I float through the "Cloud Atlas"

Cloud Atlas ***1/2
by David Mitchell

"Cloud Atlas" is hard to actively dislike. It has vision and passion. It begins in the islands of the south Pacific in the 1850s and ricochets across time and space to a far-future post-apocalypse. It explores Big Ideas and Big Themes like human migrations, domination, oppression, and the nature of evil and sin. But it's hard not to get distracted by a structure that seems contrived and smug. Just because you can do a triple axel with your eyes closed while drinking champagne from a crystal flute doesn't mean you should. Or that it's worth watching. (At left is a chart that would help those watching the movie made from this novel; I disagree with critic Kristy Puchko's notion that this is a story about "reincarnation," other than that the same human sins seem to be with us in every age.)

Anyhoo, let's get this rant going!

In the first half of the book, you get the beginnings of what seem to be five tenuously connected novellas. The pivot point is the sixth novella, told in its entirety, from whence you get the conclusions of the previous five stories, ending back in the South Pacific.

If you have ever read two or three books simultaneously--say like when you were in grad school, and you had to jump back and forth between "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and "Middlemarch" and you noticed that, despite differences in genre, style, point of view, etc., that the two works "talk" to each other thematically--then you have the general idea of what's going on in "Cloud Atlas." This can be a very enjoyable experience, of course.

But at my advancing age, the ability to manage six story lines in my head at once is pretty limited. And, at the risk of falling into philistinism, I have to say it's overkill. It's not that I don't appreciate what Mitchell's doing or the talent that allows him to do it. I'm just not sure it's completely successful.

More irritating is that this novel seems to have been written for--nay, it almost jumps in the laps and licks the faces of--those book club ladies who meet at high-end coffee shops to talk Serious Literature over artichoke bruschetta and cafe au lait. Discuss: Does this Brave New Work spell the end of the linear narrative? 

On the plus side, separately, all six stories are beautifully written and compelling, and tightly interwoven with reverberating names, places, and plot lines. And I've got no beef with Mitchell as a storyteller or stylist. The lovely and talented Dave Eggers also offers his imprimatur right on the front cover of the paperback version.

So there's that.