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Cloud Atlas
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Cloud Atlas (2004) (edit title/settings)

by David Mitchell (Author) (edit contributors)

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Description edit see section history

From David Mitchell, the Booker Prize nominee, award-winning writer and one of the featured authors in Granta ’s “Best of Young British Novelists 2003” issue, comes his highly anticipated third novel, a work of mind-bending imagination and scope. A reluctant voyager crossing the Pacific in... read more

Summary edit see section history

Cloud Atlas is a novel that explores science, develops characters and transcends time to become a masterpiece. There are a number of different storytellers and stories that make up the whole, but each is intertwined with the others in a unique way, creating a Russian doll effect. There are six... read more (warning: may contain spoilers)

Cloud Atlas is a novel that explores science, develops characters and transcends time to become a masterpiece. There are a number of different storytellers and stories that make up the whole, but each is intertwined with the others in a unique way, creating a Russian doll effect. There are six narratives, and six main characters that fill this novel’s pages. They are pulled together because each story overlaps with another. They are also tied together because of several features that appear in almost every story, such as a character with a comet shaped birthmark, boats and the ‘Cloud Atlas’ sextet by Frobisher, which itself is written for six instruments which overlap each other.

The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing:

The first story is that of Adam Ewing, who records his adventures around the Pacific in a journal written in the 1850s. He is an American notary, and records what he discovers on Chatham Island, including the fate of the peaceful Moriori tribe at the hands of the aggressive Maoris. His survey of the impact of colonialism is detailed and shocking. The journal ends mid-sentence, and the reader is thrown into the story of Robert Frobisher, set in the 1930s.

Letters from Zedelghem:

Robert Frobisher is from a privileged English background, but has been cut off by his family because of his disgraceful behaviour. His letters to his friend and lover Sixsmith record his search for Vyvyan Ayrs, a reclusive English composer who Frobisher wants to join as an assistant in order to earn a living. He travels all the way to Zedelghem in Belgium to find the ailing man, and manages to talk his way into a job. He is regarded with suspicion at first, but eventually succeeds in infiltrating the Ayrs family, charming both Ayrs, his wife and eventually his daughter.

Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery:

In the third story the reader meets an older Rufus Sixsmith. It is now mid-1970s California, where a chance meeting with Luisa Rey in a lift and Sixsmith’s subsequent death lead to a tale about Rey’s detective work. Rey finds herself searching for a report that will ruin Seaboard Corp, the company running a huge nuclear power station on the island of Swanneke. She quickly discovers that this report could lead to her death, and a tale of intrigue and corruption unravels.

The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish:

In ‘The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish’, we discover that this Luisa Rey mystery is in fact a novel by Hilary V Hush, and the manuscript has reached the hands of Cavendish. Cavendish Publishing is in a spot of trouble because it owes royalties to Dermot Hoggins, the author of Knuckle Sandwich, a man now in prison but whose burly brothers have come knocking on Timothy Cavendish’s door. Cavendish sensibly decides to flee, but by enlisting the help of his brother he unwittingly signs himself in to an old people’s home, and finds there is no way out.

An Orison of Somni~451:

The fifth tale moves the novel into the future and the setting to Korea. Sonmi was created in a world approx. 150-200 years in the future. After the 'Skirmishes', some sort of major international conflict, the world was completely realigned. North Korea emerged as a world superpower, expanding to swallow not only South Korea but also Japan and much of China. The world is now a plutocracy, divided into Consumer Zones (densely populated cities), Production Zones (Africa and Indonesia among other places) and the deadlands - increasingly vast swathes of land polluted to such toxicity that humans 'perish there like bacteria in bleach'. All organized religion has been ousted and, effectively, replaced by Corpocracy - a term used by some characters like blasphemy in times of stress.
For the first two years of her existence, Sonmi-451 worked at a Papa Song's diner, a fast food restaurant, in a district of Seoul in Nea So Copros (New South Korea). During most of this time she was mindless, knowing nothing but love and loyalty for Papa Song; any individuality was suppressed by amnesia-inducing drugs in her Soap that prevented her from assimilating new language or new ideas. She was befriended by another server, Yoona-939, who had 'ascended' into sentience because (unbeknownst to them at the time) her Soap had been differently concocted as part of an experiment. Sonmi begged her friend to cease defying the six Catechisms that governed their lives; Yoona refused, and in trying to escape the diner to the world of 'Outside' (a place servers expected never to see) she was shot and killed.
Soon after, Sonmi herself began her ascension. Before this was discovered by the authorities, she was recovered by Boardman Mephi of Taemosan University and entrusted to the 'care' of the wealthy, idle postgrad student Boom-Sook Kim, who was undeservedly credited with the aforementioned experiment. Because of his neglect, she had time to acquire an education by way of a 'lost' computer; within six months she had the equivalent of a high school education, and after two more had assimilated a huge breadth of literature.
After an incident in which Boom-Sook almost killed her, Sonmi was taken into the care of Dr. Mephi and started a university-level education. At this point she was introduced to Hae-Joo Im, apparently a fellow student, who took her on sightseeing trips into the local area; gradually, they bonded, and a friendship formed.
Eventually, the worst happened: Sonmi's presence was discovered by Unanimity, the ruling government, and Hae-Joo revealed that he was lying about his identity.


