The Cloud Atlas: A Novel

This was not the book I MEANT to read, but it is the book I WANTED to read. Not that I was aware of that fact when I bought it. I believed this to be the book they just adapted into a film. Having no idea what that story was actually ABOUT, going only on a friend's recommendation that the book was good, I did a search for the title, saw that there were numerous options, and picked one, without reading the summary of either, based on some fleeting hunch or logic I can no longer remember despite it having happened less than 48 hours ago. 48 hours? Alas... I would have finished it *sooner* had I not been otherwise engaged hauling several thousand pounds of seed at work during what is normally the slow end of my shift. Which is to say... nothing other than my boss or my spouse (...my other boss ;) ) could have convinced me to put this book down. If I'd had the option, I would have simply let the thing take control of my life for an entire night, from the first page to the last. It's THAT kind of book. And as for what I meant about this being the book I WANTED to read? More than being true simply as a turn of phrase suggesting that this was a story I wanted to be told but didn't realize that desire until it was fulfilled (which is true as well), there's a coincidental, more literal element: I'd just finished reading "The Terror" by Dan Simmons, which was a satisfactorily engaging novel that might be better described as a compilation of all known facts about the lost Franklin Expedition seeking the Northwest Passage in the mid-1800's with occasional dialogue thrown in oh and P.S. there's a monster or something. While I liked the book, I was a bit disappointed, since I'd gotten it hoping it would be more like "Hyperion," another book by Simmons whose central monster was the first I've read about since I was 8 or 9 years old that LITERALLY gave me chills and actually scared me. Sadly, the titular Terror (which refers to the monster as well as one of the ships) appears only a handful of times in the near-1000 pages of story, never for long, and its explanation felt anticlimactic after so long being built up. However, that book seemed to find its strength in the last 5%, which focused on a surviving member of the expedition as he fell in love with an Inuit woman and became a member of her society and a sort of shaman, having had to set aside his lifelong devotion to his Christian God to do so. I wanted to read more about THAT. It seemed to me that the book had ended just as it was finally getting to the good part. "The Cloud Atlas" is that missing "good part." Engaging, haunting, beautifully tragic, with characters who are magnificently-described and astonishingly alive, this book masterfully weaves together themes of propaganda, religion, and shamanic magic during a time of war in a place where survival is so much its own war there may be no way to tell the two apart... or to decide which one is real. An easy 5 stars, which is a rating I give out sparingly.

[Two books by the same title were published the same year; the other of this name went on to the best-selling list. I bought this one in error but, as it was about Alaska, I kept it and have now read it.] During WWII, the Japanese bombarded the US mainland with incendiary balloons. This campaign was not revealed until after the war. This is the story of a young man sent to defuse the bombs; he also needs to defuse his commander. A local Yup'ik woman fortuneteller is involved with both men as well as a Japanese spy. Lovely scenes of Alaska but also new information on the balloon campaign. Well-written and suspenseful, the book adds a hint of native spirituality to the mix and the story moves along nicely.

