Bibliography

[the_lady_lily]

Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

There was an article in the New Yorker on Mitchell because his latest book has just come out, and the author of said article was terribly certain that Cloud Atlas was his best offering so far. Now, it was on the List anyway, so I figured I'd shuffle it up a bit, and lo, I did, and lo, I was glad.

See, it's an ingenious little piece of kit, this. Mitchell has basically constructed a Russian Doll of a book, short stories containing short stories, and indeed the past containing the future - the stories run chronologically from past to present. But the physical layout of the book is Russian Doll-like too - it presents the first half of the first five stories, then the central, unbroken sixth story, and then fans out the remainder of the other stories. (So, 1A, 2A, 3A, 4A, 5A, 6, 5B, 4B, 3B, 2B, 1B.) This gives you two ways to read the book. You can read it all the way through (as G apparently did) so when you get back to 1B you've forgotten what the hell was going on there; or you can read around the doll, so to speak, so you read all of story one (just like you'd see all of a first Russian doll in a series), then all of story two, and so forth. I went with that approach, which seemed more in keeping with what Mitchell had in mind - not that I realised this until a very helpful moment of character thought in story 3, of course, but it was the right way to read this.

Each story is a different genre and, as I say, a different time; one reason this book was so acclaimed (a finalist for the Man Booker Prize, no less) was that Mitchell manages to jump genres convincingly. I'm not so sold on that. There are issues - the science fiction story falls into the Big Pitfalls of writing sci-fi (e.g. making up new names for things that really don't need new names), and does a very lazy Soylent Green moment which was actually quite disappointing. (Incidentally, it took me forever to realise that 'corpocracy' was supposed to mean rule by corporations, not rule by the body - but that's what the Latinist gets, I suppose.) The central story is... not weak, but doesn't quite tie all the threads together that it needs to. The character from the second story, whose voice I absolutely adored, feels as if it gets recycled in story four, which given the range demonstrated elsewhere is a tad lazy.

But minor missteps aside, some of the writing is amazingly good. It's all done in the first person, which is obviously a good way of giving each story its own character. There are very subtle connections, joins, to the previous narratives that present a gentle intellectual puzzle. There's a question of reincarnation that's raised very delicately, not as a major or central plot point, but as another thread connecting the stories. The voices of the characters are, in the main, rather good. So, it's not an entirely successful experiment, but it's definitely one I think is worth reading.

One Corpse Too Many - Ellis Peters

I am going through a bit of a Cadfael phase, just because it's light literature and there's something about the historical murder mystery that is quite comforting. It's also a bit of a nostalgia trip, as I mentioned in my review of the first in the series. This book differs quite markedly in tone from the first; Peters gets Cadfael involved in the politics of the age, through a serious siege of the town of Shrewsbury by King Stephen, while he was trying to wrest the throne from his cousin (I think) Empress Maud, who was in France at the time of her father's death and thus not about to make the political moves. Shrewsbury is a hold-out town loyal to Maud; Stephen does what kings in the 1130s do, besiege the garrison, and hang all the survivors. Brother Cadfael takes it upon himself to make sure all the dead receive Christian burial - only to discover, when he counts up the bodies, that he has in his charge the titular one corpse too many. Drama ensues, trying to find out who this one corpse is, and to bring him justice.

He does, of course, for otherwise what's the point of the murder mystery, but there's more to the novel than that. There's the interplay of basic, decent humanity over political alliances, the centrality of preserving life rather than gratuitously causing death, the tensions in that choice. Also lots of Love And Romance, upon which Cadfael looks with a certain worldly indulgence (this is what happens when you've been a Crusader). But the sop doesn't get to overwhelm the politics of the plot, which ultimately drives the narrative through questions of allegiance and Duty and Honour - even for King Stephen himself.

I can see exactly why I found this a bit jarring as a teen after the first novel; it's far more political and complicated, and deals with narratives of power and control I'm willing to bet went straight over my head. But Peters does a good job of it, and actually makes a complicated topic reasonably straight-forward. It was fairly easy to follow, although there were a couple of names that cropped up without me being able to remember much about them beyond 'chap in Henry's army, carries a sword' - but then, that was all I really needed to remember for the interest of the plot, so I suppose that's alright.

Also, Hugh Beringer and Cadfael sparring is Of Joy.

Comments

[the-elyan.livejournal.com]

I must reread Cloud Atlas. It is, as you say, odd but very good. You do get the feeling Mitchell is jumping up and down and shouting "Look at me now, Ma - I'm SO clever" occasionally, but it's still damned fine. Someone was raving about Ghostwritten recently, which is a bit more linear.

Oddly enough, the year CA was nominated was about the obly year I've ever watched the Booker coverage, and everyone was convinced it was going to win. I think it's a better book than what did win - The Line of Beauty, by Alan Hollinghurst (though I enjoyed that too, bleak though it was...)

[the-lady-lily.livejournal.com]

I haven't read The Line of Beauty, although I have seen the television version the BBC did a while back. G is quite fond of Hollinghurst, and was quite enthusiastic about the book. It's on the List, although when I'll get to it, I never know...

[mirabehn.livejournal.com]

*gratuitous icon comment*

[the-lady-lily.livejournal.com]

*grin*

[owlfish]

I stalled on Cloud Atlas ages ago, about three half-stories in, with every intention of someday going back. I never realized the stories would resolve and I could read it that way! I just assumed that vague references later might account for how the stories resolved.

[the-lady-lily.livejournal.com]

When I got to the end of the first half-story, I actually did a bit of a stop-start-stutter and spent ten minutes discovering the physical structure of the book and agonizing over what to do about it! But having lived through it (hem), it's definitely the way to go.

[sashajwolf.livejournal.com]

Ooh, Cloud Atlas sounds like exactly my sort of thing! I shall add it to my wishlist.

Do you have an actual List in priority order, then? I sometimes think about making one of those, but I'm not sure whether it would be good for me or just another stick to beat myself with, like the rules I'm always tempted to make for myself.

[the-lady-lily.livejournal.com]

I have the List in vague order, as in, I'll work down it in the order books come, unless there's something I want to move up or feel particularly keen on, in which case I actually move it to the top of the List. It's less priority order and more 'how close to the top are you?', which I feel completely free to override if I'm not in the mood for anything close to the top.