Sloosha’s Crossin’ an’ Ev’rythin’ After:

The sixth and central story is also set in the future, but it presents a very different world. Sonmi has become an unlikely goddess for the people in the Valley Tribes of Zachry who are living in a time after ‘the Civ'lise Days’, where science and the civilised world have fallen. After this last story, the narratives swivel round and we hear in reverse order how each of the five other stories end, until we are right back at the beginning to witness the outcome of Adam Ewing’s journal.

An Orison of Somni~451:

Hae-Joo revealed himself to be a member of Union, its underground and outlawed opposing body. He and Sonmi escaped the university; their journey took them through some of the worst (and, arguably, best) areas of Nea So Copros: to Huamdonggil,a slum for the destitute and migrants from the near-uninhabitable Production Zones, and to a near-destroyed Buddhist abbey where a small number of disenfranchised purebloods lived in a community outside of the corpocracy's demands. Sonmi learnt that Union planned to ascend some six million fabricants to rise against Unanimity, and that she was intended to act as a leader and ambassador for them.
Finally, she was taken to a ship owned by Papa Song Corp - a ship that fabricants were told would take them to Hawaii for retirement after twelve years of service - and witnessed her sister servers being killed like cattle and sliced apart to provide biomatter, for Soap and the food served in Papa Song's diners. Sonmi was transformed and hardened by the experience and announced her willingness to use whatever means necessary to convince the populace that fabricants and purebloods were no different.
She went on to write Declarations, a catechism for ascended fabricants; by this time, however, she had realised that everything from her ascension onwards had been a sham; too many events had happened with strangely convenient timing, too many risks had been taken unless the whole arc of her ascension had happened by design. She concluded that Union was run by Unanimity, so as to control idealistic malcontents and provide an enemy for the population to be united against. Hae-Joo Im, Sonmi knew, had been working against her all along.
Her overdramatic discovery and arrest, and the subsequent show trial, were all exercises in fearmongering designed to foster mistrust of fabricants, but she didn't care: her Declarations were published, and even though they were widely referred to as blasphemies she was convinced they would provide a seedbed for revolution further along the line.
She was sentenced to execution in the euphemistically-named 'Lighthouse', where she gave an account of her life to an archivist for the benefit of the Ministry of Testaments. Moments before her death, she would be brought to the Barge. Finally, as her last wish, she asks to finish seeing the movie, "The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish".


The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish:


Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery:


Letters from Zedelghem:


The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing:

Characters edit see section history

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Quotes edit see section history

