CBR IV: Live Free or Cannonball Hard, Entry 4: "Cloud Atlas" By David Mitchell

Life, like any good story or piece of music, is told in movements.  These movements all link together to form harmony, dissonance, and ultimately the story that is our civilization.  Where we’ve been just might tell us where we’re going, and if we ignore it we’ll put ourselves into more trouble than we could imagine.  Such is the theme of Cloud Atlas, and such is a wondrous device to tell a story that spans from 1850 to the far flung future, over the course of six separate yet linked stories.  Cloud Atlas is a drama.  It’s a love story.  It’s a detective thriller, a comedy, and a disturbing social commentary.  Above all else, Cloud Atlas is a story about hope brought by those who seem insignificant, no matter what the future holds in store.

Now, before I get into the review portion, I have to say something about how the book is laid out.  It’s definitely a bunch of wibbley wobbly action, as it tells the first half of the first five stories, tells the sixth story in its entirety, and then proceeds to finish the rest of the stories in descending order.   Like so:

1.1   /2.1 / 3.1 / 4.1 / 5.1 / 6 / 5.2 / 4.2 / 3.2 / 2.2 / 1.2

Confusing?  To the untrained eye, yes; simply because it’s a hard concept to explain.  But in practice, it works perfectly as each story is influenced by the other.  What’s more, little references and nods to things that happened before are also present.  The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing is half read by the protagonist in Letters from Zedelghem, whose partner in letter writing is a key figure in Half Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery which is a manuscript read during The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish.  That ghastly ordeal is viewed during An Orison of Sonmi-451, which makes an appearance in Sloosha's Crossin' an' Ev'rythin' After, which leads us to the rest of An Orison of Sonmi-451, and so on.  (To spoil all of the connections would be the biggest disservice to the reader.)

Make no mistake, this isn’t just an anthology that you can read at will; nor should you read each story in its entirety, in order.  The book is laid out for a reason, and that reason is the story is so layered that it challenges the reader to make the connections and reinforce them throughout each story.  Better still, each entry is written with a different framing device and writing style.  We go from a journal written in older English to a first person recollection of one’s life written in a tribal future dialect, with each story evolving in linguistic style as well as narrative style.

With those flourishes in style though, we’re treated to the same overarching themes of reincarnation and power struggles.  A comet shaped birthmark heralds one soul’s journey through three of our stories, with each story posing the same central conflict: the underdog versus those in power.  Through each of these stories, dominance is possessed, challenged, and both lost or gained on a whim.  All the while, the protagonists of these stories aren’t the stock vessel that an audience member is expected to put themselves into.  Instead, they are the little guy…the character under the boot heel of whatever power may reign.  They aren’t intrepid heroes or heroines who are perfect and inspire us to be like them, they’re just normal people who somehow got wrapped up in rather interesting circumstances.  These characters aren’t wish fulfillment paradigms that have all the money and all the power, they’re the David that fights said Goliath when something is wrong.

Overall, the book is fantastic, with it being hard to even dare to pick a favorite story.  Imagine reading one unified storyline through different eras, perspectives, and genres that somehow made sense as a cohesive whole.  Then read Cloud Atlas and tell me how much different it is from your expectations.  It’s a book that demands an audience, as well as demands to be taught in English Literature/Linguistics classes alike.

Next Time: The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling

 

The Cannonball Read III - Osaka Slide: #9 - Pygmy by Chuck Palahniuk

Note: This is the second of five reviews in the Author Appreciation series, which is currently showcasing the work of Chuck Palahniuk.

Pygmy is probably one of the most brutal openers a book could ever deliver.  Within the first 19 pages we're introduced to our anti-hero character of no name (Pygmy is the handle folks around those parts brand him with) who is part of a sleeper cell of agents assigned with nothing short of the destruction of America.  Operation Havoc is their end game, an attack that will throw the nation into its final throes.  Millions are to be killed, and the entire culture subverted by any means nessicary. One major problem standing in their way...they're only about 13 years old.  The source of the brutality? Our main character (one of those 13 year old spies), who has just violated someone in a way that cannot be described in polite company.


