The Will to Power as a Determinant for the Future of Mankind: David Mitchell’s “Cloud Atlas” (Part 4)

If the future is indeed “a nest of presents to be,” we can count on familiarity. What has been still is, and what is, will be. The concept of reincarnation is intrinsic in the system of “eternal recurrence,” being the basis of Indian and Buddhist philosophies, which Schopenhauer (and later on Nietzsche) heavily borrowed from. Both Schopenhauer and Nietzsche deal with this concept only in its corporeal sense, never in its spiritual, preternatural sense. The philosophers injected it with realism and logic, and the outcome can be observed in some sections of Cloud Atlas.

The impression of recurrence is presented for the first time in “Letters from Zedelghem,” where Robert Frobisher is found reading a “curious dismembered volume” he has come across in the guest bedroom. The volume in question is Adam Ewing’s Pacific journal. While reading through it, Frobisher picks up on hints that Adam never did, for example, Dr Goose’s less than honourable intent. He then questions the journal’s authenticity: “Something shifty about the journal’s authenticity – seems too structured for a genuine diary, and its language doesn’t ring quite true – but who would bother forging such a journal, and why?” (64).

The questioning of the authenticity of the past is a leitmotif, to use a musical term. Timothy Cavendish would later do the same to Luisa Rey’s script, and Somni-451 would view Cavendish only as a fictitious character on film. What makes Frobisher’s reading of the journal ironic is that he does not recognise he is in the same perilous position as Adam was once in. This will only transpire in the second half of his section. By the time he reaches that point, his life has already entered dire straits. Moments before he commits the ultimate act (I will not reveal what it is), the following thoughts cross his clouded mind:

Rome’ll decline and fall again, Cortazar’ll sail again and, later, Ewing will too, Adrian’ll be blown to pieces again, you and I’ll sleep under Corsican stars again, I’ll come to Bruges again, fall in and out of love with Eva again, you’ll read this letter again, the Sun’ll grow cold again. Nietzsche’s gramophone record. When it ends, the Old One plays it again, for an eternity of eternities. (490)

Nietszche’s “eternal recurrence” is specifically mentioned here, and so is the concept of reincarnation (or re-enactment). Frobisher’s role is to lay down the foundation for the possibility of “reincarnation,” to break down the artificial boundaries of Time. His composition of Cloud Atlas Sextet aims to do exactly just that:

Lifetime’s music, arriving all at once. Boundaries between noise and sound are conventions, I see now. All boundaries are conventions, national ones too. One may transcend any convention, if only one can first conceive of doing so. (479)

Several decades pass before the reader finds out that Frobisher’s legacy will do what its composer had vowed for it to do. In “Half Lives – The First Luisa Rey Mystery,” we first have an aged Rufus Sixsmith, Frobisher’s one-time lover and addressee of all his Zedelghem letters, reading the cherished mementoes (“These letters are what he would save from a burning building”).  He “witnesses himself” through Frobisher’s faded words, finds strength in them, and also understands once and for all that his time is almost up (113).  Soon after, the letters find their way to Luisa Rey, and she, too, is engrossed in the letters’ most unconventional content. Through them she learns of Frobisher’s occupation, his trials and tribulations (she even relates to them, given her own trying times), and most important of all, his composition of Cloud Atlas Sextet. This leads her to search for a recording of it in a local music store. When the rare piece is eventually located, she gives it a listen and comes to this conclusion:

The sound is pristine, riverlike, spectral, hypnotic… intimately familiar. Luisa stands, entranced, as if living in a stream of time. ‘I know this music,’ she tells the store clerk, who eventually asks if she’s okay. ‘What the hell is it?’ …

‘Where have I heard it before?’

The young man shrugs. ‘Can’t be more than a handful in North America.’

‘But I know it. I’m telling you I know it.’ (425)

This passage is unambiguous in its depiction of Time. Frobisher’s music is described as “riverlike,” and it captivates Luisa by making her feel as though she were “living in a stream of time.” What Frobisher had previously promised himself – to create a piece of music that would “transcend any convention” – is now a part of everyday reality. Frobisher may have been long dead, but his intellectual essence lives on, ridding Time and the world of confining boundaries and conventions.