  • “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 Sonmi the east an' the west an' the compass an' the atlas, yay, only the atlas o' clouds.”
    Zachry
  • “Glass and peace alike betray proof of fragility under repeated blows.”
    Adam Ewing
  • “A half-read book is a half-finished love affair.”
    Robert Frobisher
  • “To men like Ayrs, it occurs to me, this temple is civilization. The masses, slaves, peasants, and foot soldiers exist in the cracks of its flagstones, ignorant even of their ignorance. Not so the great statesmen, scientists, artists, and most of all, the composers of the age, any age, who are civilization’s architects, masons, and priests. Ayrs sees our role is to make civilization ever more resplendent. My employer’s profoundest, or only, wish is to create a minaret that inheritors of Progress a thousand years from now will point to and say, “Look, there is Vyvyan Ayrs!”How vulgar, this hankering after immortality, how vain, how false. Composers are merely scribblers of cave paintings. One writes music because winter is eternal and because, if one didn’t, the wolves and blizzards would be at one’s throat all the sooner.”
    Robert Frobisher
  • “Success intoxicates rookies in the blink of an eye”
    Timothy Cavendish
  • “Unlimited power in the hands of limited people always leads to cruelty.”
    Timothy Cavendish
  • “Perhaps those deprived of beauty perceive it most instinctively.”
    Sonmi~451
  • “My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops?”
    Adam Ewing
  • “...Yet how is it some men attain mastery over others while the vast majority live and die as minions, as livestock? The answer is a holy trinity. First: God-given gifts of charisma. Second: the discipline to nurture those gifts to maturity, for though humanity’s topsoil is fertile with talent, only once seed in ten thousand will ever flower-for want of discipline…Third: the will to power. This is the enigma at the core of the various destines of men. What drives some to accrue power where the majority of their compatriots lose, mishandle, or eschew power? Is it addiction? Wealth? Survival? Natural selection? I propose these are all pretexts and results, not the root cause. The only answer can be ‘There is no “Why.” This is our nature.’ ‘Who’ and ‘What’ run deeper than ‘Why.’””
  • “If there be any eyrie so desolate, or isle so remote, that one may there resort unchallenged by an Englishman, 'tis not down on any map I ever saw.”
    Adam Ewing
  • “"Sometimes the fluffy bunny of incredulity zooms round the bend so rapidly that the greyhound of language is left, agog, in the starting cage."”
    Timothy Cavendish
  • “"The memoirs are bad enough, but all that ruddy fiction! Hero goes on a journey, stranger comes to town, somebody wants something, they get it or they don't, will is pitted against will. 'Admire me, for I am a metaphor.'"”
    Timothy Cavendish
  • “The strong eghorged themselves on the weak”
    Dr. Goose
  • “whosoever spilt a man's blood killed his own mama-- his honor, his worth, and his sole”
    Adam Ewing
  • “As many truths as men. Occasionally, I glimpse a truer Truth, hiding in imperfect simulacrums of itself”
    Adam Ewing
  • “The better organized the state, the duller its humanity”
    Vivian
  • “Whoever opined "Money can't buy you happiness" obviously had far too much of the stuff.”
    Robert Frobisher
  • “How vulgar, this hankering after immortality, how vain, how false.”
    Robert Frobisher
  • “I became a scientist because it's like panning for gold in a muddy torrent. Truth is the gold.”
  • “It's a wise soul who can distinguish traps from opportunities.”
    Luisa Rey
  • “history--"little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind"”
  • “Despondency makes one hanker after lives one never led.”
    Timothy Cavendish
  • “Unlimited power in the hands of limited people always leads to cruelty”
  • “Because you cannot discern our differences, you believe we have none.”
    Sonmi-451
  • “if happiness means the conquest of adversity, or a sense of purpose, or the xercise of one's will to power, then all Nea So Copros's slaves we surely are the most miserable”
    Sonmi
  • “like many he clung to the belief that hard work and a blemishless record were enough to achieve status.”
    Sonmi-451
  • “Is lite alive?...Perhaps lite is life”
  • “You said you envied your unthinking, untroubled sisters.That is not quite the same as withing to be one.”
  • “We are only what we know, and I wished to be much more than I was”
    Sonmi-451
  • “most of science's holy grails are discovered by accident, in unexpected palces”
    Hae-Joo-Im
  • “I said something about reading not being knowledge, about knowledge without xperience being food without sustenance.”
    Sonmi~451
  • “Time is the speed at which the past decays”
    Sonmi-451
  • “Travel far enough, you meet yourself”
  • “Fantasy. Lunacy.All revolutions are, until they happen, then they are historical inevitablities”
  • “"Freedom!" is the fatuous jingle of our civilization, but only those deprived of it have the barest inkling re: what the stuff actually is.”
    Timothy Cavendish
  • “as if there could be anything not don a hundred thousand times... As if Art is the What, not the How!”
    Timothy Cavendish
  • “Once any tyranny becomes accepted as ordinary its victory is assured.”
    Veronica
  • “Power, time gravity, love. The forces that really kick ass are all invisible.”
  • “nothing is more tiresome than being told what to admire.”
    Robert Frobisher
  • “Any society's upper crust is riddled with immorality, how else d'you think they keep their power? Reputation is king of the public sphere, not private.”
    Vivian
  • “Boundaries between noise and sound are conventions, I see now. All boundaries are conventions, national ones too. One may transcend any convention, of only one can first conceive of doing so.”
    Robert Frobisher
  • “If we believe humanity is a ladder of tribes, a Colosseum of confrontation, exploitation & bestiality, such a humanity is surely brought into being”
    Adam Ewing
  • “Torturous advances won over generations can be lost by a single stroke of a myopic president's pen or a vainglorious general's sword.”
    Adam Ewing
  • “Liberality? Timidity in the rich! Socialism? The younger brother of a decrepit despotism, which it wants to succeed.”
    Vyvyan Ayrs
  • “...what did I do to relax? I play Go against my sony, I said. To relax? he responded, incredulous. Who wins, you or the sony? The sony, I answered, or how would I ever improve? So winners, Hae-Joo proposed, are the real losers because they learn nothing? What, then, are losers? Winners? I said, If losers can xploit what their adversaries teach them, yea, losers can become winners in the long term.”
    Sonmi-451
  • “I lied, yes, but that doesn't make me a liar. Lying's wrong, but when the world spins backwards, a small wrong may be a big right.”
    Joe Napier
  • “A man like me has no business with this substance 'beauty', yet here she is, in these soundproofed chambers of my heart.”
    Robert Frobisher
  • “Belief is both prize and battlefield, within the mind and in the mind's mirror, the world.”
    Adam Ewing
Show all 48 quotes from this book

