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David Mitchell

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Cloud Atlas. It's the second book we're reading for the Idle Book Club!

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If Cloud Atlas wasn't the next book for the podcast, I'd have to disagree with you. I started with Jacob DeZoet, and I think reading that first really helped me when I read Cloud Atlas later. Mitchell is not overly difficult, but because Cloud Atlas is so jam packed with writerly flourishes, already being accustomed to his style was useful. Maybe this will be more relevant when Cloud Atlas is up for discussion in October, but I found it to be a really hard book to get into. If I hadn't already believed in Mitchell's writing ability, I might not have finished the first chapter, which would have been a shame because I now see Cloud Atlas as one of the more beautiful/optimistic books that I've ever read.

Shorter version, if you think you can read Jacob DeZoet and then Cloud Atlas before the first week of October, then do that. Otherwise: Cloud Atlas first.

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I read Cloud Atlas and De Zoet based on Thumbs recommendations, and would firmly recommend to read Cloud Atlas first. I personally adored De Zoet, and enjoyed it more than Cloud Atlas, but Cloud is basically the ultimate crash course in an author ever. Watching Mitchell step into the skins of protagonists is one of his defining features, in my opinion, and Cloud Atlas delivers on this front in pretty incredible ways.

But yeah, after Cloud, definitely go for De Zoet if you want a really solid novel without the narrative gimmicks (maybe gimmicks is too harsh) of Cloud Atlas.

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I started with Number9Dream, which was the Booker nominated that preceded Cloud Atlas. It's a great read, and I think probably his most accessible and entertaining. It's set in contemporary Japan, is very Murakami inspired, and each of the 9 chapters adopting a different theme. Great stuff.

Obviously Cloud Atlas and Jacob De Zoet are his more accomplished works, and you can't go wrong starting with either.

His original novel, Ghostwritten, has some very interesting bits, but definitely one of his weaker works, alongside the semi-autobiographical Black Swan Green. You can safely leave those until last!

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Any fans of cloud atlas should definitely check out Number9dream, id highly recommend it.

I've read ghost written as well but it didn't do anything for me

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I started with Number9Dream, which was the Booker nominated that preceded Cloud Atlas. It's a great read, and I think probably his most accessible and entertaining. It's set in contemporary Japan, is very Murakami inspired, and each of the 9 chapters adopting a different theme. Great stuff.

Also: video games! :eyebrow:

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If Cloud Atlas wasn't the next book for the podcast, I'd have to disagree with you. I started with Jacob DeZoet, and I think reading that first really helped me when I read Cloud Atlas later. Mitchell is not overly difficult, but because Cloud Atlas is so jam packed with writerly flourishes, already being accustomed to his style was useful. Maybe this will be more relevant when Cloud Atlas is up for discussion in October, but I found it to be a really hard book to get into. If I hadn't already believed in Mitchell's writing ability, I might not have finished the first chapter, which would have been a shame because I now see Cloud Atlas as one of the more beautiful/optimistic books that I've ever read.

Shorter version, if you think you can read Jacob DeZoet and then Cloud Atlas before the first week of October, then do that. Otherwise: Cloud Atlas first.

For what it's worth, I read Cloud Atlas first (not strictly by choice, as De Zoet hadn't been published yet) and didn't have any problem getting into it. I don't say that to discount your opinion, but just to offer a contrasting view by someone who has also read both books.

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Fair enough. Overall, I think Cloud Atlas is the better book, but I'm glad I read De Zoet first. Mostly because I think reading De Zoet after finishing Cloud Atlas would be kind of a let down.

Currently reading Ghostwritten, which I'm really enjoying. Mitchell is quickly becoming one of my favorite living authors.

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It's definitely worth checking out Black Swan Dream and number9dream, as well. I don't have much to say, but -- uh -- yeah, I really enjoyed both. Ghostwritten had a few decent ideas, but at this point I'd consider it more of a curiosity than required-reading.

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That's a shame, because I'm really enjoying Ghostwritten right now. It's obvious how this book had a lingering influence over Mitchell when he wrote Cloud Atlas. Ghostwritten is undeniably the weaker novel ('weaker' might be a harsh word here), but reading it is helping me appreciate Cloud Atlas even more.

