Book Review: Cloud Atlas

Title: Cloud Atlas
Author: David Mitchell
Year Published: 2004
Genre: General and literary fiction, Historical fiction, Science fiction, Comedy, Drama, Thriller

After reading Virgin with Butterflies, I really needed to read something that was not shite. Cloud Atlas, being recommended by a friend and coming with a movie and accolades and prize-contender-y-ness, seemed the perfect candidate. It was also the opposite of shite.

It's a book that's hard to categorise or describe in one sentence, so I won't even try. What I found most novel about this novel is its chiastic form: it's comprised of six sort-of nested stories in an ABCDEFEDCBA sort of structure. Bar the middle story, all the stories are split into halves. So, for example, the book begins and ends with each half of “The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing”. I must say that I was very glad to see that the stories were completed as I would have been very dissatisfied if they were just cut off mid-way, never to be seen again, because I need closure in my life, yes I do.

The stories in Cloud Atlas cover a variety of genres and time periods. They are:

• “The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing”: an American faces the effects of colonisation in the Chatham Islands in the 19th century;
• “Letters from Zedelghem”: a destitute English musician finds work as an amanuensis to a blind composer in 1931;
• “Half-Lives – The First Luisa Rey Mystery”: a reporter in 1975 investigates suspicious goings-on at a new nuclear plant;
• “The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish”: a present-day man becomes an unlikely prisoner;
• “An Orison of Sonmi~451”: in the future, a Korean “fabricant” ascends to human intelligence; and
• “Sloosha's Crossin' an' Ev'rythin' After”: a post-apocalyptic story about a boy who deals with both a strange visitor and attacks on his village.

The writing is strong across all stories. David Mitchell uses very different styles across all six – for example, Adam Ewing is meant to be reminiscent of Herman Melville, Luisa Rey like an airport thriller. Now, given the stylistic acrobatics and fancy novel structure, I can almost picture the author being all like “La! See how impressive and clever I am!”. But the the thing is, I can't even be mad, because I am impressed and I do think he's very clever. The Luisa Rey story definitely works as a thriller and the Sonmi story is a solid sci-fi tale. I even found “Sloosha's Crossin'”, with its pidgin-like English, to be very readable. I enjoyed all the tales despite having to reach for the dictionary a lot in the first two stories (because wtf is an amanuensis?? answer: a secretary who takes dictation – you're welcome, similarly vocab-challenged people out there). The only story I wasn't too keen on was Timothy Cavendish's – but that, I suspect, is because what happens to him is realistic enough to terrify me. All in all, there is great variety in the stories and it was almost like a mix-bag of lollies in that monotony was never a problem.

The six individual stories are explicitly interlinked – the Luisa Rey story for example features as a fictional manuscript in the Timothy Cavendish story. While the tales are separated in time and space, we have recurring themes and a recurring soul (the one with the comet-shaped birthmark) who reincarnates into the different stories. Those who have seen the movie or its trailer might be misled – I had assumed, given the use of the same actors in different roles, that the book featured a group of souls who kept meeting up across time. However, only one soul is clearly reincarnated in the book, and even then, the personalities of the reincarnations and other characters are all different. Further, from watching the trailer, it also seems that more interconnections have been added in the movie. I just thought I'd mention this to dispel any false expectations if you decide to read/watch both versions.

Depending on how you interpret things, you can link the tales in different ways. I personally am not too sure whether I liked this; it felt kind of like the author was trying too actively to make it ~deep~ and ~ambiguous~. Together, the tales cover a broad scope of human experience and a commentary on humanity emerges from the collection; it's definitely a case where the sum is greater than its parts. But thematic links aside, the actual literal and character links between stories don't seem to add too much to the tales other than a “spot-the-connection” game for the reader, which can be fun or infuriating, depending on your tastes. I personally thought this the weakest aspect of the book, as the lack of “proper” connections made me wish for more. To me, the hints were tantalising but ultimately unsatisfying.

