I am so happy to have finished Cloud Atlas.  Although there were some sections that I enjoyed, overall i was disappointed.  I thought the second half of the chapters were going to leave me with some comfort, give me something i was looking for with the unfinished first half.  This did not happen, but i kind of feel like this what Mitchell’s purpose with this novel.

The way the novel was set up, we (the readers) are given the first half of a story.  In this first half, we are given clues, topics and themes from other stories, but it does not end with closure.  When i was reading the first half, knowing that the second part was in the end of the novel, i kept an open mind.  I kept this open mind because i knew that the story was not over, and we would finish it in the end.  After reading the second half of all the stories, i was dissatisfied.  I did not have closure, and the story did not end the way i think Mitchell led us to believe.  With the first half of the stories, Mitchell led us in a certain direction, so we could guess what was going to happen, but this was never the outcome.  I feel he wanted to trick his readers, and still leave the stories open ended.  This is how i felt after finishing the novel.  I think the novel as a whole (especially the second halves and their endings) are represented in the last couple of pages.  I felt tricked, as to reading something i thought was something else.  I think this was his main point, because this is a novel that is geared for a specific audience, and without an audience this novel would have absolutely no point and the concept would be ruined.

As we talked about in class, i feel the main theme in this novel is what is natural to humans, and how civilization acts as a whole.  I feel there are two separate ways to look at it through this novel, either humans take advantage of others to better themselves or humans try to make the world a better place.  I feel this works both ways, but you can’t have one without the other.  For example, in Luisa Rey’s case, she tried to better the world by making the public aware of the harm of the plant that was being built, but because she was trying to do good, another person (people) felt this was a bad things towards them so they had to destroy her to better themselves.

I feel with any good story, you need both sides to make a compelling argument and create an interesting story line.