in • David Mitchell's novel "cloud", the young musicians Frobisher before committing suicide had had such a meditation:
"faded nurse, school and country paste Some beliefs, you will find the truth in a person’s heart that can never be removed. The Roman Empire will decline again, Cortez will ravage Nochtitlan again, Ewing will sail again, and Adrian will be bombarded again. In pieces, you and I will sleep under the stars of Corsizenga again, I will come to Bruges again, fall in love with Eva again, you will read this letter again, and the sun will become cold again. Nietzsche At the end of the phonograph record, Satan will play it again for the endless and eternal truth. Time cannot affect this rest, and we will not die for too long. Once Luger's pistol releases me, my birth, down A reincarnation will come right away."
Those who are a little bit older will have a similar feeling when they see this passage. That’s right, Kundera’s "The Unbearable Lightness of Life" opens. It almost expresses a similar meaning, which is what Nietzsche or Parmenides (ancient Greek philosophers) called "eternal return".
The "Return of Eternal Tribulation" of "Cloud Atlas" is not only reflected in its circular structure (ABCDEFEDCBA), but also in its six stories, although they have different styles and different endings, but they are just variations of the same theme in different eras and backgrounds. , And thus form a whole to complete a larger "Return of Eternal Tribulation." The weak connection of the six stories is a connection, rather than the weak memory of the people of the future generations of the previous life, and this memory is related to what happened later. There is not much causality in the story.
"Cloud Atlas" tells a total of six stories, the story of Adam Ewing, the American notary, the story of the young musician Robert Frobisher, the story of the female journalist Luisa Ray, and the publisher Timothy Cavendy. The story of Shi, the story of Generen Xingmei-451, and the story of Zarik the shepherd. In these six stories, we can see the distortion of human nature caused by greed, the madness that leads to it, and the misfortune that it brings to the entire mankind. And suffering, until finally leading to the destruction of mankind, the sixth story, is the result of this destruction, and the surviving mankind began a new battle until the completion of a new round of destruction.
In the first story, the doctor Henry Ewing to the property at the murder, when arguing why the people were white instead of other nations ruled the world, he readily explained:
"We treasure, gold The love of spice and domination, oh, above all, the sweet domination-or rather our greed-is the strongest, the hungry and the most unscrupulous! Yes, this greed promotes our development ; I don’t know if it’s for evil or sacred purposes. You don’t know, sir, and I don’t care too much. I only appreciate my Creator for throwing me on the side of victory.”
And it’s this greed. This led to the final extinction of the Moriori people.
The second story is the cover-up of potential dangers of nuclear power plants by the energy tycoons, the third story is the "free flight" provided by the author to the book reviewer, and the enslavement of the purebred people to the genetic people in the fourth story is a time of greed. Sub-deformation.
Human greed is not only manifested in the endless pursuit of material, but also manifested in people's immortal pursuit of themselves in the eyes of future generations. In the second story, the young musician Frobisher finally sees the greatest one. The musician’s original face summed it up:
“I suddenly thought that for people like Els, this temple is civilization. The masses, slaves, peasants, and infantry only exist in the cracks of the paving stones. They are so ignorant. I don’t know anything. But those great politicians, scientists, artists, and most importantly — composers of this era or any era, they are different. They are the designers and creators of civilization. A propagandist and propagandist. Els believes that our role is to make civilization more brilliant. My boss’s greatest, or only hope, is to build a light tower. After a thousand years, progressive heirs will point to it and say:' Look, that’s Vivian Els.’”
And regarding the unfortunate fate of humanity as a whole, he concluded:
“There will always be a war, Robert. They will never completely disappear. What triggers a war? The desire for power, The root of human nature. The threat of violence, the fear of violence, or violence itself is the tool of this terrible desire. You can see this desire for power in bedrooms, kitchens, factories, labor unions, alliances, and national borders."
Although David Mitchell is pessimistic about the future of mankind because of human greed, he is not as fateful as the true "return of eternal calamity" theory. Finally, at the end of the first story, Ewing who survived the catastrophe said:
"If we believe that humans can do everything possible to surpass all this (referring to the weak and the strong), if we believe that diverse races and religions can also be like orphans peacefully. Share this world peacefully like sharing stone chestnut trees. If we believe that leaders abide by justice, stop violence and be responsible for power, and share the wealth of land and sea fairly and reasonably, such a world will be realized."
2. "Cloud Map" and Novels In
the second story of Nourish "Yuntu", when Frobisher mentioned his creation of "Yuntu Sixtet", he said that "In the first part, every solo is interrupted by a paragraph after it; in the second part" Every solo that is interrupted starts again in order.” In fact, David Mitchell constructed his novel in this way. I believe that there must be such a musical structure. In order to write a novel, David Mitchell learns the structure of the novel from the musical structure. Naturally, those outsiders of music cannot understand such whimsical ideas.
