I feel like I couldn’t devote my full readership to Cloud Atlas this semester. I felt I had to keep a certain amount of distance between me and this novel or I’d get spun around, spat out and left feeling confused and almost bitter. This started with the Adam Ewing chapter, of course. It felt so gimmicky to me. Forced, satirical, absurd are words that come to mind. I understand the function and message of this novella, but it doesn’t change that I felt like I was beginning on a journey that wasn’t going to teach me anything without making sure I knew exactly how brilliant the novel is, how morally sound and historically informed its message is and how versatile and how genius a writer it’s author is.
Perhaps this judgment made me miss out on an awesome novel. I plan to revisit it at some point in my life when I can afford to be made bitter by a novel (this was not the time in my semester/life for any more bitterness) because I firmly believe that whether you love or hate a novel, every response is useful. Knowing what you don’t like is as useful as know what you do.
I’d like to read another of Mitchell’s novels to see if I feel the same way. Maybe I’m truly jealous that Mitchell did something pretty unique and contemporary. I also seem to be personally drawn towards novels where I can “see” the author, trace the influences of the author’s life, and read characters as if they were someone the author might have known in reality. This is a strange habit that I didn’t really know I had until this semester, so disagreeing with me on this point is wholeheartedly encouraged. But I couldn’t find Mitchell in this novel; I didn’t see him in Ewing, Frobisher, Sonmi, Sloosha, Cavendish, Louisa Ray. I couldn’t find real life for real life’s sake, it was all to serve the purpose of Mitchell’s novel. Is this a bad thing? I don’t know. Is it a personal preference that is now more clearly defined because of Mitchell? Definitely.
Ultimately, I felt like this novel was force fed to me in more ways than one and for more reasons than one. I think the general consensus of the class is that Cloud Atlas was worth reading. But for me, in comparison to the other novels we’ve read, I was unenthused but also intrigued, frustrated and puzzled, angry and hungry to understand.
If David Mitchell and I were in a relationship in facebook, it would be “complicated.”
Mybe it was the timing for this novel. What I mean is maybe this one needed more time to be read & to be analyzed. It was overwelming because the form required alot of switching gears & turning the pages back to make connections. I almost feel like we rushed through it.
How’s the computer situation?