During the course of the novel, the reader also encounters references to the Buddha, the embodiment of the concepts of reincarnation and “timelessness.” Early on in “Letters from Zedelghem,” Frobisher, in a seemingly irrelevant passage, reminisces about his “wayward” grandfather:

Once, he showed me an aquatint of a certain Siamese temple. Don’t recall its name, but ever since a disciple of the Buddha preached on the spot centuries ago, every bandit king, tyrant and monarch of that kingdom has enhanced it with marble towers, scented arboretums, gold-leafed domes, lavished murals on its vaulted ceilings, set emeralds into the eyes of its statuettes. When the temple finally equals its counterpart in the Pure Land, so the story goes, that day humanity shall have fulfilled its purpose, and Time itself shall come to an end. (82)

Once again, the idea of “timelessness” is emphasised; but there is more to this passage than simply the desire for the “lack of boundaries.” The view presented here is one of Nirvana, where humanity will no longer be humanity (it has risen above its imperfections), and Time as a phenomenon will cease. Irony again abounds. The reader understands that Time as such will never end (it is “riverlike”), and will continue flowing as long as there is humanity. Nirvana is a version of utopia, something beyond our reach. The progress of the novel along the (circular) flow of Time proves that humanity will never rise above itself.

The Buddha is mentioned by his name, Siddhartha Gautama, in the second half of “An Orison of Sonmi~451,” where Somni-451 meets the Abbess and is told about him. She asks if Siddhartha is “a sort of god.” The Abbess replies:

‘A sort of god’ is an apt description… Siddhartha doesn’t bolster our luck, inflict punishment, change the weather or protect us from the pain of life. He did teach about overcoming pain, however, and how to earn a higher reincarnation in future lifetimes. (348)

Somni-451 then hopes that “Siddhartha would reincarnate [her] in [the Abbess’] colony.”  The same black irony appears in this passage. It is stated that the Buddha’s role is to teach us “how to earn a higher reincarnation in future lifetimes,” and yet the future is anything but a rosy picture. The fact that the mirror chapter is set in a post-apocalyptic world should leave no doubt. There is, however, a tint of optimism. When we get to the mirror chapter and learn that Somni has in fact been deified, we realise a slightly altered version of her wish has come true. 

Unsurprisingly perhaps, “Sloosha's Crossin' an' Ev'rythin' After” is where the message of reincarnation is compressed into one abstract passage. Zachry has learnt everything he needs to from Meronym about the ways of the Old World, and now his thoughts are on the future:

I watched clouds awobbly from the floor o’that kayak. Souls cross ages like clouds cross skies, an’ tho’ a cloud’s shape nor hue nor size don’t stay the same it’s still a cloud an’ so is a soul. Who can say where the cloud’s blowed from or who the soul’ll be ‘morrow? Only Somni the east an’ the west an’ the compass an’ the atlas, yay, only the atlas o’ clouds. (324)

Bodies disintegrate and souls morph, but who knows what they will become as Time recycles itself? It is here that the novel’s main themes culminate: “timelessness,” reincarnation, eternal recurrence.

One question remains: How will humanity fare after Zachry’s era? The ending of the novel, which also happens to be its beginning, delivers a hopeful (but somewhat self-righteous) message. The reader should not forget that these are the words of Adam Ewing, a product of his time:

If we believe humanity is a ladder of tribes, a colosseum of confrontation, exploitation & bestiality, such a humanity is surely brought into being, & history’s Horroxes, Boerhaaves & Gooses shall prevail. You & I, the moneyed, the privileged, the fortunate, shall not fare so badly in this world, provided our luck holds. What of it if our consciences itch? Why undermine the dominance of our race … Why fight the ‘natural’ (oh, weaselly word!) order of things?

Why? Because of this?: -one fine day, a purely predatory world shall consume itself … In an individual, selfishness uglifies the soul; for the human species, selfishness is extinction.

If we believe that humanity may transcend tooth & claw … if we believe leaders must be just, violence muzzled, power accountable & the riches of the Earth & its Oceans shared equitably, such a world will come to pass… (528)

Adam believes that it is our cynicism that is keeping the world from evolving in the right direction. If we insist on believing the world is peopled by packs of wolves, such a world will unavoidably manifest itself. But believing in the good of the human race may just lead us down a different path. His words border on the idealistic, although he admits that such a world is “the hardest of worlds to make real.” This, as we have seen, is of course the unchangeable reality.

A more persuasive case can be made if we look at the words of Luisa Rey. When asked by the boy next door if the future can be changed, she thinks to herself: “Maybe the answer is not a function of metaphysics, but one, simply, of power.” She then tells him “it’s a great imponderable” (418).  These words point to what I have already mentioned in Part 1 of this essay with regard to Nietzsche’s will to power, that the concept is a double-edged sword, and can be used to either destroy or build. The choice, then, is completely ours, but knowing human nature and what it is predisposed to do, it may be reasonable to conclude, though Nietzsche would never approve, that we will forever be caught in a cycle of destruction – despite our (intermittent) awakening to the possibility of change for the greater good.

Mitchell, David. Cloud Atlas. London: Hodder and Stoughton Ltd, 2004.