“The novel as series of nested dolls or Chinese boxes, a puzzle-book, and yet-not just dazzling, amusing, or clever but heartbreaking and passionate, too. a head rush, both action-packed and chillingly ruminative.” - People “One of those how-the-holy-hell-did-he-do-it? modern classics that no doubt is-and should be-read by any student of contemporary literature.” -Dave Eggers He writes as though at the helm of some perpetual dream machine, can evidently do anything, and his ambition is written in magma across this novel’s every page.” - The New York Times Book Review Along the way, Mitchell reveals how his disparate characters connect, how their fates intertwine, and how their souls drift across time like clouds across the sky.Īs wild as a videogame, as mysterious as a Zen koan, Cloud Atlas is an unforgettable tour de force that, like its incomparable author, has transcended its cult classic status to become a worldwide phenomenon. The narrative then boomerangs back through centuries and space, returning by the same route, in reverse, to its starting point.

And onward, with dazzling virtuosity, to an inglorious present-day England to a Korean superstate of the near future where neocapitalism has run amok and, finally, to a postapocalyptic Iron Age Hawaii in the last days of history.īut the story doesn’t end even there. From there we jump to the West Coast in the 1970s and a troubled reporter named Luisa Rey, who stumbles upon a web of corporate greed and murder that threatens to claim her life. Abruptly, the action jumps to Belgium in 1931, where Robert Frobisher, a disinherited bisexual composer, contrives his way into the household of an infirm maestro who has a beguiling wife and a nubile daughter.

Goose, who begins to treat him for a rare species of brain parasite. Along the way, Ewing is befriended by a physician, Dr. In this groundbreaking novel, an influential favorite among a new generation of writers, Mitchell explores with daring artistry fundamental questions of reality and identity.Ĭloud Atlas begins in 1850 with Adam Ewing, an American notary voyaging from the Chatham Isles to his home in California. The result is brilliantly original fiction as profound as it is playful. By the New York Times bestselling author of The Bone Clocks | Shortlisted for the Man Booker PrizeĪ postmodern visionary and one of the leading voices in twenty-first-century fiction, David Mitchell combines flat-out adventure, a Nabokovian love of puzzles, a keen eye for character, and a taste for mind-bending, philosophical and scientific speculation in the tradition of Umberto Eco, Haruki Murakami, and Philip K.

Cloud atlas book