The six stories in "Cloud Atlas" can undoubtedly be independent chapters. Failure to read any one of them will not affect the reading of the other. Each independent story can probably be classified as a popular novel, but when they are used as Block by block, when the blocks are split in half, and then built into a small house, it will have the effect of making readers dizzy. In this small wooden house, "play in play" has been staged time and time again. In this "play in play" "It can be traced back to Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Calvino is the best player, but Calvino’s construction is like a small wooden house in a fairy tale, and above David Mitchell’s small wooden house , Readers seem to be able to see the curvaceous events above, no matter if he is talking about the distant past, the distant future, or the present.
The first story in "Cloud Atlas" is the story of Adam Ewing, which is quite old-school nautical novels. The author makes no secret of its influence by "Moby Dick" and "Robinson Crusoe". The third and fourth stories are the story of the female journalist Luisa Ray and the story of the publisher Timothy Cavendish. We can find many elements of Hollywood blockbusters. In the fifth story, the story of Gene Man Xingmei-451, there is such a noun: "Only by observing the rules, dad loves me, and only when dad loves me can I be happy.", readers can see here again Many shadows of "1984".
According to Yang Chunlei, the Chinese translator of "Yuntu", the vocabulary of "Yuntu" is twice that of "One Hundred Years of Solitude". The knowledge involved includes professional knowledge of navigation, music, plants, geography, history, technology, etc. The translator naturally I want to emphasize the difficulty of translation. I hope readers can understand. Readers can also see that David Mitchell has done enough work outside of the novel to create "Cloud Atlas." Including Pamuk, author of "My Name is Red", Suskind, author of "Perfume", Jeffrey Ford, author of "Portrait of Mrs. Chabuk", Borges, Calvino, Masters like Marquez and Cortazar need not say anything. It's like some famous writers in our country, who have tossed about it over and over again, I doubt that they have stopped reading since they became famous.
3. The humor
in "Cloud Atlas" David Mitchemi used small blocks to show off his skills in "Cloud Atlas", but "Cloud Atlas" is by no means like Joyce's "Ulysses" and " I don’t know why some people say that they can’t understand a novel like Finnegan’s Night Watch. In fact, all you need is a little patience.
If you are more careful, you can even find that there is actually no lack of humor in "Cloud Atlas." For example, in the second story, the musician's story, when the author mentioned that a guest of Vivian had a great deal with Frobbie While the work of She and his mentor is not hesitating to overstate beauty, David said that the guest was “as generous as a boiler worker shoveling coal.” Also in this story, it is mentioned how Vivian’s daughter Eva is self-righteous. Shi said, “She must throw away Copernicus’s previous thoughts, and feel that the universe revolves around her”; in the fourth story, the publisher’s story, the publisher was “little girl with a lollipop” as soon as he appeared. I fixed it. Also in this story, when the publisher complained that the train could not be on time, he said that he “had already known that he had taken the road of the Great Northern Road on the pogo stick played by the children and escaped from the Hawkins brothers. "When he complained that the food on the train was not tasty, he said, "The cake I bought tasted no different from shoe polish." When he was tricked into a nursing home, he said "The oldest customer is definitely more than 300 years old." When he talked about the high bid of a Hollywood film company for the copyright of "Fun with Old Punch," he said that it was "as high as the number on the bar code".
In "Cloud Atlas", "The Tribulation of Timothy Cavendish" was made into a movie, not "Cloud Atlas", and it was circulated in later generations, and it was called one of the greatest movies by people in later generations. , We are not surprised at all. Even if people with miserable genes know their unfortunate ending, they should not be able to help but laugh when watching such a movie.
4.
The small wooden houses of David Mitchell, the wedges in "Cloud Atlas", are naturally not as simple as building blocks. In order to prevent this small wooden house from collapsing in the wind and grass, he still needs to use those small ones. The wedge connects the blocks.
Wedge 1. In the first half of the musician’s story, it is mentioned that “Next, you should pay attention to the books and money I talked about. I happened to find that one of the books fell apart when I was flipping through the books in an alcove in my room. A strange book on the shelf" (P64), and this book is exactly "Adam Ewing's Diary of the Pacific".
Wedge 2. In the first half of the story of a female reporter, “In the room of the Ping An Hotel, Dr. Rufus Cisco Smith is looking at a bundle of writings written to him by his friend Robert Frobisher almost half a century ago. Letter" (P111), Frobisher is the musician in the second story, and Cisco Smith is the recipient, and those letters are "Letters from Sidheim."
Wedge 3. In the story of the publisher, the publisher receives a manuscript of a novel. This manuscript is exactly "Half-Life: Louisa Ray's First Mystery" (P157).
Wedge 4. In the story of Gene Man, Haizhu asked Gene Man Xingmei-451 to watch a "one of the greatest movies ever shot by all directors". This film is exactly "Timothy Ka The Suffering Experience of Wendish" (P226).
Wedge 5. In the story of Zaryk the Shepherd, "there is only one god in the valley, and her name is Xingmei." (P236), this star beauty is just one of the star beauties in "Xingmei-451" A member of.
Observant readers will naturally find more wedges.
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