The cloud atlas
The cloud atlas , English original title Cloud Atlas , is a novel published in 2004 by the English writer David Mitchell .
construction
As usual with David Mitchell, he also chooses an unconventional narrative structure for Der Wolkenatlas . The novel is a literary kaleidoscope that spans a span of nearly 1,000 years of history . As in chaos , different stories and fates are interwoven to form a whole in the end. In Der Wolkenatlas there are six such stories, each set in a different time and each written in its own style. The chapters are divided as follows:
- Adam Ewing's Pacific Diary
- In the 1850s (it is called no exact time, but is Gold Rush in California mentioned); diary written in the style of the time;
- Letters from Zedelghem
- 1931; a cycle of letters;
- Half-lives. Luisa Rey's first case
- 1975; a detective novel / thriller;
- The gruesome martyrdom of Timothy Cavendish
- At the present time (no exact time); Memoirs / essays as a template for a screenplay for a film;
- Sonmis Oratio
- In a dystopian future (around 2100); a protocol / dialogue;
- Sloosha's Crossin 'un went on
- In a distant future; a narration / monologue
In addition, every part except for the sixth is interrupted from about halfway and continued with the next story. The second half can be found in the backwards order from the end of the sixth part in the book. If the parts were numbered, the following scheme would result: 1 (1) - 2 (1) - 3 (1) - 4 (1) - 5 (1) - 6 - 5 (2) - 4 (2) - 3 (2) - 2 (2) - 1 (2), which corresponds to an arch shape in classical form theory. The stories end abruptly and are taken up in the next one in some way.
action
Adam Ewing's Pacific Diary
Adam Ewing, a notary from San Francisco who had to settle an inheritance matter in New South Wales, Australia , travels home on the schooner Prophetess . His diary begins shortly after the return journey begins, when the Prophetess is overtaken on the Chatham Islands due to storm damage . On an exploration tour of the island he befriends the doctor Henry Goose, whom he regards as one of the few educated people in this part of the world. Ewing hears from an islander the story of the native Moriori , who are oppressed and proselytized by immigrant whites and Māori . As the journey continues, a Moriori named Autua hides as a stowaway in Ewing's cabin and asks him for help. Although the captain and crew show Ewing blatant dislike, he manages that Autua is not thrown overboard, but is included in the crew. Ewing, however, has completely different problems: Goose diagnoses him with a tropical worm that has taken root in his brain. Despite Goose's medicine, Ewing is getting worse and worse. The diary ends abruptly on page 57.
Letters from Zedelghem
The young and extremely talented musician Robert Frobisher writes in letters to his lover Rufus Sixsmith how he finds a job with a syphilis-suffering, blind, old composer named Vyvyan Ayrs. Ayrs lives with his family in Belgium in Zedelghem Castle. Over time, an artistic symbiosis develops between the two: Ayrs needs the young talent to complete his works, and Frobisher uses his employment to compose his own. In constant need of money, he looks in the castle for books that he can sell to a dealer. He found a diary of the notary Adam Ewing; however, from page 57 the pages are missing. He assigns Sixsmith to find the missing part. Meanwhile, Ayr's wife Jocasta begins to hook up with Frobisher - in contrast to Ayr's daughter Eva, who in Frobisher's eyes is a twisted, venomous snake. The last letter tells of Jocasta and he having a love affair .
Half-lives, Luisa Rey's first case
Journalist Luisa Rey is stuck in an elevator with Rufus Sixsmith. The elderly scientist gives her a lead for a top story. A new nuclear reactor is to be built away from the town of Buenas Yerbas, on Swanneke Island. According to Sixsmith's report, however, the "Hydra reactor" has serious errors. The corrupt chairman of the company has Sixsmith murdered by the assassin Bill Smoke for this reason. At the last moment Sixsmith manages to hide a copy of the report in an airport locker and the old letters of his childhood sweetheart Robert Frobisher in a hotel Bible. Luisa Rey, however, manages to get hold of a copy of Sixsmith's report on the reactor site. However, Bill Smoke gets ahead of her and in a car chase she is pushed off a bridge with her car.