The Cloud Atlas is an ambitious book albeit quite often tedious ad nauseam and convoluted. Brilliant passages peak out at times as if the sun were breaking through the very clouds, which are so often highlighted in the novel. The story is an amazing one. The Japanese sent paper-covered balloons loaded with bombs thousands of miles to the continental United States. They had even considered (research Japanese Unit 731) using the balloons to carry deadly germs, as well. Twelve states were invaded with the majority of the balloons landing in Alaska. This was a closely guarded secret; the American Government would not allow it to be reported. Subarctic Alaska is the setting for this tale. Events are seen through the eyes of Louis Belk, the local Catholic priest, who came to Anchorage during WWII and stayed. He is now 73 years old and being told to retire. His memories take the reader to WWII, when he was a soldier on a bomb deactivating team. However, past events alternate with present ones. In the background throughout the book, Louis's friend, the shaman Ronnie, is dying in hospice. Louis tells his life's story to Ronnie as Ronnie dies. Louis Belk, the narrator, is a rather weak and confused young sergeant. Gurley, his superior, is the cliche of an abusive and sadistic superior officer. He descends more and more into madness. Lily, who is half Eskimo Yup'ik and half Russian, is a prostitute and shaman (angalkuq) and was the Japanese spy, Saburo's lover. Saburo was involved in mapping the balloon invasion of Alaska. He disappeared after leaving Lily in order to bury their stillborn son. When he does not reappear, Lily falls in love with Gurley, an implausible occurrence for someone who is supposed to have some depth of character. Louis, Lily's friend, is madly in love with her, also, although she does not treat him respectfully. Thus, there is a love triangle in the relationship among Lily, Louis and Gurley. Pervading this triangle is the spirit of Saburo. Magic and mysticism play throughout the book. Ronnie waits for the wolf in death. Louis, the priest, becomes a believer in animal spirits as well as Catholicism. "Arctic hysteria" affects some people; they strip and run out into the cold; an animal (changing form) may chase them. Lily says the northern lights are not something to do with science; they are "souls of women who have died in childbirth, suicides and murder victims". Lily is really a shaman of limited abilities having failed an important task in her training (plunging her arm into a mass of insects that appeared). However, she convinces Louis and Gurley that Saburo is out there somewhere, and they must help her to search for Saburo. She goes on a shamanic journey to find him. She strips naked and ties ropes around her body. Louis attaches feathers and amulets at what he can feel are the correct places. At the end of her journey, Louis can feel Lily's life, Gurley, Saburo and her parents in color and sounds. Lily allowed Louis to share this knowledge. Years later, in his 70s, he has never forgotten her. When he was released from the Service after WWII, he decided to become a priest and pursue a spiritual life. He thought, in his search for God, he would find Lily. He thinks Ronnie will send the wolf to meet him, when he joins Lily in death. Clouds are frequently referenced throughout the book. Lily sees Saburo's spirit in the balloons drifting in the clouds. Lily uses both Louis and Gurley to find Saburo's Cloud Atlas, which Belk and Gurley have been consulting at their army headquarters. Beautifully drawn and painted with washes of ink by Saburo, the Cloud Atlas is a book of maps and drawings of the locations of these lethal balloons in Alaska. However, the Cloud Atlas is more than just this book. Ronnie, a shaman, often gazed at the sky. He thought that the skies were the key to all knowledge. He said that someday he would write down "an atlas of clouds or amirlut". The subject matter of Cloud Atlas is fascinating. Unfortunately, the main characters are uninspiring and one-dimensional. Although dying and appearing much less often than the other characters, Ronnie at least has some limited substance. However, I did not feel any emotional attachment to or empathy for any of the characters. A good story should draw you in and not leave you always outside at a distance. The characters should live in you at some level and become part of your life. In my opinion, this book largely fails in that regard.

Somehow my high school history class on World War II missed the Japanese balloon bombs in the later days of 1944 and early days of 1945; maybe I was distracted by the cutie a couple of rows away. Nonetheless this book (and Mr.Callanan)have rectified that fact. Mr. Callanan spins a fascinating tale of life near the close of WWII involving a Catholic-raised orphan undergoing his coming-of-age, a half Russian-half Yup'ik Eskimo woman doing whatever she needs to to survive and a severly unbalanced Army captain who makes Capt. Ahab look like Walter Cronkite. The story unfolds from the perspective of Louis Belk, the former orphan, now Catholic priest, as he stands a deathbed watch over his "competitor", a Yup'ik shaman, in a series of flashbacks/flash forwards, giving him his confession about the series of events that took place those waning days of WWII. Alaska is a much a character in this book as any of the humans from it's dense cloud of mesquitos that breed in the summer melt puddles to the crystal sharp nights of its winters. A good read, hard to put down.

attention, ce roman n'est pas celui tiré du film avec tom hanks il y a un autre cloud atlas de mitchell...

This book is amazing, has everything you could want wrapped around a wonderful thought provocking life story. Highly recomend it

I am one of those who thought they were buying the story of the movie! But I enjoyed the book nonetheless. It was a nice surprise as I probably would not have read the book otherwise and would have missed out.

I enjoy reading something for unusual and it kept me intruiged as the subject is a small part of war history that is virtually unknown.

This is not the book from the movie, so it wasn't what I actually wanted to buy. Great merchant thought.