This week, I read Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. I knew it had been a contender for the Man Booker Prize, so I had high expectations, but I was curious to see if I was up to the job. Cloud Atlas is one of those books I should read because it's an IMPORTANT book. Well, this was the week.
I like quirky books, whether it is plot, ideas, characters, or setting. Cloud Atlas is masterfully quirky. The book is like a set of nesting dolls. There are six narrators or six different stories told in six genres. It sounds confusing because it is confusing. Each story is told partway, then abruptly shifts to the next seemingly unrelated story. The center narration is of a post-apocalyptic world that has returned to the stone age and unashamed cannibalism. A repeated adage is, "The weak are the meat that the strong do eat."
The second half of Cloud Atlas is David Mitchell's answer to why not seek to be an oppressor or "eat the weak"?
"Our lives are not our own. We are bound to others, past and present, and by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future."
I can see why it is considered a noteworthy book. It's technically brilliant, strives with thorny themes, and seeks to bring change. Cloud Atlas will linger in my mind.
☁️💨📚🎶
I have now read the entire Before the Coffee Gets Cold series by Toshikazu Kawaguchi with Before We Say Goodbye. I read them out of order, so this was a jump back in time in a book about time travel. ;-) This series highlights how fleeting life is and contemplates how we spend it. It reminds me of a section of Mary Oliver's poem "Summer Day,"
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?Tell me, what is it you plan to dowith your one wild and precious life?
| Kawaguchi advocates for telling those we love how valued they are to us in his lovely stories. Here is a link to previous reviews in the series: |
https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/search?q=Before+the+Coffee+Gets+Cold
🦋☕️🕰️🎐
I haven't reviewed any Jasper Fforde books, but I have read him. He is seriously weird. He has a series called Thursday Next about real life and the book world not always peaceable coexisting, and the brave woman, Thursday Next, brings order and justice. The first book is The Eyre Affair. He is funny, thought-provoking and mind-bending.
The Constant Rabbit is about rabbits living in England who underwent an anthropomorphizing event that caused some of them to become almost human. They live in houses, wear clothes, have jobs, drive cars, and are not very accepted by their human counterparts. Fford uses his book to discuss discrimination in a clever, sly, funny, and fun way. The protagonist, Peter Knox, is a weak-willed rabbit spotter. It is challenging to tell rabbits apart, and few people possess the skill. He is employed by a nefarious organization that monitors the rabbits. Peter is growing uneasy with his complicity against this unfairly maligned group, but what should he do about it. Then, a family of rabbits moves in next door.
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