Cloud Atlas 06 - The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish

BarnerCobblewood

One part of me really liked this one, but I think I was influenced by having already seen the movie - I really felt the actors got into their parts. And I liked the ridiculous crime at the beginning as the motor for what happens to poor old Tim. But as I look back on it, this has become the most throw-away story even though I liked it. I think part of what changed my view was the lack of development of Tim as the story went along - he was already formed, and didn't change much. Maybe there's something deeper in there, but finally it seemed light compared to the other stories. Even though I didn't like the Pacific Journal, I found it had more meat.

Apocryphal

I enjoyed this one the most on this read. It’s a bit like an old British sitcom in may ways. Of course the character doesn’t grow - he’s an old man who thinks he always in the right. But it was entertaining, and often quite funny. I liked the little aside where he pauses to peep at some women through a window and then explains this away in French “je suis un homme.” What a boob!

WildCard

A lighter, more comedic One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

RichardAbbott

Funnily enough the (fictitious) book Knuckle Sandwich, with its thinly-veiled biographical elements, and links to rough life in Glasgow, has been sort-of echoed in real life with a recent novel called Shuggie Bain, which has enjoyed what (to my mind) are largely unjustified accolades, - this is a rough, raw view into a worldof Scottish deprivation that most people who award book prizes would not want to actually experience. If it wasn't impossible on temporal causality grounds (and frankly, who gives a fig about that) I could easily believe David Mitchell based Knuckle Sandwich on this...

What that opening story does give us is another ring structure - Timothy ends up in Scotland, and his final experience of said country is of people who will defend him to the hilt, rather than threaten all manner of nastiness. But I agree, the links forward and backward with this story seem weaker and less convincing than the others. I wonder why Sonmi would be intrigued by it, except as an accidental relic of a culture that disaster has annihilated?

NeilNjae

@RichardAbbott said:
I wonder why Sonmi would be intrigued by it, except as an accidental relic of a culture that disaster has annihilated?

And indeed, why would anyone make a film of Cavendish's experience, outside of the context of filming The Cloud Atlas novel?

Apocryphal

> @NeilNjae said:
> (Quote)
> And indeed, why would anyone make a film of Cavendish's experience, outside of the context of filming The Cloud Atlas novel?

To capitalize on the success of One Flew Over tge Cuckoo’a Nest?