MixedThe AV ClubSix would-be novels that clang together in alternately eerie and arbitrary ways, Cloud Atlas's stories adopt their subjects' language and disposition to powerful ends … While Mitchell's undeniable command of craft carries through further disjointed chapters, Cloud Atlas strains as it attempts to gather itself under an umbrella full of holes. As allusions sift slowly from chapter to chapter, the novel whispers of purgatory and reincarnation, hinting at the friction between freedom and oppression common to memories of the past and thoughts of the future. The conceit matches its ambition in parts, but a few wobbly chapters show the seams of an awkward welding job.
