Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
What a book. It’s massive, sometimes you want to scream “WHAT?!” and shove it in people’s faces to try to explain it to you, and at the same time you get invested in the (several) different stories. It was interesting reading this in a class atmosphere. On the one hand, as a picky reader, I may have given up as the first chapter is difficult to read and I got afraid that I wouldn’t understand the whole book, but continued on because I had to for class. On the other hand, as a class, I felt like our attention focused really heavily on some strange topics (cannibalism? actual reality vs. virtual reality?) which, while they were present in the book, didn’t necessarily stand out to me as vitally important.
Let’s just say… it got pretty “literary” up in there, and sometimes it’s hard to be in a room full of English majors (I say that lovingly, being one myself) trying to find “meaning” in a piece of text. The writer in me thinks, “what if he just likes the color blue?” or “maybe he just read up on cannibals?” and the English major in me goes, I think I’ve figured it out! The whole novel! In one term! Turn to page 484523!
Anyway — this book. Worth reading, I think. Some people found it trite, but I really enjoyed it, as long as you can get past the first chapter (and, last chapter, as it goes.) And if you get past the first chapter, it’ll continue to pull you along.
Also worth nothing, this book just feels good in your hands.
