ponda
19th September 2011, 08:40
Hi,
I just stumbled upon this book and it appears to be very interesting.Some people here might enjoy it.It's called Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell and it is being made into a movie very soon with an all star cast and to be directed by none other than the Wachowski brothers of The Matrix fame.
It's the ongoing story of one souls journey over six different lifetimes from the past and into the distant future.
You can download it for free from here:
http://www.4shared.com/get/ovtcUEFM/David_Mitchell_-_Cloud_Atlas.html
Plot summary
The novel consists of six nested stories that take the reader from the remote South Pacific in the nineteenth century to a distant, post-apocalyptic future. Each tale is revealed to be a story that is read (or watched) by the main character in the next. All stories but the last one get interrupted at some moment, and after the sixth story concludes at the center of the book, the novel "goes back" in time, "closing" each story as the book progresses in terms of pages but regresses in terms of the historical period in which the action takes place. Eventually, readers end where they started, with Adam Ewing in the Pacific Ocean, circa 1850.
The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing
Pacific Ocean, circa 1850. Adam Ewing, an American notary's account of a voyage home from the remote Chatham Islands, east of New Zealand. The next character discovers this story as a diary on his patron's bookshelf.
Letters from Zedelghem
Zedelgem, Belgium, 1931. Robert Frobisher, a penniless young English musician, finds work as an amanuensis to a composer living in Belgium. This story is saved in the form of letters to his friend (and implied lover) Rufus Sixsmith, which the next character discovers after meeting Sixsmith.
Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery.
Buenas Yerbas, California, 1975. Luisa Rey, a journalist, investigates reports of corruption and murder at a nuclear power plant. The next character is sent this story in the mail, in the form of a manuscript for a novel.
The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish
United Kingdom, early 21st century. Timothy Cavendish, a vanity press publisher, flees the brothers of his gangster client. He gets confined against his will in a nursing home from which he cannot escape. The next character watches a movie dramatisation of this story.
An Orison of Sonmi~451
Nea So Copros (Korea), dystopian near future. Sonmi~451, a genetically-engineered fabricant (clone) server at Papa Song's diner (a stand-in for McDonald's), is interviewed before her execution after she rebels against the capitalist totalitarian society that created and exploited her kind. The next character watches Sonmi's story projected holographically in an "orison," a futuristic recording device.
Sloosha's Crossin' an' Ev'rythin' After
Hawaii, post-apocalyptic distant future. Zachry, a tribesman living a primitive life after most of humanity dies during "the Fall," is visited by Meronym, a member of the last remnants of technologically-advanced civilization. This story is told when the protagonist is an old man, to seemingly random strangers around a camp-fire.
Here's some reviews:
Mitchell's virtuosic novel presents six narratives that evoke an array of genres, from Melvillean high-seas drama to California noir and dystopian fantasy. There is a naïve clerk on a nineteenth-century Polynesian voyage; an aspiring composer who insinuates himself into the home of a syphilitic genius; a journalist investigating a nuclear plant; a publisher with a dangerous best-seller on his hands; and a cloned human being created for slave labor. These five stories are bisected and arranged around a sixth, the oral history of a post-apocalyptic island, which forms the heart of the novel. Only after this do the second halves of the stories fall into place, pulling the novel's themes into focus: the ease with which one group enslaves another, and the constant rewriting of the past by those who control the present. Against such forces, Mitchell's characters reveal a quiet tenacity. When the clerk is told that his life amounts to "no more than one drop in a limitless ocean," he asks, "Yet what is any ocean but a multitude of drops?"
THE NEW YORKER
Critics on both sides of the Atlantic rave over Cloud Atlas, British novelist Mitchell’s third novel. Many of the accolades focus on his flair for setting and character. He seems just as comfortable in far-future Hilo as in contemporary England, and he crafts believable voices for characters as different as the rakish Frobisher and the simple tribesman Zachry. One reviewer found the Luisa Rey storyline less convincing than others, while another got bogged down in Zachry’s tale. Mitchell may jump around in time, but his skill remains consistent.
This skill—the technical expertise that allows Mitchell to adopt a different genre for each of his six storylines—gets him into a little trouble. The New York Times Book Review complains that Mitchell’s writing “too often seems android,” that his chameleon-like shifts render his work coldly impressive rather than “fallibly human.” However, most reviewers found Mitchell’s unorthodox structure captivating. After an initial period of confusion, Cloud Atlas becomes a challenging puzzle most were eager to solve. When the storylines finally coalesce, the result is a novel that stands above its peers in both emotional impact and philosophical import. As the Los Angeles Times notes, “Cloud Atlas offers too many powerful insights to be dismissed as a mere exercise in style.” By all accounts, Mitchell has produced in Cloud Atlas a wholly original work. For most, it is also wholly satisfying.
BOOKMARKS MAGAZINE
About the movie:
Tom Hanks and Halle Berry lead an impressive all-star cast for Warner Brother’s upcoming epic, Cloud Atlas.
The Academy Award winners will be joined on set by a diverse international cast that includes Jim Broadbent, Hugo Weaving, Jim Sturgess, Ben Whishaw, Keith David, David Gyasi, Hugh Grant, Chinese actress Zhou Xun and Korea’s Doona Bae.
Based on David Mitchell’s best-selling novel, Cloud Atlas is an epic story of humankind in which the actions and consequences of our lives impact one another throughout the past, present and future.
One soul is shaped from a murderer into a saviour and a single act of kindness ripples out for centuries to inspire a revolution.
The independently financed film will be co-directed and written by the directors/writers of the hugely successful Matrix trilogy, Andy and Lana Wachowski and Perfume director Tom Tykwer.
Filming begins on September 16th and involves two separate units filming simultaneously across Scotland, Germany and Spain.