Setting & Locations edit see section history

  • Chatham Islands: The Chatham Islands are the Polynesian setting for the first "Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing" chapter. They are located in the Pacific Ocean, east of New Zealand.
  • Chateau Zedelgheim: Located just outside of the town of Bruges in Belgium, Chateau Zedelgheim is the home of aging composer Vyvyan Ayrs, his wife, Jocasta, and his teenage daughter, Eva. It is there that Robert Forbischer goes to escape his creditors and assist Mr. Ayrs in "Letters from Chateau Zedelgheim." Frobisher stays at the Chateau for nearly a year, posting over a dozen letters from there to his friend in England, Rufus Sixsmith.
  • Buenas Yerbas: Buenas Yerbas is a town in California and the setting for "Half-Lives: the First Mystery of Luisa Rey."
  • Swannekke Island: The Seaboard Incorporated power plant introduced in the chapter "Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery", is located on this island just outside Yerbas Cape.
  • Greenwich: Timothy Cavendish claims to have a vast Regency house in Greenwich. Greenwich s a district of South East London, England, located in the London Borough of Greenwich.
  • Nea So Copros: Nea So Copros is based in present day South Korea and many of the characteristics of Nea So Copros are nightmarish exaggerations of South Korea’s current system of aggressively capitalist government.
  • Papa Song Diner: A type of fast food diner
  • Hawaii: "Sloosha's Crossin' an' Ev'rythin' After" takes place in the Hawaii Islands, particularly the largest of the eight main islands often known as The Big Island. David Mitchell visited and researched the island with the aid of a travel scholarship from the Society of Authors. This section of the book demonstrates close attention to the geography of particularly the eastern side of The Big Island.
  • Aurora House: A house for the elderly where most parts of "The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish" took place.
  • Hull: Where the Aurora House is located.

First Sentence edit see section history

Beyond the Indian hamlet, upon a forlorn strand, I happened on a trail of recent footprints.

