Hello Gentle Reader
When I had first heard that the complex and thoroughly original novel by David Mitchell (one of my favourite authors of today’s world) was to become a film, there were certain doubts that the complexity of the novel could be impossible to transcribe to the theatre. There still remain these doubts, which have no sprouted and taken root, anchored deep into my expectations. However after seeing the trailer for the film adaptation of “Cloud Atlas,” there appears to be an understanding that the director and the staff of the film have captured, something; they have captured the fleeting moments of pleasure of reading the book. They understand the complexity of the book, and they realize the postmodern and almost challenging style of the book allows for it to be one of the greatest books, in the last few years that really can compare to some of the great works of the twentieth century in its innovative understanding of literature and of the art of storytelling. Written in the same style of Italo Calvino’s “If on a winter’s night a traveler,” with sole exception that the book is written with a mirror in the middle of the six novella’s and reflects their beginnings and endings. David Mitchell remembered being amazed by the book when he had first read it as an undergraduate. However upon re-reading the book, he found its wonder and amazement had all disappeared. Much like touching a butterfly’s wings – the dust is removed. The same could be said with David Mitchell’s experience with Italo Calvino’s book. The firs time he had, read the wonderful postmodern puzzle he was shocked by its inventiveness. The second time, when he touched the gold of the book, it crumbled to dirt. However, David Mitchell realizes that a book can only be breathtaking and inventive once; but at least it was better once then never.
When I had first read “Cloud Atlas,” I was amused, and enjoyed it. It challenged me as a reader, and also challenged my ability to read. It demanded concentration (“Sloosha's Crossin' an' Ev'rythin' After,”) and rewarded (“An Orison of Somni-451,”) it made one laugh (“The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish,”) it became ambiguous (“Letters from Zedelghem,”) each time it had asked us why continue as both individuals and as a society to make the same mistake (“The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing,”) but it gave us a riot of action but allowed for great depth (“Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery.”).
The film asks these same questions:
“Why do we keep making the same mistake over and over?”
It shows the beauty of life; as the fictional “Cloud Atlas Sextet,” is a (fictional) music composition that has six soloists that overlap. They are not interludes, or preludes, or postludes. They are not cogs in the musical orchestra. They are not individual musicians playing an instrument in perfect time with others. They are half finished love affairs on their own. Incomplete in their own individual moments. Yet they overlap each other. They become layers. Like tectonic plates that shift under and over top of each other. Each one is a ghost or a shadow of the other – and together they become less a fragmented individual and a cosmic creation that transcends it all.
It never answers the question of why we as human beings make the same mistake. But it allows us to know that we do:
“We cross and re-cross our old tracks like figure skaters [. . .],”
As individuals we are bound by the routines and the nature of being creatures of habit. That is why our lives are bound to each other. The crimes we commit; the acts of kindness we present as gifts to each other; these actions touch others; and like little webs or strings we become connected.
My favourite quote though from the trailer is the following:
“Yesterday my life was heading in one direction. Today it is heading in another.”
Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
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