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5.0 out of 5 stars
"I always asked that He make me aware", May 7 2004
Memory, history, war, love, and the spirit world are woven together in a type of effortless dreamscape in Liam Callanan's beautiful The Cloud Atlas. As a work of fiction grounded in fact, the story is unsurpassed in its portrayal of the effects of the Japanese balloon bombs, which swept across the Pacific to the United States during the remaining months of World War 11. One of the best kept secrets of the War involved some 9,000 balloons made of paper or rubberized silk and carrying anti-personnel and incendiary bombs were launched from Japan during a five-month period, to be carried by high altitude winds more than 6,000 miles eastward across the Pacific to North AmericaTold in the first person as a type of confessional, the main protagonist Louis Belk is now an elderly priest who sits by the bedside of Ronnie a Yup'ik shaman. Ronnie is dying from too much drinking; he's a failure, a drifter who feels that all the knowledge of the world is contained in the skies, and "in an atlas of the clouds." As he watches his friend die, Louis begins to reflect on his own life as a top-secret bomb disposal specialist during World War 11 in Alaska. The focus of the story is on Louis's adventures in wartime Alaska where half-naked palm readers, rampaging drunken sailors, and lunatic captains rave in darkened Quonset huts. Where chaplains swear like stevedores and Eskimo women "can tease your entire past from your hand." While in Alaska, Louis is placed under the command of the sadistic and bitter Captain Gurley - having already lost a limb diffusing his first bomb, and embittered at being stationed in Alaska - he has an obsession to discover and collect all such bombs in the future. As the novel progresses Gurley gradually descends into a type of madness. He fumes rages and spits, as though having an incurable, old-fashioned "Edgar Allan Poe-type of madness." Gurley also has leather-bound atlas filled with maps and neat Japanese script, which Lily a beautiful young Yup'ik wants. Lily, born to a native Alaskan and a Russian father "a mother made of snow and the father made of fire" has a mysterious capacity to read people's lives; she works as a palm reader and prostitute. Louis gradually falls in love with her, before he suddenly realizes that she's already having an affair with Gurley. Lily is convinced that the atlas that Gurney possesses holds the secret words of her lost love. Though his encounters with Lily, Louis comes to question his faith, beliefs and his capacity to be a fighting soldier. As a Christian, Louis seeks to reconcile his religion with the chaos around him and through a miasma of fear he seeks answers with the local priest Father Pabich. The young soldier has spent his life trying to "get back to the precipice, chasing after intimacy and knowledge." By setting the story in Alaska and infusing the narrative with local characters, Callanan does a terrific job of showing how the native Yup'ik live. And he shows, with a storyteller's thoroughness, the dichotomies and even similarities that exist between mythical native customs and modern Christian faith. Callanan also does a tremendous job of combining an historical narrative of a little known incident in war history, with a quite moving and emotional love story. The story takes many twists and turns as the triangle between Lily, Gurney and Louis is gradually played out with lives that are betrayed and secrets revealed. The Cloud Atlas is a rich, startling, and beautifully nuanced novel, and is a must read for any fan of historical fiction. Mike Leonard May 04.
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