The gruesome martyrdom of Timothy Cavendish
The aging publisher Timothy Cavendish made a big hit with the book “Faustfutter”: the author of this book threw a critic off the roof, whereupon he ended up in prison. The book is selling well thanks to its popularity. With the proceeds, Cavendish frees himself from his debts. Unfortunately, he is haunted by the author's brothers who charge him exorbitant sums for the success of the publication. Cavendish asks his brother Denholme to hide him. On the following odyssey he travels across England (during the trip he reads the previous thriller about Luisa as a novel by a certain Hilary V. Hush) and then stops in front of "Haus Aurora", his brother's recommendation. He takes his room believing that he is in a hotel. The terrible truth is revealed to him too late: his brother has enrolled him in a nursing home. Just as he is about to flee, he has a stroke.
Sonmis Oratio
The fifth part takes place in a dystopian future in Korea (Nea So Copros). The female clone Sonmi ~ 451 is charged with the crime of wanting to be human. In the ruling corporate economy, it was created to serve in a fast food restaurant. For a long time the restaurant is her home and the mascot her god. She was promised to go to the Elysium after twelve years . However, the so far only the second ascent of a "duplicate" happens and scientists can smuggle it out of the underground restaurant. The new freedom literally kills them, similar to the catharsis in the allegory of the cave . During her ascent, she studies at a university and comes up with massive knowledge thanks to her improved biological skills. Just as she is watching an old film from the 21st century (it's a dramatization of Cavendish's experiences), police forces storm the university. The last scene Sonmi ~ 451 sees is the one in which Cavendish has a stroke. She realizes that her newfound friend Hae-Jo Im only pretended to be a student so that he could pursue his real calling without being disturbed.
Sloosha's Crossin '
As an old man, the goatherd Zachry recounts his adventures on the island of Hawaii . In this story, the earth is in a distant, post-apocalyptic state. Technology is a lost relic and is known as the “clever of the ancients”. The people of Hawaii fell back into the Stone Age. In this simple society there is barter . Twice a year the island reaches a technologically advanced people, the "Prescients", who can still hoard and use the "cleverness of the ancients". The Prescients send a woman named Meronym to the island to investigate. Zachry is immediately suspicious and searches her belongings. He finds an egg-shaped device, an orator, which shows a girl's face as a hologram and speaks a language he cannot understand. Despite their differences, Meronym and Zachry become friends because she saves his sister's life. Zachry accompanies and protects Meronym as she explores Mauna Kea . When a warlike people, the Kona, attack the peaceful peoples of Hawaii and enslave them, Zachry is also abducted, but can be saved by Meronym and a handgun. Together they should make their way to the coast to be picked up by the other Prescients. Zachry learns that the Prescients explored his people because they are the last civilized society on earth next to them - and have now been wiped out by barbarism. The final fall of mankind seems sealed, since the existence of the "Prescients" is threatened by an incurable disease. However, the story ends with a few words from Zachry's son. He tells about Meronyms Orator and at the end "shows" him to his audience. The girl in the hologram is Sonmi ~ 451 and her story is ended immediately afterwards.
