Find Request It
Cover Image

Cloud atlas a novel

Show other versions (1)

A postmodern visionary who is also a master of styles of genres, David Mitchell combines flat-out adventure, a Nabokovian lore of puzzles, a keen eye for character, and a taste for mind-bending philosophical and scientific speculation in the tradition of Umberto Eco, Haruki Murakami, and Philip K. D...

Full description

Saved in:
Main Author: Mitchell, David (David Stephen)
Format: Books Print Book
Language:English
Published: New York : Random House Trade Paperbacks, c2004.
Edition:1st U.S. ed.
Subjects:
Fate and fatalism > Fiction.
Reincarnation > Fiction.
Fantasy fiction.
Online Access:Go to Downloadable eBook Here.
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!

Requests: 2

Summary:A postmodern visionary who is also a master of styles of genres, David Mitchell combines flat-out adventure, a Nabokovian lore of puzzles, a keen eye for character, and a taste for mind-bending philosophical and scientific speculation in the tradition of Umberto Eco, Haruki Murakami, and Philip K. Dick. The result is brilliantly original fiction as profund as it is playful. Now in his new novel, David Mitchell explores with daring artistry fundamental questions of reality and identity. Cloud Atlas begins in 1850 with Adam Ewing, an American notary voyaging from the Chatham Isles to his home in California. Along the way, Ewing is befriended by a physician, Dr. Goose, who begins to treat him for a rare species of brain parasite. Abruptly, the action jumps to Belgium in 1931, where Robert Frobisher, a disinherited bisexual composer, contrives his way into the household of an infirm maestro who has a beguiling wife and a nubile daughter. From there we jump to the West Coast in the 1970s and a troubled reporter named Luisa Rey, who stumbles upon a web of corporate greed and murder that threatens to claim her life. And onward, with dazzling virtuosity, to an inglorious present-day England; to a Korean superstate of the near future where neocapitalism has run amok; and, finally, to a postapocalyptic Iron Age Hawaii in the last days of history. But the story doesn't end even there. The narrative then boomerangs back through centuries and space, returning by the same route, in reverse, to its starting point. Along the way, Mitchell reveals how his disparate characters connect, how their fates intertwine, and how their souls drift across time like clouds across the sky. As wild as a videogame, as mysterious as a Zen koan, Cloud Atlas is an unforgettable tour de force that, like its incomparable author, has transcended its cult classic status to become a worldwide phenomenon.
Physical Description:509 p. ; 22 cm.
ISBN:0375507256 (pbk. : acid-free paper)
9780375507250 (pbk. : acid-free paper)
9780812984415 (pap.)
9780812994711 (pap)
Author Notes:David Mitchell was born in Merseyside, England on January 12, 1969. He received a degree in English and American literature and an M.A. in comparative literature from the University of Kent. Before becoming a full-time writer, he taught English to technical students in Japan. His first novel, Ghostwritten, was published in 1999 and won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize. Two of his novels, Number9dream and Cloud Atlas, were shortlisted for the Booker Prize. In 2012, Cloud Atlas was made into a major motion picture film starring Tom Hanks and Halle Berry. His other works include Black Swan Green, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, The Bone Clocks, and Slade House. He and his wife translated into English a book written by an autistic 13-year-old Japanese boy entitled The Reason I Jump.

(Bowker Author Biography)

Similar Items