The tales are thoughtful and work well as individual pieces; together, they are something else entirely. The ambiguity of the connections between them and the multitude of themes (the nature of the human race, oppression, free will, etc) make it a good book for discussing with others. It's epic and glorious and a wee bit frustrating. Cloud Atlas is clever and well-written but don't strain yourself too hard looking for connections and just enjoy it for what it is.

Alex's Rating: 4/5

Movie Review: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Title: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Director: Peter Jackson
Year Released: 2012
Running Time: 169 minutes
Classification: PG-13
Genre: Fantasy, Action/Adventure

This was probably the movie I was most looking forward to in 2012. Nothing has matched Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy since its release a decade ago and if something were to come close, this would be it. I watched the production videos, read the kerfuffle about The Hobbit becoming three movies rather than two and heard tales of nausea caused by the newfangled 48fps. So yeah. Whatever the reviews were going to be I knew I'd be watching this regardless.

A prequel of sorts to LOTR, The Hobbit tells the story of hobbit Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman), who finds himself on an unexpected journey with thirteen dwarves setting out to reclaim their mountain home. Compared to LOTR, the scope is a lot less epic; it's an adventure story, essentially, though other material has been inserted into the original story to beef it up. As a result, the movie manages to be some three hours long and is comprised largely of set-up for the next films.

There's a lot in the way of action, not much in the way of story progression. A good half hour or so into the film and we're (probably) still in the Shire. The pacing is very slow and I literally almost fell asleep. Orcs attack, trolls attack, elves talk and dwarves walk. Stuff happens but we don't really get anywhere. Some scenes are genuinely riveting, the highlight for me being the appearance of the delightfully creepy Gollum (Andy Serkis). The film does improve as it goes along, which is just as well or I would have left the cinema quite unhappy. I don't think it's a spoiler to say that the dwarves don't get to reclaim their mountain home in the end – not in this movie anyway. Consider yourselves warned.

Half of my enjoyment of this film came from the nostalgia brought on by revisiting Middle Earth – from hearing the familiar score and from seeing Frodo (Elijah Wood) and Gandalf (Ian McKellen) and everyone else, including Figwit (Bret McKenzie). Like LOTR, the film looks fantastic; the scenery and the design of the locations are simply majestic. Even the costumes and make-up are works of art.

My only disappointment – in terms of visuals – lies with the dwarves. First, I had been hoping to see some dwarven women in the flashbacks (because beards), but alas no (as far as I know). Second, and I am probably alone in this complaint, but Thorin (dwarf leader Richard Armitage) and Kili (hot dwarf Aidan Turner) were too attractive. Don't get me wrong – I liked the both of them, but they just looked like men and only strangely shortish men when standing next to Gandalf. Given that the film is largely populated with monsters and comical looking dwarves, I suppose you can see why they'd want to insert some eye-candy. If you compare The Hobbit with the LOTR films, Thorin is like a more formal/sombre/angsty version of Aragorn and Kili, if you squint, is a rugged kind of Legolas. A key criterion of both LOTR roles is, of course, the ability to explode ovaries at twenty paces. So there you go, we have ourselves some hot dwarves.

As for the new 48 frames per second technology, I just thought it made things really really clear, sort of like when we made the transition to HD or when you upgrade your glasses after a trip to the optometrist. I can't decide if I like it. Sometimes everything on screen looked really stunning and beautiful, sometimes I felt that I was looking at a movie set, and I can't pinpoint why. I personally didn't find it nauseating at all, but then again I have always been fine with 3D and so on.

I liked so much about this movie: the visuals, the characters, the music – but it was just so darned slow and I wanted them all to hurry up and get to the mountain already. I've found that my enjoyment of the Lord of the Rings movies is increased when I watch them all in close succession and I hope the same will be true of The Hobbit trilogy. For now, however, I can only feel vaguely underwhelmed and wait for the next film.

