Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell 🔖🔖🔖🔖🔖

I think this is the first book I've rated 5 stars in 8 years. A friend rated it and said it was a chore to read. This was refreshingly not a chore for me.

To quote Tom Hanks: "It is one story about six people who through their choices between cruelty and kindness affect the world for generations to come." And to quote Frobisher, a character from one of the stories, talking about parts in a piece of music yet not coincidentally fitting the book itself, ... "each in its own language of key, scale, and color. In the first set, each solo is interrupted by its successor: in the second, each interruption is recontinued, in order. Revolutionary or gimmicky?"

I see the comet as a symbol of the opportunity each character (and thus each of us?) has to break from the masses and choose a different path; to choose between doing good or following status quo, bravery or cowardice, taking and giving chances, leaving a legacy for future generations or not, and trusting in others or shutting them out. And these are simple examples from a complex book.

This seems to be one of those divisive books that one either loves or hates. I happen to fall on the "love it" side.