Table of Contents edit see section history

The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing

Letters from Zedelghem

Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery

The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish

An Orison of Somni~451

Sloosha's Crossin' an' Ev'rythin' After

An Orison of Somni~451

The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish

Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery

Letters from Zedelghem

The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing

Glossary edit see section history

  • Moeeka: A highly poisonous fish.
  • Aesculapian: relating to Aesculapius, the Roman god of healing and medicine
  • affidavit: a written declaration upon oath made before an authorized official
  • allegro: brisk in tempo (Italian)
  • ankh: A cross shaped like a T with a loop at the top, used as a symbol of life.
  • anthracite: a kind of coal that burns almost without flame
  • Antonines: of or relating to the emperors Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
  • armoire: a large wardrobe with doors and shelves
  • Bedlamite: a resident of Bedlam, formerly an institution for the mentally ill
  • bête noire: translates from the French as 'black beast' and used to refer to something that is particularly disliked or avoided
  • blandishment: a speech designed to flatter
  • bon gré mal gré: whether willing or not (French)
  • bowsprit: a spar that protudes from the front of the ship
  • brazier: a metal receptacle for holding hot coal
  • Bristol fashion: in first-class order (built to withstand the tides of Bristol's seaport)
  • cadenza: ornamental flourish, often towards the end of a composition
  • cara: 'dear one' (Italian)
  • caravanserai: a large inn or hotel
  • careening: heel over or list
  • carillon: a set of horizontal metal plates, struck by hammers, used in an orchestra.
  • cause célèbre: a controversy that attracts public attention
  • celeste: percussion instrument resembling a small piano, where each small metal bar is struck by a hammer to produce a note
  • Cetacean: relating to an order of aquatic mammals, including dolphins and whales
  • cherchez la femme: 'seek the woman' (French) that is, a woman is usually found to be the cause of misguided behaviour
  • chervil: a herb of the parsley family
  • circumvallated: surrounded
  • conquistadores: conquerors (Spanish)
  • copra: the dried kernal of a coconut
  • Cordova: a coarse wool from Argentina
  • Crêpe De Chine: light and fine dress fabric made of silk
  • cri de coeur: a cry from the heart (French)
  • demisemiquaver: a note played for 1/32 of the duration of a whole note
  • dendroglyphs: tree carvings unique to the Chatham Islands
  • Diomedes: a hero in Greek mythology and one of the first warriors to enter the Trojan horse before the sack of Troy.
  • dolce per niente: sweet nothing (Italian)
  • émigré: someone who has fleed from his or her native land for political reasons
  • erysipelas: disease of the skin causing fever
  • étude: an instrumental composition intended to practise a point of technique, from the French for study
  • ex juris: in this context not employed by the state but by the owners of the power station (Latin)
  • fo'c'sle: a deckhouse located towards the front of the ship
  • gnossiennesque: relating to the compositions coined 'Gnossienne' by French composer Erik Satie
  • goitre: an enlargement of the thyroid glands on the sides of the neck, possible from lack of iodine
  • gourmand: someone who is fond of good eating, often to excess (French)
  • hawser: heavy rope used for mooring or towing
  • ideogram: a written symbol that represents an idea or object
  • imprimatur: sanction or approval
  • jamais vu: never seen (French)
  • jibboom: a thick pole used to support the rigging of a ship
  • kanakas: South Sea islanders
  • kedging: to pull a ship along by hauling on the cable of an anchor carried out from the ship and dropped.
  • La Duca: name for a member of the household of a duke (Italian)
  • lento: in a slow tempo
  • lex loci: the law of a place (Latin)
  • mal de mer: seasickness (French)
  • marling-spike: a pointed tool used to pick apart rope to produce oakum
  • memento mori: a reminder of death (Latin)
  • Meronym: comes from the Greek (meros=part and onoma=name) meaning a constituent part of something larger
  • miscegenous: of mixed race
  • Morpheus: the god of dreams in Roman and Greek mythology
  • motet: a vocal composition in polyphonic style, for use in a church service.
  • mulatto: the offspring of one white parent and one black parent
  • mummery: a performance regarded as false, absurd or showy
  • muscatel: a kind of raison or grape from Muscat, the capital of Oman
  • Neptune: the god of water in Roman mythology
  • oakum: loose fibre made by picking apart old ropes
  • pakeha: early European settlers in NZ (Māori)
  • paregoric: a medicine that soothes pain
  • parvenu: someone with newly acquired wealth
  • pax: an historical period of relative peace, usually imposed by a dominant power
  • Petrine: of or relating to the apostle Peter or his Epistles
  • picaresque: a fiction describing the humorous adventures of a roguish hero
  • pisco: a south American liquor made from grapes
  • più fortissimo: more strong (Italian)
  • pleurisy: an affliction that causes painful dry coughs and breathing, chills and fever.
  • plutocracy: a government in which the most wealthy rule
  • polyp: a usually nonmalignant growth or tumor protruding from the mucous lining of an organ such as the nose, bladder, or intestine
  • reductio ad absurdum: a reduction to an absurdity (Latin)
  • salt-horse: salted beef
  • sangfroid: composure, from the French for 'cold blood'
  • scrimshandered: whittled from wood or bone, often by sailors on long voyages
  • scuttlebucket: slang for rumour or gossip, from the nautical term for an open cask of drinking water
  • skiffs: small rowing boats
  • sotto voce: in a soft voice so as not to be overheard (Italian)
  • stevedore: an individual whose job it is to load or unload a ship
  • storiate: to ornament with historical designs
  • succubus: an evil spirit or demon
  • tatterdemalion: someone dressed in tatters, a raggamuffin
  • toccata: a virtuoso composition designed to exhibit the performer's skill
  • tournure: a device worn by women to widen the width of their skirt below the waist
  • tranche: slice (French)
  • trentuno: translates as thirty-one (Italian) - a card game in which the object is to obtain a hand closer to 31 than that of your opponents
  • ursine: bearlike
  • vespers: a religious service more usually held in the evening
  • Visogoth: a barbarian, someone who lacks an appreciation of art or culture
  • zazen: meditation in a cross legged posture
  • ford: here the term is used for any car
  • exxon: in the future refers to fuel
  • nike: in the future refers to any type of shoes
  • disneys: what the future people call the movies
  • colt: in the future generic name for a gun
  • starbuck: future generic name for coffee
Show all 101 glossary entries