Sonmis Oratio
Sonmi ~ 451 flees the riot with Hae-Jo Im. Hae-Jo reveals to her that he and the professor who supervises her belong to the revolutionary abolitionists . During Sonmi's escape, she ended up in a “face designer studio” to get a new face and not be recognized. The goal of their escape through a futuristic Korea is the leader of the abolitionists. Sonmi's fellow student Hae-Jo Im shows her the incubators of her non-ascended sisters, a dilapidated Buddhist monastery (where Sonmi learns about the almost completely forgotten teachings of the Buddha) and she happens to see an officer who like a toy duplicator (a kind of living Barbie doll) Throws garbage from a bridge. Sonmi's shock culminates in the fact that she sees a ship belonging to her former corporation and some of her sisters who are about to get into the promised Elysium. However, they never get there and are slaughtered industrially by bolt shot . Sonmi then wants to destroy the ship and writes her "Twelve Declarations", a call to humanity and to deal with one another in an impartial manner. Before she can carry out her plan, Hae-Jo Im turns out to be a government agent. The rescue of Sonmis and her odyssey were completely staged by the corporate democracy in order to create a fictional enemy image so that no real ones emerge. The only consolation for Sonmi is that her explanations are preserved and that shortly before her execution she can see the film "The Horrible Martyrdom of Timothy Cavendish" as a last wish.
The gruesome martyrdom of Timothy Cavendish
After his stroke, Cavendish is initially confined to bed. While he is still recovering, he is making plans to escape. He secretly calls his brother Denholme to clarify the matter, but learns that Denholme has died of a stroke. Cavendish begins looking for like-minded people in the old people's home and finds his accomplices in the Scotsman Ernie, his wife Veronica and the mentally confused Mr. Meeks. They forge a plan to lure and lock the dominant head nurse into Cavendish's room and steal a regular visitor's car. The plan succeeds at first, but with slight improvisations. Mr. Meeks is picked up differently than planned and the gate of the home is rammed with the car. The four refugees scatter and Cavendish rebuilds his publishing house. His first book to be published is Half-Life. Luisa Rey's first case , the second part of which will be sent to him in his self-chosen exile in Scotland.
Half-lives, Luisa Rey's first case
Luisa Rey, believed dead, is able to save herself from her sinking car. Three copies still exist in the race for Sixsmith's report; Bill Smoke is always ahead of her and destroys all reports except the last one about which he has no knowledge. While Smoke is still following Luisa, she establishes contact with Sixsmith's niece, who owns one of the copies. In the port of Buenas Yerbas there is a showdown in which Smoke dies. Luisa's report on the highly dangerous "Hydra reactor" is the big start of her young career. Since a certain friendship developed between them during the short time with Rufus Sixsmith, she asks his niece for the remaining letters from the musician Frobisher. She feels a deep connection between herself and this person. Therefore, the thriller ends with Luisa Rey reading the other experiences of Frobisher at Zedelghem Castle.
Letters from Zedelghem
As the employment relationship between Ayrs and Frobisher deteriorates, Jocasta begins to fall seriously in love with Frobisher. He dismisses everything as a little romance and instead visits a mass grave from the First World War, in which his brother is also said to be buried. When he returns, Ayr's daughter Eva and Frobisher are on good terms. He thinks she is in love with him; a mistake, since he climbs into this mistaken belief and begins to love her himself. The final break with Ayrs happens shortly afterwards and that same evening Frobisher leaves the castle. In the nearby city of Bruges , he uses his last money to find a hotel room. When he realizes his fateful misunderstanding, it is too much for the vain young musician. He has no money or a reputation in Europe and his heart is broken. His last letter to Sixsmith is also a farewell letter: He shoots himself. He leaves his old friend Sixsmith with his letter, his greatest work, the “Cloud Atlas Sextet”, and the missing pages from Ewing's diary in an envelope. In his last letter, Frobisher asks Sixsmith to publish the sextet with the proceeds from the stolen books.
Adam Ewing's Pacific Diary
Ewing's condition has improved somewhat, so that he can go ashore again and get to know a mission in the middle of the Pacific. His experiences on this journey home are an example of oppression and abuse of power. He sees the Christians imposing their religion on the indigenous population and making them so economically dependent; he is talking to a husband who is being bullied by his wife; on the Prophetess he indirectly witnesses the suicide of a boy who was sexually abused by the crew. Ewing blames himself because the boy asked him for advice, but he did not think Ewing replied conscientiously enough. His biggest problem, however, still seems to be his brain parasite. Goose's medicine no longer works and Ewing is just a misery who was ordered to rest in bed. Just before it's too late, the terrible truth reveals to Ewing: the worm was persuaded hypochondria, Goose is a con man, and his medicine was creeping poison. Ewing can be saved by Autua and concludes with the thought that spans all other parts of the book that the world can be changed for the better if the will to do so and not the will to power dominates.
links
Connections within the book
As mentioned above, the work is structured according to a fixed pattern, the parts interlock:
- Ewing's diary, printed by his son, is in Ayr's library, where Frobisher reads it.
