<p>^ “I know! I know!” 
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<p>And here we have another influence: Mr. Meeks reminded me of a Dickens character, not unlike the Aged Parent from Great Expectations.</p>
<p>^I agree, I too, have come to appreciate the “homage” Mitchell has creatively constructed to various genres. Cloud Atas is a literature lover’s buffet. </p>
<p>But, I’m still on the fence about this book. </p>
<p>Psychmom, you hit a nerve when you wrote
</p>
<p>I just read some reviews on GoodReads, because I am digesting everything everybody here links to, and outside research on my own. The book has gotten under my skin. </p>
<p>And, this stuck out.
**Frobisher says, “Something shifty about the journals authenticityseems too structured for a genuine diary, and its language doesnt ring quite truebut who would bother forging such a journal, and why?” ** </p>
<p>Now I know why,Pyschmom, it touches on the “paradox”.
The entire book, is about “predicity”, and it’s bleak. Yes, funny, brilliant but Mitchell’s underlying thrust (in my view) is bleak. (The man did live in Hiroshima for 8 years).</p>
<p>So the book ends with us being clobbered over the head, (completely contrary to the previous 400 plus pages) with Adam Ewing’s journal,telling us about the hope for mankind, ect ect ect. </p>
<p>I think Frobisher, in all his demented ways, realized that Jackson (son, or someone) distorted this journal, which is the first written account of history in the book.</p>
<p>I am right with you, SJCM, on the sad commentary regarding human nature. However, maybe we can look at it another way: suppose David Mitchell is saying to us that if we each work on developing our inner comets, there is hope. (If only we could hand out comet stickers!) I found this from an interview with the author:</p>
<p>Q: What, in your mind, distinguishes this book from your others? </p>
<p>DM: It has more of a conscience. I think this is because I am now a dad. I need the world to last another century and a half, not just see me to happy old age. </p>
<p>(I know, I know, I also can’t get past the the bleak apocolyptic picture he created.)</p>
<p>Psychmom, good point. This has been outstanding, if not the best book for discussion. I’ve read that some book clubs had members who loved, hated and some who didn’t even finish reading this book. Like clouds, everyone seeing this book differently. </p>
<p>Interesting about Metafiction.
[Metafiction</a> - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metafiction]Metafiction”>Metafiction - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>“Me, I want to bloody kick this moronic bloody world in the bloody teeth over and over till it bloody understands that not hurting people is ten bloody thousand times more bloody important than being right.”
― David Mitchell</p>
<p>^ Hmmm…now there’s a paradox. :)</p>
<p>I didn’t think Adam’s admirable plans and his hope for the future were out of place or set an overly optimistic tone. Rather, I thought his inspiring words were immediately tempered by the fact that he didn’t live–or at least wasn’t healthy enough–to put any of those plans into motion. The journal ends with Adam’s handwriting slipping into “spasmodic illegibility.” The long-term effects of arsenic poisoning aren’t pretty. In the end, it seems Henry Goose got the better of Adam after all. </p>
<p>I think that’s the type of balance Mitchell puts into each story. There are many acts of goodness—and greatness—but they do not come without a price.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I contend, then, that the metafictional strategies used in Cloud Atlas are far from mere “gimmickry.” They enunciate a political vision of the operation of the relations of power, knowledge and discourse, certainly, but the text does more than offer (another) expos</p>
<p>^Great point about Ewing, Mary. Another example of something I intuited, but could not (arrgh!) quite put my finger on.</p>
<p>
I felt that there must have been something that he accomplished, though, as the suburb Luisa Rey’s family lives in is Ewingville and the schooner The Prophetess is preserved in the harbor.</p>
<p>^ Yes, again – signs of hope amid the horrors!</p>
<p>To me the whole book had the quality of a dream where the themes remain the same but the venues change and the characters morph into others while still retaining parts of their earlier incarnations (e.g. a comet birthmark). So when the story cycled back to Adam and his hopeful message, my conclusion was not that the sections told HOW it happened but rather were one of several possible “alternate narratives” of how things COULD happen.</p>
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</p>
<p>So, given different acts by the participants, perhaps the next night’s dream would be different. That’s what left me with an optimistic sense of the book.</p>
<p>But when I started to see parallels with current politics (that which should not be discussed), and I did, THAT’s when I started to feel bleak.</p>
<p>Buena- like your views. Everyone here has helped me bring this book into focus!</p>
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<p>I agree. Hollywood is going to wow us with all kinds of inspiration, which is just not the author’s style. The movie for me will end up being a reverse letdown (meaning, that I would have liked the book to be more like what I am imagining the movie to be, but I hate being manipulated by the movie industry to sell me something more palatable). I will have to remember that’s why it’s called an adaptation.</p>
<p>I hope we can start a thread about the movie at some point…I am going to need help.</p>
<p>^Psychmom, I think the idea is for this thread to segue into a discussion of the film when the time comes. That’s one reason we decided that the book should be discussed this month rather than earlier or later. </p>
<p>I believe the release date for the film is still Oct 26.</p>
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<p>Interesting. So…Luisa Rey’s story might reflect a future in which Adam survived long enough to do some substantial good in the world, get a town named after him and have his boat preserved. And Sonmi’s story might reflect a future where Luisa Rey did not survive the car crash, resulting in a major nuclear meltdown at Swanneke and global catastrophe.</p>
<p>Harkening back to Dickens again, this approach reminds me of one of the last passages in A Christmas Carol:</p>
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</p>
<p>An interesting visual from the movie:</p>
<p>[The</a> Characters… | What The Heck Is Cloud Atlas? | Features | Empire](<a href=“http://www.empireonline.com/features/guide-to-cloud-atlas/p2]The”>http://www.empireonline.com/features/guide-to-cloud-atlas/p2)</p>
<p>Pause on each picture for details.</p>
<p>Did anyone else notice biblical references, especially in the last section - Bethlehem, Nazareth Bay, the sisters and the Abbess,Judas</p>
<p>Is it possible that Zachary was destined to help repopulate the new civilization?</p>
<p>“The Gospel of Luke states that while Zacharias ministered at the altar of incense, an angel of the Lord appeared and announced to him that his wife would give birth to a son, whom he was to name John, and that this son would be the forerunner of the Lord”</p>
<p>Ignatius- great link- apparently at the end of the movie they reveal the makeup techniques- and movie reviewers are claiming Oscar winner for make up!</p>
<p>SJCM, I did notice the many Bible references. The biblical Zachary is the father of John the Baptist, known as the Voice Crying in the Wilderness, so I found it ironic that in Sloosha’s Crossing, Zachry’s son is born with no mouth.</p>