Cloud Atlas – October CC Book Club Selection

Parent Cafe
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<p>I’m sure you’re right! An online summary of Bradbury’s novel notes that the protagonist, Guy Montag, “presents the dystopia through the eyes of a worker loyal to it, a man in conflict about it, and one resolved to be free of it.” Those are the same stages that Sonmi-451 goes through.</p>

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<p>That’s also true for Frobisher’s description of his “Cloud Atlas Sextet":</p>

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<p>I am really interested to hear how they interpret this in the movie score–I think there is some of it in the trailer. (According to an interview with David Mitchell “Cloud Atlas” is also “the name of a piece of music by the Japanese composer Toshi Ichiyanagi, who was Yoko Ono’s first husband.”)</p>

<p>My favorite section was the Adam Ewing journal. Not so much the first part–that was a tough beginning to the book–but the conclusion. </p>

<p>Adam’s perspective was hopeful—we are not doomed, but we can create the world we want if we believe it is possible. Maybe that’s not a historically accurate view for a man of his time, and it sounds a little cheesy (at least the way I’m expressing it), but I liked it. Adam reflected on the things he saw, and made plans for what he wanted to see different in the world. Luisa did that somewhat—but it was in the context of her job. The other characters were more reactive. I liked the alliance and symmetry between peace-loving Adam on the ship, and Autua, one of the last of the peace-loving Moriori.</p>

<p>I haven’t read Melville, but the Adam Ewing section reminded me of Richard Henry Dana’s “Two Years Before the Mast,” which I have read–and Mitchell says he read that as background for this section, too.</p>

<p>My least favorite section was Luisa’s (though I liked her character). But I can imagine it provides a lot of the dramatic movie scenes!</p>

<p>psychmom: Thanks for the connection between Sonmi’s name and Farenheit 451—I totally missed that!</p>

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<p>Has anyone read Ghostwritten? I just found this long, wonderful interview with David Mitchell from the Paris Review:
[Paris</a> Review - The Art of Fiction No. 204, David Mitchell](<a href=“http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6034/the-art-of-fiction-no-204-david-mitchell]Paris”>Paris Review - The Art of Fiction No. 204)</p>

<p>Apparently he reuses characters and character names. And look what else!</p>

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<p>The epigraph from Wilder is this:</p>

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<p>Another connection for our CC book group!</p>

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<p>And from Guardian review-</p>

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<p>[url=<a href=“Overlapping lives | Books | The Guardian”>Overlapping lives | Books | The Guardian]m.guardian.co.uk[/url</a>]</p>

<p>Struggling to make sense of this book-
enjoying everyone’s posts, espeicially Mary13’s first post. </p>

<p>My favorite section -
tie between Frobisher and Sonmi ( note to self try to become a vegetarian )</p>

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<p>David Mitchell will be interviewed as part of this Book Club on October 17:</p>

<p>[The</a> Leonard Lopate Show: October’s Book: Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell - WNYC](<a href=“http://www.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/2012/oct/17/octobers-book-emcloud-atlasem-david-mitchell/]The”>http://www.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/2012/oct/17/octobers-book-emcloud-atlasem-david-mitchell/)</p>

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<p>Some parts of the book made me unexpectedly laugh out loud, and SJCM’s vegetarian comment reminds me of one. I happened to re-read Timothy Cavendish’s section after reading Sonmi-451’s story, and at one point, when Timothy is looking for something to read on the bookshelf at Aurora House, he breezes by “a cookbook entitled No Meat for Me Please!”</p>

<p>This is one reason that Cloud Atlas is a book to be read more than once. Since the Sonmi story comes after Timothy’s story, I would never have caught that inside joke during my first read; it only made (hilarious) sense the second time around.</p>

<p>(And on that note, be honest: How many of you got to the part where the fabricants were being “recycled” and shouted, “Soylent Green is people!” I know I did. :))</p>

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<p>Timothy Cavendish actually yells “Soylent Green is people!” when he first tries to flee and is looking at the “Undead of Aurora House” through the window!</p>

