Take a look at the Booker Prize short
list from 2004:
Achmat Dangor, Bitter Fruit
Sarah Hall, The Electric Michelangelo
Alan Hollinghurst, The Line of Beauty
David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas
Colm Tóibín, The Master
Gerard Woodward, I'll go to Bed at Noon
I’ve only read two of these: the winner, The Line of Beauty, and Cloud Atlas. And I have to say that,
hands down, no contest, Cloud Atlas
was the better of the two.
Why? Hollinghurst’s book is good, as I wrote in my review. But it’s a book about one era, and its limited set of problems: Thatcher’s
England, and class and sexuality therein. It’s an interesting topic, and Hollinghurst’s
take on it is worthy.
But Cloud
Atlas is simply revolutionary, in both the literal and figurative senses. Figuratively
first, its structure and plot are completely original: five stories are cut off
halfway through, then found by the next character. That is, the first half of
Adam’s journal in Part 1 is found by composer Robert in part 2. Luisa finds
half of Robert’s letters in part 3, and so on, until the crux of the novel,
part 6. Then part 5 concludes, part 4, part 3, all the way back down to one. It’s
a risky but thoroughly virtuoso performance.
Second, its message is literally revolutionary.
Each section is the story of an underdog, and the group he or she represents,
rising up to claim his or her due from the ruling class. We have a slave sailor
who frees himself, a reporter trying to blow the whistle on corrupt power plant
owners, a clone ascending above her virtual servitude, and so on.
It’s a masterful, compelling, creative
book, and Cloud Atlas should have won
the prize.
