Cloud Atlas
David Mitchell (2004)
“Six narrators, six eras, six prose styles — and one argument: the same story has always been told, and it ends the same way unless we choose otherwise.”
EraContemporary / Postmodern
Pages509
Difficulty★★★★☆ Advanced
AP Appearances4
Character Analysis
An American notary in the 1850s Pacific — earnest, educated, and entirely inside the colonial worldview he can sometimes feel the edges of but never fully escape. His decision to protect Autua is the novel's first 'small act against the current.' His conclusion — that individual decency matters even against the scale of civilizational evil — is the novel's thesis.
How They Speak
Formal, educated, earnest — the language of the 19th-century American middle-professional class abroad