Cloud 8+1

An open letter to David Mitchell

Mr. Mitchell:

Last night, I finished reading your novel, Cloud Atlas. What impressed me most about the book was the way you managed to convey your theme even though the device you used was somewhat clumsy. It seems to me that a novel which sets itself apart by employing an unfamiliar method of presentation on the part of the author and the necessarily different method of reception on the part of the reader, is simply making the reader work that much harder for the same reward. And unless the pay-off is higher, such an expenditure of reading capital/energy/investment is rarely justified. First of all, to have so many different storylines running in the same body of work taxes the reader's interest/attention -- at least I found it to be so. If I care about one set of characters, it jars to be snatched into the story of another set, even though a subtle link connects the two. For instance, I found it hard to care about Somni's gradual self-awakening when I was distracted by wondering how Luisa was going to survive her plunge off the bridge. One of the remarkable things about the human brain is its ability to do two (or more) things at once; that said, however, a case can be made that each process will suffer for the divided attention.

I understand, though, how the book had to be written the way you wrote it, and for the most part, it works -- my nit-picking notwithstanding. The novel has the feeling of an organic whole, for the most part. (The story of Timothy Cavendish I found tiresome, adding nothing substantial to Luisa's tale except to point out that it was a story-within-a-story-within-a-story.) And despite my caterwauling about the purity of the narrative, the arc of the plot kept me reading, and satisfied my expectations rather nicely. So, all in all, the book was an enjoyable read after all.

However, I wonder if you ever saw the movie which was allegedly based on your book. Movies, by their nature, can seldom reach the intellectual depth of a book. Because a movie by definition can only be viewed, most subtlety and nuance will be hacked out of a screenplay. Movies are actually closer to life and our perceptions of reality than books are -- we can never, for instance, know what someone else is thinking -- but it is the fact that books are able to transcend our human limitations that makes them so much more valuable than mere movies. Plus, books are targeted to individuals; movies are meant for mass consumption -- and therein lies the difference: Movies entertain; books enlighten.

Just before I read Cloud, I watched the movie again, and the difference astounded me. Where the book showed the human condition as fallible and flawed, and ultimately without meaning, the movie promised redemption and merit. In the movie, Somni-451's rebellion paves the way for a revolution whereas in the book, it is merely another tool of the corrupt powers-that-be. The whole point of "Sloosha's Crossing" -- the pivot of the manuscript -- is simply not the same in the movie. In the book, that chapter ends in an existential despair, with no hope for humanity except more of the same barbarism, whereas the movie turns it into a beacon of hope and the ultimate salvation of humanity. What tripe. What balderdash. The point of the book is that humanity is flawed and that, in the face of cold, dark eternity, the only value each human life has is in and of itself. There is no bright and shining future; we all will die, and whatever value we achieve either individually or collectively, will die with us. Adam Ewing's hopefulness, which depends on the individual, wheels around Zachry's despair at the inevitable cycle of mankind's folly and self-destruction as a mob. Both are different sides of the same coin, but where one succumbs to the freezing night of infinity and despair, the other realizes its worth in the epiphany of each life lived to its fullest potential. Zachry, with each generation forgetting the lessons of the previous, is the embodiment of T. S. Eliot's Hollow Men (This is the way the world ends/Not with a bang but with a whimper), but Ewing finds value in the brief beauty of each life.