I just stumbled upon this book and it appears to be very interesting.Some people here might enjoy it.It's called Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell and it is being made into a movie very soon with an all star cast and to be directed by none other than the Wachowski brothers of The Matrix fame.
It's the ongoing story of one souls journey over six different lifetimes from the past and into the distant future.
You can download it for free from here:
http://www.4shared.com/get/ovtcUEFM/David_Mitchell_-_Cloud_Atlas.html
Plot summary
The novel consists of six nested stories that take the reader from the remote South Pacific in the nineteenth century to a distant, post-apocalyptic future. Each tale is revealed to be a story that is read (or watched) by the main character in the next. All stories but the last one get interrupted at some moment, and after the sixth story concludes at the center of the book, the novel "goes back" in time, "closing" each story as the book progresses in terms of pages but regresses in terms of the historical period in which the action takes place. Eventually, readers end where they started, with Adam Ewing in the Pacific Ocean, circa 1850.
The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing
Pacific Ocean, circa 1850. Adam Ewing, an American notary's account of a voyage home from the remote Chatham Islands, east of New Zealand. The next character discovers this story as a diary on his patron's bookshelf.
Letters from Zedelghem
Zedelgem, Belgium, 1931. Robert Frobisher, a penniless young English musician, finds work as an amanuensis to a composer living in Belgium. This story is saved in the form of letters to his friend (and implied lover) Rufus Sixsmith, which the next character discovers after meeting Sixsmith.
Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery.
Buenas Yerbas, California, 1975. Luisa Rey, a journalist, investigates reports of corruption and murder at a nuclear power plant. The next character is sent this story in the mail, in the form of a manuscript for a novel.
The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish
United Kingdom, early 21st century. Timothy Cavendish, a vanity press publisher, flees the brothers of his gangster client. He gets confined against his will in a nursing home from which he cannot escape. The next character watches a movie dramatisation of this story.
An Orison of Sonmi~451
Nea So Copros (Korea), dystopian near future. Sonmi~451, a genetically-engineered fabricant (clone) server at Papa Song's diner (a stand-in for McDonald's), is interviewed before her execution after she rebels against the capitalist totalitarian society that created and exploited her kind. The next character watches Sonmi's story projected holographically in an "orison," a futuristic recording device.
Sloosha's Crossin' an' Ev'rythin' After
Hawaii, post-apocalyptic distant future. Zachry, a tribesman living a primitive life after most of humanity dies during "the Fall," is visited by Meronym, a member of the last remnants of technologically-advanced civilization. This story is told when the protagonist is an old man, to seemingly random strangers around a camp-fire.
Here's some reviews:
Mitchell's virtuosic novel presents six narratives that evoke an array of genres, from Melvillean high-seas drama to California noir and dystopian fantasy. There is a naïve clerk on a nineteenth-century Polynesian voyage; an aspiring composer who insinuates himself into the home of a syphilitic genius; a journalist investigating a nuclear plant; a publisher with a dangerous best-seller on his hands; and a cloned human being created for slave labor. These five stories are bisected and arranged around a sixth, the oral history of a post-apocalyptic island, which forms the heart of the novel. Only after this do the second halves of the stories fall into place, pulling the novel's themes into focus: the ease with which one group enslaves another, and the constant rewriting of the past by those who control the present. Against such forces, Mitchell's characters reveal a quiet tenacity. When the clerk is told that his life amounts to "no more than one drop in a limitless ocean," he asks, "Yet what is any ocean but a multitude of drops?"
THE NEW YORKER
Critics on both sides of the Atlantic rave over Cloud Atlas, British novelist Mitchell’s third novel. Many of the accolades focus on his flair for setting and character. He seems just as comfortable in far-future Hilo as in contemporary England, and he crafts believable voices for characters as different as the rakish Frobisher and the simple tribesman Zachry. One reviewer found the Luisa Rey storyline less convincing than others, while another got bogged down in Zachry’s tale. Mitchell may jump around in time, but his skill remains consistent.
This skill—the technical expertise that allows Mitchell to adopt a different genre for each of his six storylines—gets him into a little trouble. The New York Times Book Review complains that Mitchell’s writing “too often seems android,” that his chameleon-like shifts render his work coldly impressive rather than “fallibly human.” However, most reviewers found Mitchell’s unorthodox structure captivating. After an initial period of confusion, Cloud Atlas becomes a challenging puzzle most were eager to solve. When the storylines finally coalesce, the result is a novel that stands above its peers in both emotional impact and philosophical import. As the Los Angeles Times notes, “Cloud Atlas offers too many powerful insights to be dismissed as a mere exercise in style.” By all accounts, Mitchell has produced in Cloud Atlas a wholly original work. For most, it is also wholly satisfying.
BOOKMARKS MAGAZINE
About the movie:
Tom Hanks and Halle Berry lead an impressive all-star cast for Warner Brother’s upcoming epic, Cloud Atlas.
The Academy Award winners will be joined on set by a diverse international cast that includes Jim Broadbent, Hugo Weaving, Jim Sturgess, Ben Whishaw, Keith David, David Gyasi, Hugh Grant, Chinese actress Zhou Xun and Korea’s Doona Bae.
Based on David Mitchell’s best-selling novel, Cloud Atlas is an epic story of humankind in which the actions and consequences of our lives impact one another throughout the past, present and future.
One soul is shaped from a murderer into a saviour and a single act of kindness ripples out for centuries to inspire a revolution.
The independently financed film will be co-directed and written by the directors/writers of the hugely successful Matrix trilogy, Andy and Lana Wachowski and Perfume director Tom Tykwer.
Filming begins on September 16th and involves two separate units filming simultaneously across Scotland, Germany and Spain.