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I'll back you up on Ghostwritten. I thought it was "lighter" fare than Cloud Atlas, but by that same token more pulpy and fun.

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I was in Amsterdam today so I visited the local Waterstones and picked up Cloud Atlas. The first few pages were great, I laughed out loud on the very first page. It's a weird start coming from Jacob de Zoet; Mitchell is clearly trying out more things stylistically and sometimes losing himself in obscurantism. I'm not far yet, but I don't think it crosses the line all too much. It's a bit harder to read, but I am very much enjoying it so far.

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I just finished reading Ghostwritten, and wow, what a great book. The whole last chapter made me feel almost giddy with the way everything unfolds. Mitchell is a great character writer and comes up with these amazingly outlandish scenarios, but what I like about him the most it that he just makes reading fun.

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I just finished Jacob de Zoet yesterday, and it was fantastic. It was the first book I've read from this writer. I have to agree with the other commentators about how Mitchell can just create some some pretty out there scenarios for the characters in his story. The last half of the book became a page turner, and I was able to finish it in just four sittings. Also this book has one of the best passages, I have read. Chapter ten, where de Zoet is gardening, just brought a huge grin to my face.

Any ways I can't wait to start on Cloud Atlas. I already bought it, but I'm a little disappointed that I saw the cover with the movie actors on it. I try to stay in the dark when it comes to any book I read, and having an exact image of what the characters look like or what Hollywood has decided they look like, takes some of the enjoyment of building the images in my mind as i read. Oh well, I'm also bumbed that i wont finish it until some time after the podcast has gone up.

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Cloud Atlas. It's the second book we're reading for the Idle Book Club!

Hi Chris, I'm listening to the podcast now and want to add my two cents regarding your dilemma about whether Adam and Frobisher are implicated as fictional characters because Luisa Rey is. My theory is that they are not, and this is not an accident of the structure. I suspect the author of "Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery" encountered the letters from Frobisher to Sixsmith at some point, and probably Robert's sextet. It would explain why Sixsmith's past leaks into the Rey novel, which is really a very pulpy and predicatable affair apart from Rufus' back story (though not pulpy in a bad way).

I'd say this demonstrates an interplay of real events inspiring and informing fictions and, more importantly, the inverse of fictional creations (e.g. certain sextets) informing/touching/inspiring real people. For an echo, we can look at the real story of Timothy Cavendish and how it appears, fictionalized, as a film in Sonmi's world.

I do share your guys' dismay at Mitchell's assertion that reincarnation is at work. Working in that framework, though, it is kind of cool to view the decidedly schlocky art that is the Luisa Rey novel as a means for Cavendish to have a view to his former life as the greater artist Frobisher.

Two cents deposited. Thanks for starting the book podcast!

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I just finished Jacob de Zoet yesterday, and it was fantastic. It was the first book I've read from this writer. I have to agree with the other commentators about how Mitchell can just create some some pretty out there scenarios for the characters in his story. The last half of the book became a page turner, and I was able to finish it in just four sittings. Also this book has one of the best passages, I have read. Chapter ten, where de Zoet is gardening, just brought a huge grin to my face.

Any ways I can't wait to start on Cloud Atlas. I already bought it, but I'm a little disappointed that I saw the cover with the movie actors on it. I try to stay in the dark when it comes to any book I read, and having an exact image of what the characters look like or what Hollywood has decided they look like, takes some of the enjoyment of building the images in my mind as i read. Oh well, I'm also bumbed that i wont finish it until some time after the podcast has gone up.

In Cloud Atlas, watch out for one Boerhaave, who appears at the end of de Zoet as a fresh faced young sailor.

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Holy shit, for real? I have to check that out. I didn't realize that, but then I read Thousand Autumns first. If I'd have read Cloud Atlas first I would've likely noticed.

What I also like to point out is that both the passage of Adam Ewing and the whole of Cloud Atlas suffers from having a not particularly interesting protagonist. Did anyone else feel this way? Ewing and De Zoet aren't terribly exciting, nor are they that imperative at all to the plot. They're more like observers who are there to register what other, more crucial people do to propel events forward. As main characters I was to many degrees more excited about people like Frobisher, Cavendish and Sonmi.

