Wibby-Wig

A Review of David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas (2004)

"Belief is both prize & battlefield, within the mind & in the mind's mirror, the world." - Adam Ewing, Cloud Atlas, 508.

Sociologists like my partner like to deploy the Thomas theorem as shorthand for the idea that "what you believe is what you get." In other words, what we interpret to be reality is, in fact, reality, insofar as we act on our beliefs and therefore shape reality in the process. The phrase "self-fulfilling prophecy" comes close to the point, if missing some of the meaning. I guess you could adapt the WYSIWYG acronym appropriately, to result in WYBIWYG. Or how about the cuter "wibby-wig"?

Cloud Atlas is such a massive tome of ideas that it needs a shorthand adjective, and "wibby-wig" is it for me. To avoid such extreme reductionism, a simple legend of themes (a tapestry metaphor came to mind, but let me stick with maps) is helpful in the effort to decode David Mitchell's complex atlas: themes like belief, but also the human condition, narrative, truth versus Truth, the unity of time and space, the number six, comets, clouds (of course), and--as Mitchell divulged in an interview, "predacity." What I take away most from Cloud Atlas, though, was a wibby-wig view of life that, not to my surprise, reflects my own perspective. What we believe shapes who we are and what we do. This is the case to a large, if certainly not total, extent, because what we believe is not always a choice we make ourselves. Rather, society and its many elements--our parents, peers, children, friends, co-workers, politicians, media overlords, et cetera--often make them for and with us.



But first, a disclaimer. It was difficult to take away anything from the novel unadulterated by the film. Full disclosure: I consider the Wachowskis' Cloud Atlas to be among the best films ever made, and I've had the pleasure of taking in its cinematic glory many times. As a result, it was impossible to discriminate my feelings about the film from those about the novel. But they are distinct, clearly, and so different that I won't say one was "better" than the other. I find books and their film adapations (or vice versa) are incommensurable, anyway. I plan to watch the film soon again, so maybe I'll write a review afterward through the interpretive lens as shaped by the novel. It's only fair.

The power of belief, it seems to me, supports the multitudinous narratives and themes in Cloud Atlas. Belief is fundamental to human nature, and Mitchell would likely argue that yes, relativists, there is a Human Nature. The first words Somni-451, perhaps the most sublime of Mitchell's cast, utters are "Truth is singular. Its 'versions' are mistruths'" (185). What that singular truth is, though, is often difficult to discern. Such is life. We frequently quip that children early on should learn "right from wrong," but what does that mean? Do you, dear reader, know right from wrong? Say you believe in a truth, like the truth of Jesus's resurrection and salvation, or the truth of Confucian familial piety, or the truth that cannibalism is taboo, or the truth of a blissfully lazy Saturday morning. How would you know these things? To quote a bit at length from the notebook of the poor, if wise, Isaac Sachs:

"The present presses the virtual past into its own service, to lend credence to its mythologies + legitimacy to the imposition of will. Power seeks + is the right to 'landscape' the virtual past. (He who pays the historian calls the tune.) Symmetry demands an actual + virtual future, too. We imagine how next week, next year, or 2225 will shape up--a virtual future, constructed by wishes, prophecies + daydreams. This virtual future may influence the actual future, as in a self-fulfilling prophecy, but the actual future will eclipse our virtual one as surely as tomorrow eclipses today." (393)

Individuals construct their pasts, presents, and futures--their identities--on perceptions gleaned from personal observation filtered through socially-constructed language and ideas. In general, when these constructions meet realities, they either blend seemlessly, if "true," or smash like matter against antimatter, if "false." But there is power in belief, an Orwellian or, more accurately, Nietzschean will to power that inspired Mitchell's musical postmodernists, Robert Frobisher and Vyvyan Ayrs. Beliefs can shape realities to such an extent that we may never suffer the matter-antimatter collision and instead simply doublethink our way into a soothing cognitive dissonance.

This dissonance allows for the "predacity" that Mitchell feels central to Cloud Atlas. Wolves most easily prey on sheep who are unaware of danger. The slavers and missionaries of the Chathams, the tag-team duo of Ayrs and Commelynck, the Seaboard directors of Buenas Yerbas, the Nurse Noakes and Company of Aurora House, the corpocracy of Nea So Corpos, the Kona of Big I--all of the villains of Mitchell's six narratives prey on their respective victims' false beliefs, virtual pasts, virtual futures. It's only when our six heroes (or is it just one time-traveling soul?) seize reality through commitment to Truth that they gain liberation, such as it may be.

I don't usually like to summarize plots in reviews. Given that Cloud Atlas is so layered, though, fuller discussion of each of the narratives will illustrate the centrality of belief:

The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing

Adam Ewing's dedication to a compassionate Christianity led him to empathize with the tortured Moriori, Autua, who in turn was so inspired that he sought out Ewing--and freedom--aboard the Princess. Meanwhile, the main villainous characters--Mr. Boerhaave, Preacher Horrox, and the vile Henry Goose--each spun their own narratives to cover up their evil doings. Ewing unwittingly granted Goose power when he believed the latter's medical expertise to be genuine, providing the confidence a con man needs. Yet truth prevailed when Autua rescued Ewing from Goose's scheme. Autua's act of kindness, in turn, inspired Ewing to embrace pluralism and abolitionism, a bold and countercultural shift, given ideas of "natural law" that predominated.