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<p>Since reading this book years ago and rereading it a few years later, I have always longed to hear the Cloud Atlas Sextet music. I’m both hopeful and terrified about the movie’s version…! </p>

<p>I liked the subtle recurrences of symbols both tangible (the birthmark) and non (the use of words recurred in different parts of the book) which tied the parts of the book together. I have heard that the movie version will make those connections much more obvious. I have this sad impression of American movie audiences needing to be (or producers assuming we need to be) bonked on the head with a club with those metaphors. Again-- I’m so worried/excited about this film! I’m so totally going to wait until all of you see it before I go. I’ll need to hear your reactions!</p>

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<p>I feel like I just read 6 novellas by 6 different authors. Yet somehow all connected. Maybe we could make a running post of the various references or allusions to other literary works? I noticed the “Luisa Rey” one right away, and the Fahrenheit-451. </p>

<p>The Ewing journal also reminded me of John Barth’s The Sot-Weed Factor. Wasn’t there a shipboard suicide in that book also? Also, in some way the Luisa Rey story brought to mind Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49. {Could Javier’s stamp collection be a nod to Pynchon?} BTW, apparently Yerba Buena was the original name of San Francisco.</p>

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<p>Buenavista, that Paris Review interview was superb. I haven’t read “Ghostwritten” or “Black Swan Green” (only “The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet” in addition to “Cloud Atlas”), but I want to now.</p>

<p>The character Eva van Crommelynck from “Cloud Atlas” reportedly appears in “Black Swan Green” as an adult, and the book contains references to her mother and father and Robert Frobisher!</p>

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<p>Mr. Wagstaff was sent to marry a widow (Eliza Mapple) on the island of Raiatea, and only afterwards learns that she is not who they claimed she was (older, etc.), and her son Daniel causes problems for them - references to Rochester and Antoinette Mason (and Daniel) from Wide Sargasso Sea? Later Mitchell mentions “Jesus adrift on the Sargasso Sea” (p 505).</p>

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<p>Tuppence, thank you for Book Club link! Should be an interesting interview.</p>

<p>buenavista and SJCM, I didn’t pick up on the Thornton Wilder-Luisa Rey connection – so glad you both posted on that.</p>

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<p>I loved that aspect of the book, too! Re reccurring words/names–just for starters, here are a few I noticed: </p>

<p>plinth – I don’t think I’ve ever said or written this word in my life, but it appears several times in both Sonmi-451’s story (Papa Song’s statue stands on a plinth) and Robert Frobisher’s story (“Some dirty children chased the only fat hen in the country across the square—it flew up to the plinth.”)</p>

<p>carp – An-Kor Apis of Union appears to Sonmi-451 as a carp—“a numinous, pear-and-tangerine, fungus-blotted, mandarin-whiskered, half-meter-long carp.” Timothy Cavendish’s brother Denny dies “feeding his priceless carp.” (And is my French really, really bad, or does Frobisher have a fantasy where he imagines that Eva says he kisses like a goldfish?)</p>

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<li><p>Adam is the author of the Pacific Journal, and Adam is also the name of Zachry’s brother. </p></li>
<li><p>When the cabdriver tells hard-of-hearing Timothy, “Sixteen—quid—exactly,” a confused Timothy hears, “Sick teen-squid Zachary.”</p></li>
<li><p>Papa Song is the revered/feared leader of the evil corporate empire in Sonmi451’s story. In Half-Lives, the leader with that role is Grimaldi. The “original” Grimaldi was a famous 18th century mezzo-soprano. Papa Song? </p></li>
<li><p>Nefertiti is the name of Eva’s horse. Timothy Cavendish buys Mrs. Latham Nefertiti earrings.</p></li>
<li><p>Robert Frobisher, in the throes of his infatuation with Eva, completes the Cloud Sextet. Sonmi-451 is rescued by Boardman Mephi on Sextet Eve. In addition, Timothy Cavendish goes to a party where “a jazz sextet kicked off a rhumba.” And the novel itself is, of course, a sextet.</p></li>
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<p>I have a feeling there are hundreds more examples…</p>

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<p>^Mitchell uses the word “hydra” in several of the sections (not as good as Mary at finding the references). Of course, the reactor in the Luisa Rey Mystery is called the HYDRA-Zero Reactor.</p>

<p>Returning to Pynchon’s Crying of Lot 49, Oedipa Maas goes to a small publisher in Berkeley in search of The Courier’s Tragedy, a “play within a play” in the story. Luisa Rey goes to the Lost Chord Music Store in search of Cloud Atlas Sextet the “sextet within a sextet” as it were.</p>

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<p>Those are great, Mary, and I missed most of them! I noticed the hydras, too sylvan8798!</p>

<p>HYDRA reactor (Luisa Rey)
HYDRA NURSERY CORP (wombtanks visited by Sonmi-451)
“The Hoggins Hydra had ripped the office apart” (Cavendish)
“the v.d.V daughters, a hydra of heads named Marie-Louise, Stephanie, Zenobe, Alphonsine, and I forget the last” (Frobisher)
“He who would do battle with the many-headed hydra of human nature must pay a world of pain” (Adam Ewing)</p>

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<p>^ Wonderful! </p>

<p>I think there are innumerable connections, and I wonder how many were intricately plotted by the author and how many flowed naturally as part of the poetry of his writing. Not that it matters. I was glad to read Mitchell’s comment in the Paris Review that there is no such thing as overreading: “Just because it wasn’t part of my grand design doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Things do happen in books that the writer is too submersed in bringing the narrative to life to notice.”</p>

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<p>You guys are too fast for me. I was thinking about all the hydra connections. I also found the various “hydra” dictionary definitions interesting. They definitely match the story. Especially #2.</p>

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<p>The word “soul” was another word we saw over and over in the different stories.</p>

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<p>I was amused, when I read the book this time, to notice that Mitchell used the word “slooshes” at least twice in sections other than the “Sloosha’s Crossing” one.</p>

<p>Do any of you have ideas about the name “Swanneke”? The name intrigues me. It’s sort of pretty, and I wonder why Mitchell chose it.</p>

<p>(The Hydra nuclear reactor in Half Lives is located on Swanneke Island, and the Swannekes are mentioned as a tribe in Sloosha’s Crossin’.)</p>

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<p>Re “hydra” – wow—definition #2 applies to almost every story in Cloud Atlas, doesn’t it? As for definition #1, I’ll bet we could dig up some other mythological references from the book. However, I’m not too well-versed in that subject. Pretty much slept through the Mythology sections of high school English class. Only Ayrs’ wife “Jocasta” jumps out at me. [Jocasta</a> - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jocasta]Jocasta”>Jocasta - Wikipedia)</p>

<p>Also, on the subject of Mitchell’s “borrowing” from the literary greats, I just re-read the Acknowledgments at the beginning of the book. Mitchell writes: “Certain scenes in Robert Frobisher’s letters owe debts of inspiration to Delius: As I Knew Him by Eric Fenby."</p>

<p>Debts of inspiration indeed!: [Eric</a> Fenby - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Fenby]Eric”>Eric Fenby - Wikipedia)</p>

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<p>NJTheatreMOM, if this isn’t the answer to Swanneke, it should be! :slight_smile: I just found it (in an excerpt about currency from the book Africa and the Discovery of America): “Cree soniyaw is found again in Long Island in 1642, when the Dutch are called by the Indians Swanneke, that is, the “money people.” </p>

<p>[Africa</a> and the discovery of America - Leo Wiener - Google Books](<a href=“Africa and the Discovery of America: Foreword. Sources quoted (p. xi-xxii ... - Leo Wiener - Google Books”>Africa and the Discovery of America: Foreword. Sources quoted (p. xi-xxii ... - Leo Wiener - Google Books)</p>