Frobisher said: "A half-read book is a half-finished love affair" (Mitchell 64).
Ooooooh intriguing quotes! It makes me want to read Cloud Atlas and watch the movie. I really enjoyed listening to the sextet, so thanks for posting it! You seem to be really enjoying this book.... well actually you've probably finished it as this post is pretty late, but I like reading your comparisons between the movie and the book. From your quotes, I can definitely tell that the story has more character. It's interesting to see the differences between past and future English.
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