While the dust jacket says it's, "The Manchurian Candidate meets South Park", I'd like to suggest that it's more along the lines of Fight Club meets Pinky and the Brain. (A lot of the humor is derived from Pygmy's broken English observations of our culture and our interactions with each other.)  Palahniuk has basically taken Tyler Durden's appetite for social destruction and married it to The Brain's constant mindset of, "God, what are these idiots around me doing?  I better play along, lest my true intentions be known".  It is with that combination in play that our protagonist leads us on an operation that evokes the memory of a not too dissimilar "Project Mayhem", except with fewer soliders and no bitch tits.

As a matter of fact, one could easily think of  Pygmyas the illegitimate sequel to Fight Club, something that the book can both trumpet and be less than proud of.  Even with its younger characters, alternate setting, and even the presense of a detailed backstory for our comrade of glorious revolution; it still manages to sometimes come off as Jack's Smirking Revenge part II.  One could even argue that Palahniuk has this obsession with tearing the walls of Humanity apart commercial by commercial, and leaving it to fend for itself in a barren wasteland where once was a proud people.  But that's only if you let yourself get caught up in the trap of comparison.  Similarities aside, this is still a work that's relevant to our modern times.  Even more so now as we wrestle with the logic of just what makes a terrorist, what makes a Freedom Fighter, and when we should celebrate or mourn their death.  (Be it literal or symbolic.)  Rest assured, this is an entertaining read where you will laugh, you will be offended, and you will sympathize with the enemy.

Up Next: Book Two in the Palahniuk Appreciation Series, Haunted

The Cannonball Read III - Osaka Slide: #8 - Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk

Note: This is the first of five reviews in the Author Appreciation series, which is currently showcasing the work of Chuck Palahniuk.

It's so good to be reading Palahniuk again.  Honestly, the man's one of the best authors of his time and he continues to be consistently entertaining, whether he blows your mind or doesn't.  That's not saying that his non-mind blowing works are less inferior, it's just that Chuck focuses on one of two things: the characters or the plot.  Snuff is one of those books where he focuses more on the characters, and in his doing so he makes the actual plotting seem more interesting than it would under more traditional story telling methods.

Cassie Wright wants to die...or at least that's what it seems like when she agrees to film a 600 man gang bang in a bid to secure her position in the annals of Porn Star history.  What began with a casting call lead to a room of 600 guys standing around: primping, preening, preparing, and waiting for their shot with Ms. Wright.  Throughout the day's events we're privy to four perspectives:

- Mr. 600, aka Branch Bacardi: One of Cassie's former co-stars, also looking for a boost.

- Mr. 137, aka Dan Banyan: A washed out TV star who wants to jump start his career after some sordid rumors.

- Mr. 72: a kid wants to save his mother...who's performing in the room upstairs from him.

- Sheila: the talent wrangler who put this whole show together.

Each individual contributes a rather interesting piece to the overall plot of the book, which isn't all that complex, really.  Where the complexity, and the beauty of the story, comes in is with the characters.  We see Mr. 600 reminisce about the old days and how he deals with aging.  Mr. 72's coming to terms with some rather messed up family issues, and ultimately try to resolve the impotence caused by them.  Mr. 137 talks about how fame's fickle finger found him, and how it threatens to leave him due to his life choices to chase it.  And Sheila...well Sheila's the only person who knows what's really going on, and she's playing it close to the clipboard.  Through these four people, we get to know Cassie Wright.  Her life, her times, and her ultimate place in history. 

Palahniuk knows how to write for multiple voices just as well as he does with his stories that deal with a singular protagonist.  Instead of one person's emotional baggage, we get that of four people.  Four people who constantly interlock and collide as they vie for their own personal moment of fame, which will contribute to Ms. Wright's very own fame itself.  The author explores the themes of fame and aging, as well as just how screwed up your family can make you, in parallel tracks that run at the same time, but ultimately collide in the end.  The wisdom of our parents influences us to do the things we do in life, and not only does Chuck see this, but he exploits it for all of its darkly comedic and dramatic worth.  If anything, this feels like Palahniuk's most sentimental work since I read Choke, the only difference being it eases up on the darkly comedic and veers a little more towards the dramatic.  It's not a mind blower, but Snuff is still an entertaining examination on the twisted condition that is fame, and just what it does to us (and those around us) in the long run.

Up Next: Book Two in the Palahniuk Appreciation Series, Pygmy