Themes & Symbolism edit see section history

  • Predacity: The book shows how individuals prey on individuals, groups on groups, nations on nations.
  • Reincarnation: The book hints that the same character appears reincarnated in each of the six episodes and has some memories from other stories. In each life he/she has a comet-shaped birthmark near the shoulder. There are further hints that at least one other soul accompanies the character through the ages.
  • Imprisonment: Each protagonist is in some way imprisoned or enslaved and makes a bid for freedom
  • Racism/stereotyping: In each narrative, inequalities in social status and individual rights are based on racial, socio-economical or genetically-engineered differences.
  • Treachery/Betrayal: The protagonists either contemplate betraying others around them or are betrayed by people that they trust.
  • Civilization: In each section, civilizations are in danger of being destroyed, deteriorating, or already devastated.
  • Will to Power: The Nietzschean Philosophy of the ability of an individual to break free from their chains of oppression regardless of the ability or influence of others is a recurring theme, as is the Nietzschean idea of recurring themes.

Series & Lists edit see section history

This book is in Richard and Judy Book Club 2005. (authoritative list)
This is book 42 of 1286 in 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. (authoritative list)
This book is in World Book Night Titles 2011. (authoritative list)
This book is in 100 Fantabulous Book Challenge. (community list)
This book is in Amazon Book Club Picks. (authoritative list)
This is book 93 of 100 in Top 100 Books That Defined The Noughties (Telegraph). (authoritative list)
This book is in Guardian 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read. (authoritative list)
This is book 6 of 20 in New York Times Bestsellers - Paperback Trade Fiction (Current). (authoritative list)
This is book 82 of 95 in Telegraph Top 100 Books, 2008. (authoritative list)

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

  1. David Mitchell (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Original Language: English
Publisher: Sceptre
Country: United Kingdom
Publication Date: 2004
ISBN: 0-340-82277-5
Page Count: 544

Awards edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

  • Library of Congress: PR6063.I785 C58 2004
  • Dewey: 823.92

Notes for Parents edit see section history

Reading Level: Adults

References about cannibalism and sex.

Links to Supplemental Material edit see section history

Movie Connections edit see section history

More Books Like This edit see section history

   
  • Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
  • Number9dream
  • Ghostwritten

Books That Influenced This Book edit see section history

   
  • If on a Winter's Night a Traveler
  • Guns, Germs, and Steel
  • Moby-Dick
  • Riddley Walker
  • Chrysalids
  • Delius as I Knew Him
  • Lions and Shadows

Books Cited by This Book edit see section history

   
  • Benito Cereno
  • The Drowned and the Saved
  • Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
  • Moby-Dick
  • The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

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