- Rufus Sixsmith appears as a fictional character including Frobisher's letters to him in the detective novel "Luisa Rey's First Case" by the author Hilary V. Hush.
- Hilary V. Hush sends his manuscript to the publisher Cavendish.
- Cavendish's Odyssey is being filmed so that Sonmi ~ 451 can see it in a cinema archive.
- Sonmi's protocol is stored on an orator that Zachry discovers in Meronym's luggage.
In addition, there are other allusions, references and anticipations :
- Six of the characters have a comet-shaped birthmark near their shoulder. Corresponding to this, déjà-vu is often mentioned when a protagonist reads or sees another's story.
- Luisa Rey sees a museum ship in the port of Buenas Yerbas, the schooner “Prophetess” from Ewing's diary entries.
- Timothy Cavendish reports on his train journey to see factory buildings of Korean companies trying to clone more than just sheep.
- Frobisher's great work, the eponymous "Cloud Atlas Sextet" is identical in its structure to that of the entire novel. Luisa Rey buys a record with this piece of music.
- The "Atlas of Clouds" is also used as a metaphorical image by Zachry and Cavendish.
- The word " hydra " appears in every story , usually with a negative connotation .
- Hawaii is the setting for many stories: It is Zachry's home island, and Ewing is taken to a hospital there to be detoxified. The alleged Elysium of the duplicates, such as Sonmi, is said to be in Hawaii . Sixsmith's niece Megan is flown in from Hawaii. She works there in the observatory whose ruins Zachry and Meronym are exploring.
- When Cavendish pulls up in a taxi in front of the Aurora house, he understands the cab driver's words "Sixteen Seventy" as "Zachary sees you."
- Each of the six protagonists experiences some kind of capture, physical or psychological (or both).
- Each of the social forms shown is in a morally questionable state and / or has a major catastrophe behind it, ahead of it or is in great danger.
- Each of the protagonists ultimately shows great courage and fights for their convictions, even if only after they have defeated a fight with themselves.
- In addition, some of the figures sometimes bear the names of people Mitchell mentions in his acknowledgment, such as Ayrs' wife Jocasta or the Belgian policeman Verplancke.
- The shoddy joke that "energy guru" Lloyd Hooks tells in chapter 42 is - just like the first 5 stories - split in two. In the middle of the joke there is a detour to Bill Smoke, who reports to Hooks that the attacks on Grimaldi, Sachs and Rey have been carried out.
Connections with other plants
- Luisa Rey and Timothy Cavendish (as well as his brother Denholme) make a brief appearance in Mitchell's debut novel, Chaos .
- Ayr's daughter Eva mentions Frobisher's suicide in The Thirteenth Month . She also listens to Jason, the protagonist there, whose work "The Cloud Atlas Sextet".
- A comet also plays an important role in chaos .
- In Mitchell's novel The Thousand Autumns by Jacob de Zoet , the word cloud atlas occurs.
The connections to other works of world literature are, as is usual with Mitchell , very subtle. As an allusion to Thomas Pynchon's debut V. is, for example, the name of the alleged author of half-lives. Understanding Luisa Rey's first case . Cavendish thinks of a woman when he hears the name Hilary V. Hush, but he turns out to be Hilary Vincent Hush. Nietzsche's work Also Spoke Zarathustra , which Frobisher calls Ayr's Bible , is mentioned directly in the text . In the chapter “Half-lives”, the word Silvaplana comes to Joe Napier's mind at the moment of his death , the name of the municipality in the Swiss canton of Graubünden , in which Nietzsche found the inspiration for the thought of the Eternal Coming of the Same , processed in Also Spoke Zarathustra . At the end of “Adam Ewing's Pacific Diary”, the protagonist remembers his departure from “Silvaplana Wharf” in San Francisco. One already in chaos used tribute to Thornton Wilder's The Bridge of San Luis Rey found in the name Luisa Rey. The number 451 in the name of the clone Sonmi is a reference to the novel Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury . Sonmi ~ 451 is the first book to see an illustrated edition of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale . Sonmi's life story or the explanation of what really happens in the Elyseum is an allusion to the film ... year 2022 ... who want to survive (the original title is "Soylent Green"). This is also directly referenced in the novel when Timothy Cavendish quotes the phrase “Soylent Green is human flesh”.
Interpretations
David Mitchell takes up several interrelated philosophical and religious themes in his novel The Cloud Atlas . One of them is the term “ will to power ” coined by Friedrich Nietzsche . The novel depicts its impact on human nature through the centuries: In every age there existed oppressors and oppressed, exploiters and slaves, despite all opposing efforts. As Ewing states towards the end of the book - without suspecting future events - a "completely predatory world must one day devour itself". The way out of this vicious circle is the collective belief in a better world.
In Robert Frobisher's last letter, however, Mitchell formulated his version of the " Eternal Second Coming ". This central idea of Nietzsche's work Also Spoke Zarathustra gives every act and every omission infinite weight, because they repeat themselves in all eternity. The “Cloud Atlas Sextet” that Frobisher composes is also shaped by this idea. The theme of reincarnation is connected with it : six of the characters have the same birthmark in different times and experience déja-vus, dark memories of previous lives. The idea of reincarnation itself also keeps coming back. For example, Sonmi temporarily finds refuge in a former Buddhist monastery, whose abbess only has rudimentary ideas about the religion that was destroyed by the ruling corporate society. Centuries later, Zachary and his tribe, also led by an abbess, still believe - or again - in some kind of reincarnation.
The eponymous “Cloud Atlas” is a metaphor for souls wandering from person to person. Mapping your paths and routes would correspond to an atlas of clouds. The book can thus be understood as the story of several people, but only one soul. Mitchell puts it in the mouth of one of his characters:
"The souls wander over time like the clouds over the sky".
Reviews
Jürgen Brôcan of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung wrote, "David Mitchell maps souls and writes world literature". In particular, the different narrative styles and the merging of the narrative strands were highly praised.
In the review in the Observer , Hephzibah Anderson expresses appreciation for the astonishing dramatic change in time levels and literary forms ( "With a dramatic use of time-shifts and literary forms, David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas both dazzles and perplexes" ) and the artistically skillful combination the different narrative strands ( "artfully interwoven narratives" ) in this "great, extremely intoxicating episode novel " ( "This latest is similarly episodic, but it is a novel in the biggest, most exhilarating sense." ). The reader is "propelled by time and genre, from the distant nineteenth to the not so distant twenty-second century, from the dizzying picaresque to cool thriller and icy science fiction " ( "[...] propel the reader forwards through time and genre, from the distant nineteenth to the not-so-far-off twenty-second century, from giddy picaresque to cool thriller to chilling sci-fi. " ).
AS Byatt wrote: “David Mitchell takes the reader on a literary roller coaster ride. And first of all you wish that this journey would never end. ” ( “ David Mitchell entices his readers on to a rollercoaster, and at first they wonder if they want to get off. ” )
In his review in the New York Times, Tom Bissell regards Cloud Atlas as a unique novel ( To write a novel that resembles no other is a task that few writers ever feel prepared to essay. David Mitchell has written such a novel - or almost has ) and impressive power ( impressive achievement ) and compares Mitchell's work with Joyce's trend-novel Ulysses .
In his Washington Post book review , Jeff Turrentine praises Mitchell's novel as a metafiction that combines the academic pessimism of Marx , Hobbes, and Nietzsche with the horrifying hints of Aldous Huxley and the linguistic audacity of Anthony Burgess . ( Rarely has the all-encompassing prefix of "metafiction" seemed so apposite. Here is not only the academic pessimism of Marx, Hobbes and Nietzsche but also the frightening portents of Aldous Huxley and the linguistic daring of Anthony Burgess. ). These and countless other references give rise to a mysterious puzzle that remains with the reader as an agonizing idea long after reading it ( [...] a haunting image that stays with the reader long after the book has been closed ). Mitchell takes the reader on a virtuoso round trip through the layers of history and causality that fathom the persistence of the inhumanity of man and the impermanence of what we commonly call civilization ( a virtuosic round trip through the strata of history and causality, exploring the permanence of man's inhumanity to man and the impermanence of what we have come to call civilization ).
In the review by Theo Tait in the Daily Telegraph , however, the novel met with a mixed response; Despite the very impressive virtuoso performance and complexity of the work ( "Michell's virtuoso performance is deeply impressive" ), Tait criticizes that The Cloud Atlas is ultimately "too cartoonish" " to have bite" ( "too cartoonish to have bite" ). The weakness of the novel is based on the fact that Cloud Atlas tries in one half to embody The Simpsons , but in the other half the Bible ( "Cloud Atlas spends half its time wanting to be The Simpsons and the other half the Bible" ) .
filming
From 2009 to 2012 Tom Tykwer and the Wachowski siblings worked on the film adaptation of the book. The project was produced by Stefan Arndt , with the production company Cloud Atlas Production GmbH in co-production with X Films Creative Pool GmbH responsible for the implementation in Germany. The shooting took place from September to December 2011 in the Babelsberg film studio in Potsdam . Actors include Tom Hanks , Susan Sarandon , Ben Whishaw , Halle Berry , Hugo Weaving and Hugh Grant . The production costs were estimated at around 100 million dollars, with the film being funded by the German Film Fund , the Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg and the Film- und Medienstiftung NRW in the tens of millions. The production is currently by far the most expensive German film. The film adaptation of the novel Das Parfum held the top rank so far . The film had its US premiere on September 8, 2012 and opened in German cinemas on November 15, 2012.
In an article in The Wall Street Journal entitled "Translating 'Cloud Atlas' Into the Language of Film," Mitchell describes the translation of the work into film form as analogous to translation into another language. He expressed himself satisfied with the result of the work as it is in the film adaptation.
literature
expenditure
- Cloud Atlas . Scepter, London 2004, ISBN 0-340-82277-5 . (English first edition)
- The cloud atlas. Translated into German by Volker Oldenburg. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 2006, ISBN 978-3-498-04499-2 (hardback) and ISBN 978-3-499-24036-2 (paperback)
- The cloud atlas. Kuebler Verlag, ISBN 978-3-86346-065-5 and ISBN 978-3-86346-066-2 (audio book)
Secondary literature
- Gerd Bayer: Perpetual Apocalypses: David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas and the Absence of Time . In: Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction 56: 4, 2015, pp. 345–354.
- Kevin Brown: A 'Horizon of Important Questions': Choice, Action and Identity in David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas . In: Journal of European Popular Culture 8: 1, pp. 57-75.
- Scott Dimovitz: The Sound of Silence: Eschatology and the Limits of the Word in David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas . In: SubStance: A Review of Theory and Literary Criticism 44: 1, 2015, pp. 71-91.
- Martin Paul Eve: You have to keep track of your changes ”: The Version Variants and Publishing History of David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas . In: Open Library of Humanities 20 (online resource).
- Heather J. Hicks, 'This Time Round': David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas and the Apocalyptic Problem of Historicism . In: Postmodern Culture: An Electronic Journal of Interdisciplinary Criticism 20, 2010 (online resource).
- Courtney Hopf: The Stories We Tell: Discursive Identity Through Narrative Form in Cloud Atlas . In: Sarah Dillon (ed.): David Mitchell: Critical Essays . Gylphi, Canterbury 2011. pp. 105-125.
- Luke Hortle: David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas and the Queer Posthuman . In: Lit: Literature Interpretation Theory 27, 2016, pp. 253-274.
- Wendy Knepper: Toward a Theory of Experimental World Epic: David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas . In: ARIEL: A Review of International English Literature 47: 1/2, pp. 93-126.
- Oliver Lindner: Postmodernism and Dystopia: David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas (2004) . In: Eckart Voigts and Alessandra Boller (eds.): Dystopia, Science Fiction, Post-Apocalypse: Classics-New Tendencies-Model Interpretations . Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier 2015, pp. 363–377.
- Hélène Machinal: Cloud Atlas: From Postmodernity to the Posthuman . In: Sarah Dillon (ed.): David Mitchell: Critical Essays . Gylphi, Canterbury 2011. pp. 127-154.
- Jason H. Mezey: A Multitude of Drops: Recursion and Globalization in David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas . In: Modern Language Studies 40: 2, 2011, pp. 10–37.
- Jo Alyson Parker: David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas Of Narrative Constraints And Environmental Limits . In: Jo Alyson Parker, Paul André Harris and Christian Steineck (eds.): Time: Limits and Constraints . Brill, Leiden 2010, pp. 199-218.
- Jo Alyson Parker: From Time's Boomerang to Pointillist Mosaic: Translating Cloud Atlas into Film . In: SubStance: A Review of Theory and Literary Criticism 44: 1, 2015, pp. 123-135.
- Jennifer Rickel: Practice Reading for the Apocalypse: David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas as Warning Text . In: South Atlantic Review 80: 1-2, pp. 159-177.
- John Shanahan: Digital Transcendentalism in David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas . In: Criticism: A Quarterly for Literature and the Arts 58: 1, 2016, pp. 115-145.
- Cela Wallhead and Marie-Luise Kohlke: The Neo-Victorian Frame of Mitchell's Cloud Atlas: Temporal and Traumatic Reverberations . In: Marie-Luise Kohlke and Christian Gutleben (eds.): Neo-Victorian Tropes of Trauma: The Politics of Bearing After-Witness to Nineteenth-Century Suffering . Rodopi, Amsterdam 2010, pp. 217-252.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jürgen Brôcan: Variations on the end of civilization. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . December 5, 2006, accessed June 8, 2012 .
- ^ Time and emotion study . In: The Observer , February 29, 2004. Retrieved November 11, 2014.
- ^ AS Byatt : Overlapping lives. In: The Guardian . March 6, 2004, accessed June 8, 2012 .
- ^ History Is a Nightmare - Cloud Atlas . In: New York Times , August 29, 2004. Retrieved November 11, 2014.
- ↑ Fantastic Voyage - Cloud Atlas . In: The Washington Post , August 22, 2004. Retrieved November 11, 2014.
- ↑ From Victorian travelogue to airport thriller . In: The Daily Telegraph , March 1, 2004. Retrieved November 11, 2014.
- ↑ Information on moviepilot . Ines Walk: Tom Tykwer remains international. In: moviepilot. 2009, Retrieved August 4, 2011.
- ↑ X-Films website . Retrieved August 4, 2011.
- ^ About the shooting in the Potsdam "Studio Babelsberg", PNN of October 11, 2011, accessed on May 5, 2012
- ↑ DFF funding commitments for 2011; four million euros and an additional six million euros approved ( memento of August 26, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 35 kB)
- ↑ Cloud Atlas IMDb database . Retrieved May 29, 2019.
- ^ David Mitchell: Translating 'Cloud Atlas' Into the Language of Film . In: The Wall Street Journal . October 19, 2012. Retrieved August 7, 2014.