Strange and Challenging Detours?!

[monroe at mpm.edu]

'Cloud Atlas' is praised for 'storytelling brilliance'

Friday, October 1, 2004

The post-modern novel, once hailed as the future of fiction, has fallen
on hard times in the 21st century. Thomas Pynchon and John Barth now
seem like strange and challenging detours in the steady march of
straight-ahead realist narrative.

But David Mitchell has picked up the long-dropped post-modern mantle and
is charging smartly ahead with strong, complex novels, filled with
diversionary tactics and stylistic high jinks. The 35-year-old British
writer, who recently moved to Ireland after years of living in Japan, is
gaining increasing recognition, with two straight stints as a finalist
for the Man Booker Prize, Britain's highest literary honor.

Mitchell's most recent novel, "Cloud Atlas," is one of six finalists for
the Booker this year, with announcement of the winner only weeks away.
"Cloud Atlas" is another bravura Mitchell performance, a novel that
hopscotches over time and terrain and style, defying easy categorizing
or simple summary....

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/books/193199_mitchell01.html