Alex's Rating: 3/5

TV Miniseries Review: The Pillars of the Earth

Title: The Pillars of the Earth

Director: Sergio Mimica-Gezzan

Year Released: 2010

Running Time: ~60 minutes per episode

Episodes: 8

Status: Complete; followed by World Without End

Classification: MA

Genre: Historical drama

Based on Ken Follett's book of the same name, The Pillars of the Earth is a historical saga set in the 12th century, with the action kicking off upon the death of Henry I's son and the ensuing succession crisis between the king's daughter and nephew. The series is a veritable soup of players and plots. After the first episode, I rubbed my hands together in glee at the promise of meatiness and soapiness to come.

The drama centres on the building of a cathedral in the fictional town of Knightsbridge. It is a project started by Tom Builder (Rufus Sewell), continued by his sons Jack (Eddie Redmayne) and Alfred (Liam Garrigan), and supported throughout by Prior Philip (Matthew Macfadyen, who you may remember as 2005's Mr Darcy). Making life hard, however, are the evil, power-hungry bishop Waleran Bigod (Ian McShane) and the evil power-hungry Hamleigh clan, who want the priory's resources for themselves. These villains must also contend with plucky noblewoman Aliena (Hayley Atwell) and her brother Richard (Sam Claflin) in their power struggle over the lands of Shiring.

It's hard to describe the plot in any more detail without spoiling it all, so I'll leave it at that. I think, however, that you get the idea that this drama is a knotty plotty thing. I really enjoyed that – it was fun seeing what would happen, where things would go next, how one event would affect another and so on. It's the kind of show where half the fun lies in guessing the twists and turns.

Another pleasure is the cast, but for me it was mostly because I was able to cry “hey, it's that guy!” at almost everyone who walked on-screen. Some characters were distracting, but I'll admit this is probably entirely my own fault. For example, shallow old me had my attention diverted by stupid thoughts half the time Jack appeared – I couldn't decide if he was too pretty and whether he was creepy or mysterious. Also somewhat cringe-inducing was his method of seduction, which involved talking about architecture and then suddenly swooping in for a kiss. Though he was a “good” character, I wasn't sure if I liked him. By far the most distracting though was David Oakes as the vile William Hamleigh. The actor bears an uncanny resemblance to weedy shy guy Bret of Flight of the Conchords fame and there were many times I'd see William's horrible rape-y actions and clutch at my proverbial pearls, thinking “Brett would never!”

Left: David Oakes; Right: Bret McKenzie
I just had to show you the two of them, brought together by the magic of MS Paint. The resemblance is uncanny, I tell you. Uncanny!

That aside, there are some (legitimate) problems with the drama, and these mostly involve characterisation. The good characters are clearly good and the evil ones are clearly evil; a few greyer characters are thrown in the mix, but they're only side characters. This isn't necessarily a bad thing – after all, sometimes you want to watch something where you can just cheer for the good guys and boo at the baddies. In this case, however, it detracts from the quality of the show overall. The villains are so determinedly villainous that some of the conflicts seem contrived and repetitive: while watching, I struggled with trying to remember exactly why certain (good) characters were so hated and why the villains would go to such lengths to make them suffer. Also, Willaim Hamleigh attacks Knightsbridge so many times that you come to dread the scenes where this happens. The battles also seem to blend in with one another. By the second last episode, everything becomes pretty predictable and (spoiler alert) the baddies get their comeuppance (hurrah!).

Another nitpick involves historical accuracy and general sense-making, which this drama sort of lacks. Most prominent is the character of Aliena, who, though likeable, embodies the modern “action girl” beloved of our times. 12th century class and gender norms don't really seem to matter for some reason. Further, the means by which Aliena comes into money really beggars belief. Still, this is a nitpick, so it's not a major issue but I'm sure it'd put some people off.

Oh, another thing that might annoy people is the supernatural element (in terms of visions, etc), but this aspect remains sort of ambiguous in terms of whether they're “real” or not and they're very minor. There are also some sex scenes and nudity, though they aren't nearly as gratuitous as in other shows (lookin' at you, Game of Thrones).

I enjoyed this miniseries. It looked good and it was fun and it was full of plotting and drama. Worth a go if you're feeling in the mood for something rich and historical and a wee bit trashy.

Alex's Rating: 3.5/5

(On another note, HAPPY NEW YEAR!!)