Stranger on Earth

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...

David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas (2004) sets out to achieve two noble goals: to engage the reader in a discourse about human nature and historical continuity, and to entice him to reflect on his relation to the past, the present, and the future. This is no small feat for the Ghostwritten author, and for the reader it is both an incredible intellectual challenge and an irresistible invitation to view life from a perspective not altogether conventional. The new reader is instantly struck by the technically intricate structure of the work: six interlocking storylines, with five of them divided down the middle, separated halfway through the book by a “mirror” – the sixth story inventively entitled “Sloosha's Crossin' an' Ev'rythin' After.” The novel begins with the Mutiny on the Bounty -inspired “The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing,” proceeds at a breakneck pace to “Letters from Zedelghem” to “Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery” to “The Ghastly Ordeal ...