No one would ever accuse Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell, of being a lightweight novel. Weighing in at nearly one hundred and sixty four thousand words, and spanning six distinct genres and storylines, the book asks a lot of its readers. Mitchell’s approach to the stories, which are all connected by a broader plot and theme, ranges from revelation to mere allusion.

All this means Cloud Atlas is an incredible gamble on Mitchell’s part, and a difficult book to recommend to most readers. A rare soul embraces all the genres present, and as such they’re being expected to slog through long tracts of the novel they might find evoke ennui. It’s almost like someone recruited six different authors, gave them some ground rules, then published an anthology of the results. Read the rest of this entry →