Letters from Zedelghem

Robert Frobisher's whimsical nature and desire for love led him to a drifter's life, but one that nonetheless allowed him to create something eternal--the Cloud Atlas Sextet. In drafting such an inspirational piece (to Luisa Rey, if no one else), one that he felt guaranteed his immortality, life could only diminish in splendor. His is the saddest of Cloud Atlas's tales, one that reminds me how society can break a person but also inspire him or her to subvert that society through self-expression. Frobisher's commitment to this act overruled even his love for Sixsmith. And although he felt Ewing's letters revealed a dupe, Frobisher was taken enough by the diary that it was the only thing he left for Sixsmith, other than his Sextet and final letter.

Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery

Luisa Rey's conviction in her father's righteousness inspired her to great acts of courage in the face of Seaboard's corporate greed and power. Frobisher's Sextet and letters to Sixsmith also steeled her resolve. Her moral strength, after all, was what proved to Sixsmith that she could be trusted with his secret, despite the dangers inherent in playing whistleblower to a corporation with ties to the President of the United States. Rey's influence also charmed Isaac Sachs, who in his enamored state provided one of the key discussions of truth and narrative in the book.

The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish

Timothy Cavendish's passion for good writing and the good life, if not much else, led him to admire Rey's story, which inspired him as he sought liberation from Aurora House. Note why he was interned there in the first place: the vicissitudes of publishing markets, Dermot Hoggins's class rage, sibling jealousy, and a whimiscal and spendthrifty personality evocative of Frobisher. Nurse Noakes cut a brilliant villain, a cold executor of injustice in the vein of Nurse Ratched. Cavendish ultimately found his medium of physical escape in friendship, not to mention his spiritual escape from the fear of aging that so colored his vision of the "undead" at Aurora House. (I simply loved this story, I have to admit. Mitchell had me guffawing with laughter, a true and welcome surprise.)

An Orison of Sonmi-451

Sonmi-451's dedication to truth provided her the strength to face execution. She acknowledged the injustice of the corpocracy (already in development in Luisa's time?) and that she knew her "success" in drafting the Declarations was part of the government's plan to make her into a Emmanuel Goldstein figure. Nevertheless, she insisted that her testimony would one day inspire others to overthrow tyranny in its protean forms. Her "ascension" unfolded along the standard awakening trope, finalized by a Soylent-Green style climax in which she learned that Soap (and fast food!) is Fabricants. Under the corpocracy, society started to eat itself literally, just as Ewing predicted in his statement that "Yes the Devil shall take the hindmost until the foremost is the hindmost" (508).

Sloosha's Crossin' an' Ev'rythin' After

Zachry Bailey's fickle but passionate nature resulted in great tragedy and heroism. His inaction in the Sloosha's Crossing battle left his father dead and brother captured; his ignorant skepticism of the Prescients and Meronym--and temptation by Old Georgie--nearly left all of the people of the Nine Valleys in the clutches of the Kona. Zachry is a Christ figure, but one separated from Christianity. The elevation of Sonmi and her Declarations to the level of an organized religion in Zachry's time illustrated both the eternity of truth and the ephemerality of theology.

The main characters seem to alternate in their level of resolve: Ewing, Rey, and Sonmi all have powerfully strong moral wills, whereas Frobisher, Cavendish, and Zachry were more whimsical and frequently driven by emotion or desire. In the end, though, even the whimsical gained conviction and act self-consciously. Their foils, in turn, were united by the darkness in human nature, of predation upon others' ignorance and the destruction of their right to flourish. All of these individuals are human, and so underscore that we are neither fundamentally good or evil. We have the capacity for both. Our beliefs and thus choices, conditioned or even overruled by society and context, account for who we become. 

If there is a social lesson here, it's that we must shape reality as best as we can to serve as the shepherd who corrects our tendency for sheephood. I'm reminded of Abraham Lincoln, and as cliche as it is to quote him, I'll do it anyway:

"The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as a liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty, especially as the sheep was a black one." Address at a Sanitary Fair, 18 April 1864

Government could serve in this role, as Lincoln alluded, but so could the public sphere. So could a compassionate faith, or a loving family, or an inspirational Sonmi. But to try to do it alone is folly. All of Mitchell's heroes rely on robust social support or vibrant relationships for sustenance, and so must we.

If I have one quibble with Mitchell, it's that he constructed an elegant set of interweaving narratives that effectively bide the time between insights. And if you miss these insights, you aren't paying attention, because he brackets them stylistically with the blinding sharpness of Broadway neon. I also wasn't a fan of Mitchell's rather graceless use of comet birthmarks to convince us that our heroes were reincarnated versions of the same soul. My more secular beliefs notwithstanding, I think it possible to interpret these symbols more abstractly, to see not reincarnation or spiritualism but the unity of human nature across time and space. Ayrs, for example, dreamed of Papa Song's; Rey got goosebumps when she passed the Princess in dock. Like comets, the novel's eponymous clouds are fleeting, beautiful, inspirational, and not what they appear to be. Like human beings, clouds transform as they cross time and space, drift through different contexts, shape and are shaped by their environment. But are always composed of the same fixed material.

One of Sachs's final thoughts compared time to "an infinite matryoshka doll of painted moments" (393). I look forward to unpacking Cloud Atlas's infinite moments again and again.

My rating: A Literary Achievement, 4.5 out of 5 stars
My Goodreads Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
My Worlds Without End Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars