When we were in Canberra a couple of weeks ago, we caught up with friends whom we hadn’t seen in years. Over dinner, the discussion started on our favourite books and this one was mentioned.

It was published some years back and it was one that had some popularity. Certainly the film also helped to get the story out to a wider audience.

At the time, I had heard of the book but for whatever reason, I kept putting it off. I think it was the title of the book which seemed odd to me and the genre was difficult to ascertain what it was.

I decided to read it and for the last week I’ve been immersing myself into the six different stories and genres. Imagine a Russian doll 🪆 each layer a story that reveals something from the previous story and which once you get to the middle, the previous story continues to resolutions ultimately revealing a perfect ball – an atlas – if you will, of a story of a soul that has travelled through different people at different times through the ages and each identified with a similar birthmark. Every person who makes certain decisions in critical junctions of their life, means their soul takes a certain path.

The stories are immersive. They are readable and enjoyable – like a puzzle – and finding the linkages is akin to finding “Where’s Wally” in the story.

There are some references that are smart too where we make assumptions of how corporate greed is impacting our lives. The “Golden Arches of Papa Song” (a restaurant that uses female clones as servers who work for 19 hours straight to serve “consumers” – the names of people in this future world) is a dig at MacDonalds for example.

(There are many references scattered throughout the book like these).

Ultimately this book has entertained me for the week. I’m still 3/4 of the way through it and reading it like I read War and Peace. Slow and steady. Immersing into the stories because it’s like a puzzle trying to grapple with what the book is trying to convey to the reader about how our actions were a result of those past, and how they impact those in the future.

It’s a book that makes you question the after life, reincarnation and agency. It certainly got me down a rabbit warren reading and watching videos on YouTube about these themes which oddly resonated with me.

I’m a firm believer that books come to us – and when they resonate with us – when they’re meant to. At the right time and place, they speak to us and give us the answers to questions that we may have been asking inside us. This one came along once again through a series of inexplicable coincidences that I feel my life has been in recent times which are becoming stronger and more evident with time. Obviously I can’t explain these odd (but nevertheless, I feel, welcoming “disturbances” into my life) but who am I to explain these logically?

Cloud Atlas was meant to be read at this point in my life.

I’ve watched the movie but it’s a little bit different to the book too. Here’s a great video about the philosophy of Cloud Atlas.