I'd also like to weigh in on the order of reading Cloud Atlas of Thousand Autumns: I don't think it matters that much. I read them latter to former, and didn't feel the one 'prepared me' better for the other. Thing is, Cloud Atlas is such a stylistically unique and overwhelming book, nothing you read can prime you for it.

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In Cloud Atlas Luisa Rey and Cavendish are both characters from Ghostwritten - his first novel. Cavendish is the same, Rey seems to be quite a bit different (especially given that it's about 50 years later).

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In Cloud Atlas Luisa Rey and Cavendish are both characters from Ghostwritten - his first novel. Cavendish is the same, Rey seems to be quite a bit different (especially given that it's about 50 years later).

Oh wow. I saw this quote from Mitchell, but had no idea he went that far.

When asked about the occasional recurrence of his characters from one book to another, Mitchell described a sort of waiting room, where every character he's ever written hangs out, and if he has a place for them in a story, they get a new part.

The only similar writer I know of is Edward P. Jones, whose style of writing is really wild: he composes all books orally in his head, and then writes them down when he's done composing. His novel The Known World is absolutely amazing, and I really really really hope we book club it.

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David Mitchell was recently featured in the NY Times "By the Book", and it's hinted that Cavendish might reappear in some form or another in his next book. Don't know exactly how though; his answer is rather cryptic.

There is one brief scene where the directors continue a character’s story arc further than I imagined, in the case of Cavendish. This extension feels so right that I’ve incorporated it into the book I’m working on, making it “canonical” so to speak. Here’s hoping the Wachowskis won’t object. . . .

He also provides some excellent Japanese literature recommendations.

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I really can't recommend Black Swan Green enough. Cloud Atlas is lovely, yes, but I kind of hated number9dream at the time - the cod-Murakami sections drove me nuts.

But there's this lovely simplicity to BSG: a hint of autobiography, a hint of fantasy, an interesting overlap into Cloud Atlas / Mitchellverse; and some remarkable structure. Mitchell explains each chapter as a short story, about a month, and they do all join together into a novel, but also hang together alone well. And yet he ramps the pace in such a gentle way that the final couple of chapters build to an unexpected crescendo. It was so simple, so unshowy, and I love it for that.

(I was bitterly disappointed when he explained that Cloud Atlas was never written out-of-order; he simply wrote the seven sections, and literally just hit cut/paste to shift them around. The final literal structure of that book was done in a couple of minutes. I know it was always intended, but I was disappointed that the cuts were, essentially, almost arbitrary).

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I find that a weird thing to be disappointed about. The thing that is important is that he shaped the story that way, with an idea that will likely have taken months to distil and get right. That the actual, physical implementation of that idea takes only a few minutes is irrelevant. On top of that, it would've been very hard and annoying to not write the stories in one go: finding the right tone again after a long break is a pain in the ass, not to mention losing all the countless minutiae when you're juggling a world in your head.

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I really can't recommend Black Swan Green enough. Cloud Atlas is lovely, yes, but I kind of hated number9dream at the time - the cod-Murakami sections drove me nuts.

But there's this lovely simplicity to BSG: a hint of autobiography, a hint of fantasy, an interesting overlap into Cloud Atlas / Mitchellverse; and some remarkable structure. Mitchell explains each chapter as a short story, about a month, and they do all join together into a novel, but also hang together alone well. And yet he ramps the pace in such a gentle way that the final couple of chapters build to an unexpected crescendo. It was so simple, so unshowy, and I love it for that.

(I was bitterly disappointed when he explained that Cloud Atlas was never written out-of-order; he simply wrote the seven sections, and literally just hit cut/paste to shift them around. The final literal structure of that book was done in a couple of minutes. I know it was always intended, but I was disappointed that the cuts were, essentially, almost arbitrary).

I'm actually reading Black Swan Green at the moment, and I'm glad to hear that it all comes together. I didn't really expect it to, but I didn't have a problem with that. I'm about a third of the way through and I enjoy how he's just slowly building tension, but you can't really tell for what.

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