I first came across Cloud Atlas as a movie. There was quite
a lot of advertisements and hype, and mistakenly thinking that it was a
Hollywood production, I didn’t pay much attention to it.
Then Fate intervened. One day
I was taking Aeroline; can’t remember if it was from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur
or vice versa. What was important was that amongst the movie selection was Cloud Atlas. Even then, it didn’t entice
me. It took a glimpse of a fellow passenger’s screen to finally intrigue my
interest and make me tune into the movie. And you know what? I don’t regret
spending three hours of my life on it. The movie was good. I especially enjoyed
the Korean segment and even ventured to Fanfiction to feed my need for more Cloud Atlas.
Then I discovered that the
movie was based on a book. Hallelujah! Quickly I hightailed to the nearest
library and checked out a copy of the book, with a little fear that for once in
my life, I might find the movie better than the book.
Well, that didn’t happen.
But would I say that the book
is better than the movie?
Not exactly. I’ve come to view
both book and movie as separate entities and I don’t overly prefer one or the
other.
The movie
I watched the movie without
having read the book and hence many nuances and details were lost to me. I
managed to follow the gist of the movie but without 100% comprehension. It was
an entertaining enough movie but what lifted the experience from a typically
enjoyable viewing to one that left a deeper impression was the Sonmi story. I
found the romance between Somni~451 and Im Hae-Joo touching. Which is quite
amazing actually. In all my 41 years, I’ve never enjoyed a single Western
romance. The Koreans do romance very well: My
Name Is Kim San-Soon, Sassy Girl
Chun-Hyang, My Girl, Coffee Prince, Best Love, City Hall,
I’ve enjoyed them all. But I’ve never come across a Western romance movie or
series that I liked. Hence my utter surprise when I found my heart softening,
and then aching for the Sonmi-Haejoo pairing.
Imagine my further surprise
when I discovered that the storyline in the movie was rather different from the
one in the book. But since it worked well, I shan’t be a purist and complain.
Apart from Sonmi’s story, I
didn’t find the other stories particularly inspiring. They were all right, just
not outstanding.
The fun in watching Cloud Atlas the movie was in trying to
spot which actor/actress was in which role. Some were pretty obvious, like
Halle Berry as Luisa Rey or Zhou Xun as Yoona~939. Others, though, were so
heavily made up that it made the guessing game quite challenging. I was shocked
to find out that the actor cast as Im Hae-Joo was actually Jim Sturgess, a
Caucasian actor!
Even though the movie
stretched almost three hours (172 minutes), it was entertaining enough so that
one does not feel the strain of time too acutely.
The book
The structure of the book is
very interesting. It is made up of six stories:
1. The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing — 1800s
2. Letters from Zedelghem — 1931
3. Half-Lives — The First Luisa Rey Mystery — 1970s
4. The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish — 2012
5. An Orison of Sonmi~451 — 2144
6. Sloosha’s Crossin’ an’ Ev’rythin’ After — even later than Sonmi’s
story
The six stories are listed
according to chronology. What is rather novel is how David Mitchell, the
author, arranged the stories. Instead of running the stories chronologically,
he began with the first story but at a critical juncture, he broke off the
story and started the second story. Likewise as the second story reaches the
climax, he broke off and began the third story and this goes on until the sixth
and final story, which is allowed to unfold in a conventional manner from
beginning to end. Then we return to the fifth story and so on, finishing each
story but in reverse order.
To be honest, it was quite
infuriating, if interesting. I cheated anyway. For the stories that I find
truly too interesting to resist (Letters
from Zedelghem, Half-Lives— The First
Luisa Rey Mystery, An Orison of
Sonmi~451), I jumped ahead and finished them before continuing with the
later story. :)
What is impressive about the
book is how Mitchell demonstrated his range of writing repertoire. Each story
is a completely different literary genre. The
Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing is a historical novel, or novella in this
case, Letters from Zedelghem is a
humorous epistolary memoir, Half-Lives—The
First Luisa Rey Mystery is a potboiler thriller, The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish is a satire, An Orison of Sonmi~451 is about science
fiction dystopia, while Sloosha’s
Crossin’ An’ Ev’rythin’ After has a post-apocalypse fantasy setting.
When you think about how most
writers specialise in just one genre for most of their writing lives, and here
we have David Mitchell blithely exercising his creative juices by penning a
total of six different genres, and doing it well… I take my hat off. Really.
But I must warn that not all
the stories are equally enjoyable. You know my three favourite. Top story for
me is a close fight between Letters and
Sonmi, but Letters wins by a tiny margin, mainly because of its humour and
compelling narrator, Robert Frobisher. (Yes, in the movie, Sonmi wins hands down.)
The
Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing takes some time for one to
settle into because of the archaic language used. But once you get into the
story, it is all right. I found The
Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish a little over the top, but overall,
still rather enjoyable. Sloosha’s
Crossin’ an’ Ev’rythin’ After was, for me, the weakest story. Maybe it was
because by the time I got to this story, I was exhausted (it’s a thick book —
529 pages!). But I particularly didn’t like it because of the language that
Mitchell used to depict the primitive state the people returned to after the
(hinted nuclear) apocalypse.
Apart from being awed by the
writing skills of Mitchell, another thing I like about the book is how the
stories are all inter-linked. These links come in many layers. Firstly, it is
strongly hinted that the main character in each story is the same soul,
reincarnated over several lives. This soul is identified by the comet-shaped
birthmark that accompanies him in each life.
Then we have artefact from
each story falling into the hands of a character in the next story, like Robert
Frobisher coming across Adam Ewing’s journal, Luisa Rey find Robert Frobisher’s
letters, Timothy Cavendish receiving a manuscript based on Luisa Rey’s story,
Sonmi~451 watching a movie based on Timothy Cavendish’s story, and Zachry
viewing Sonmi’s orison and thinking she is a goddess. Sublime really, all these
connections.
But what is even more sublime
is how the various characters would have premonitions or deja vu of incidents
that occurred in other lives. It’s like past and future events breaking down
the barriers of time and manifesting as dreams and inexplicable sensations.
This book is highly
recommended. Read it for Mitchell’s brilliant writing, his wide repertoire and
its innovative structure.
I generally don’t buy books.
In Singapore’s birdcage-like apartments, there isn’t much space to store books.
I only buy books that I really, really like. The last book I bought was Suzanne
Clark’s Mr Norrell & Jonathan Strange.
I’m seriously considering getting this one.
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