Ghostwritten From the Future

Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell8217;s third novel and the hot favourite for the Booker this year, is a novel of intimidating size as well as co...

Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell8217;s third novel and the hot favourite for the Booker this year, is a novel of intimidating size as well as complexity. Weighing in at over 500 pages, it is made up of the narrations of several characters across several centuries, spanning past, present and future. Mitchell was one of Granta8217;s Best of Young British Novelists; his second novel number9dream, shortlisted for the Booker Prize, was a brilliantly hard-edged narrative set in Japan. Cloud Atlas brings together the multiple-narrations style of his first novel, Ghostwritten, with the dizzying complexity of number9dream, and gives us Mitchell8217;s best work to date.

This intricately crafted, imaginatively executed novel has been compared to a set of Matrushka dolls, but the narrations are all tangled together, linked by recurring phrases, symbols, and snatches of voices heard or remembered 8212; all blended together with far greater complexity than merely embedding one inside the next. Voices cut in and interrupt one another, points of view give way to other ones, and different histories twist, turn, and clamour to be heard in the growing stereophony.

The novel begins with the 19th-century journal of Adam Ewing, an American notary in the Pacific, who befriends a 8220;savage8221;, only to be told, 8220;it8217;s one thing to throw a blackie a bone, but quite another to take him on for life8221;. A 8220;Caius man8221;, Robert Frobisher, stumbles upon Ewing8217;s journal in the library of Vyvyan Ayrs, a reclusive English music composer in Europe. But he also notes that something doesn8217;t ring quite true about the journal: 8220;Seems too structured for a genuine diary, and it8217;s language doesn8217;t ring quite true 8212; but who would bother forging such a journal, and why?8221; Frobisher8217;s letters to Rufus Sixsmith, his old friend from Cambridge days, are unearthed several decades later, after the unnatural death of the scientist. Journalist Luisa Rey decides to investigate Sixsmith8217;s death.

And so it goes on, from one connection to the next, and from one narration to the next, into the future. These are not spoilers: that the texts do connect in so many ways is not as remarkable as the stories they tell, for interconnectedness over six degrees of separation works as much across time as over space.

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Cloud Atlas has been compared to a set of Matrushka dolls, but the narrations are all tangled together, linked by recurring phrases, symbols, and snatches of voices heard or remembered

Mitchell8217;s prose is bright and ironical: 8220;Men invented mercy. Women invented mutual aid,8221; says one female character to another. 8220;The sacred is a fine hiding-place for the profane: they are always so similar,8221; says a 8220;fabricant8221; dinery-server being interviewed by an archivist in the future. 8220;Plumbing makes noises like elderly aunts,8221; complains Frobisher in a letter to Sixsmith. And in the future of Sonmi and Soul, 8220;to enslave an individual distresses the conscience, but to enslave a clone is merely like owning the latest mass-produced six-wheeled Ford.8221; Finally, in an all-but-annihilated world, a goatherd hears that 8220;it ain8217;t savages what are stronger8217;n civilizeds; it8217;s big numbers what8217;re stronger8217;n small numbers.8221;

The most enjoyable parts of the novel tell the story of fiction itself, through the tale of Timothy Cavendish, vanity publisher. He consoles his desolate author after bad reviews: 8220;Come now, what8217;s a reviewer? One who reads quickly, arrogantly, but never wisely.8221; And he8217;s not fond of PoMo gimmickry either: 8220;As an experienced editor I disapprove of backflashes, foreshadowings and tricksy devices, they belong in the 1980s with MAs in Postmodernism and Chaos Theory.8221; Yet he is delighted with his surprise-enterprise, Knuckle Sandwich: 8220;Culture-vultures discussed its socio-political subtexts first on late-night shows, then on breakfast TV. Neo-Nazis bought it for its generous lashings of violence. Worcestershire housewives bought it because it was a damn fine read. Homosexuals bought it out of tribal loyalty8230; That odious label 8216;Vanity Publisher8217; became 8216;Creative Financier8217;.8221;

The stories together form a thought-provoking and troubling set of reflections not only on colonial encounters, creativity, and consumerism, but also on power, savagery, and the human condition. Most importantly, the novel leaves us thinking about what lies ahead in our common future. Where will the story lead, we wonder.