Cloud Atlas
by David Mitchell

I have just finished reading Cloud Atlas and I feel that I need to organize my thoughts and pen down my feelings right away.

Some of the stories in the book really left me thinking. Thinking a lot.

Cloud Atlas is made up of six seemingly independent tales that intertwines each other: The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing, Letters from Zedelghem, Half Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery, The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish, An Orison of Sonmi~451and Sloosha’s Crossin’ an’ Ev’rythin’ After. These stories are told in chronological order, with Adam Ewing’s adventure in 1850 to the distant future in Sloosha’s where humans are at the brink of extinction. Each stories were interrupted half-way through (except Sloosha’s, which is the last story and hence it’s not discontinued) by the next story and then on the second part, the stories continued and were finished in a reverse chronological fashion. The orchestration of the 6 stories are very much like the main character from Letters from Zedelghem, Robert Frobisher’s Cloud Atlas Sextet. When I first read the book, honestly, I did not like it much. The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing - the writing style is like some olden days English. I couldn’t understand some parts of it and the flow does not sound natural to me. Maybe because it’s just so … odd and old. Ewing was journaling his travel home from Chatham Islands, east of New Zealand. His voyage was read as a diary by the leading character from the second story, Robert Frobisher from Letters from Zedelghem. Robert is an amaneunsis of a famous but decapitated composer, Vyvyan Ayrs. Robert discovered Ewing’s diary on a shelf at Ayrs’ house. Robert’s misfortunes were discovered by the protagonist of the next story, Luisa Rey, in the form of letters between Robert and his friend Rufus Sixsmith, a scientist. Towards 1975 in Buenas Yerbas, Sixsmith’s life was endangered when he refused to vouchsafe a series of nuclear power plants. He passed on the report to the hapless reporter Luisa Rey, whose life is threatened. This incident arrived in the form of a manuscript in the 21st century to Tim Cavendish, the protagonist of the 4th story. Tim was running away from his gangster client’s brother due to some money issues and he was arranged to a old folk’s home by his brother unbeknownst to himself. Tim’s attempt to escape and to return to his old life was made into a movie in the near future. Sonmi~451 from the 5th story watched the movie while she was on the run from the Union, which is an organization that is against the clones, especially the ‘ascending fabricants’. i.e. clones that start to behave like purebloods a.k.a humans. The 5th story archives Sonmi’s struggles and battles and she was then worshipped as a god in the apocalyptic future by a group of Hawaiians which survived ‘the fall’, a catastrophic disaster that befallen mankind.

I’m most attracted and drawn by the 5th story, An Orison of Sonmi~451. Maybe I should elaborate a bit more. The story was set in the future in Korea. Sonmi was a clone. She was created by Papa Song’s Corp to serve as a waitress at Papa Song’s diner. Under normal circumstances, clones are not supposed to have their own thinking. They were genomed and programmed to be contented by their current situation and they were willingly ‘enslaved’ by purebloods. Once they gain knowledge and start to wanting to behave like purebloods, i.e. the process of ascension, they will be reprogrammed or destroyed if the situation goes out of hand. To keep them working and to prevent them from ascension, these fabricants are fed with Soap which contains ingredients that suppress their self-consciousness. To keep the fabricants motivated, Papa Song Corp gives ’stars’ to the them. If you serve diligently and obediently for twelve continuous years, you will become a twelve-starred and then you will be transported out of the diner and you can enjoy a lifetime’s reward at Hawaii. This is called ‘Xultation’. Sonmi, under the influence of a ‘friend’ Yoona~939, started acquiring ascension. At the beginning, she felt awkward and she tried to suppress her longing to see the world and to acquire knowledge. Nevertheless, she sensed the difference between her and her ’sisters’. The notion of ’self’ is irresistible to Sonmi. One fine night, she was rescued by the Unanimity faculty of Taemosan University, where she met Hae-Joo and Professor Mephi. She was granted the privilege to study and to learn like a pureblood. Sonmi was really clever and diligent and she learned really fast. Unfortunately, later on, Professor Mephi was arrested by enforcers and Hae-Joo turned out to be a Union undercover. Apparently, on the surface, Union seems to detest the fabricants, but their true intention is to use the ascension of Sonmi to fight against corps like Papa Song in order to build a new civilization for mankind. The Union claimed that they wanted to help humans and the fabricants to co-inhabit in order to provide the fabricants with a better (and more humane?) treatment. Sonmi then wrote a Declarations but…

I am, of course, not here to spell out the whole story to you. This is not even a book review because it is about my thoughts on the book. Why is Sonmi~451 so important to me? I work in the cancer biology field and I’ve studied molecular biology. Some of my work is still related to molecular biology. While cloning bacteria is like a part of our lives in the lab, I cannot imagine using these tools and technology on humans. I’ve never put much thought into cloning humans, all I have been thinking is that it is really impossible and also unethical. But, exactly how BAD it is, I have never meditate on it. Now that I read about Sonmi, it makes me feel sad. What makes us think that we CAN and we have the RIGHT to clone some humans?

What are these clones then? I am still a baby Christian and I am not too familiar with the grounds on souls and spirits. Let’s set aside the religion then. So, what are these clones? Let us ignore the question on the existence of souls in clones. What is the identify of a human clone then? Is it expected to behave like the original? Wait, is it - see? I am using a generic ‘it’, not a ‘he’ or ’she’. Does it mean that I do not consider a clone as a human? No, the question here is that what IS a clone? Can I consider it a human? Come to think of it, I should use a pronoun ‘he’ or ’she’. I do want to consider a clone as a human, which is why I am sad and angered by Sonmi’s tale. I mentioned about the twelve-starred fabricants getting a reward, but in reality … they were sent to a ‘make-shift factory’. There, they were torn apart and their organs and body parts were donated or recycled… That was one of the most astonishing part to me. How can humans ever do THAT? I have always revered our species highly, but perhaps it is time for me to re-think.. Are our roots evil? God created us but He does not abuse us, so why is it that humans abuse everything else on earth? It might be an exaggerating extrapolation, but I can really foresee a future where the evil mankind digs a well and bury themselves in it.

There is a twist to that story which I will not divulge here. But, here’s a point that is worth mentioning. Sonmi wrote a Declarations, a set of catechism for ascended fabricants to teach them their rights and their worth. The Declaration never came into light because Sonmi was captured right after she wrote it. Sonmi was just a tool for the Union to take full control of the fabricants. Her ascension created apprehension among humans. Her Declarations was propagated by media and was used as a weapon against her. Sonmi already knew her fate but she co-operated. She told the archivist, “Why does any martyr cooperate with his judases? He sees a further endgame.” To Sonmi, the endgame is the Declarations. Her voice can finally reach the public that way.

Two more food for thought to end this long post:

1. We humans are forever selfish. We are afraid that we will be surpassed, that is perhaps why the so-called purebloods in An Orison of Sonmi~451 do not regard the fabricants as humans and they program the fabricants such that the fabricants do not have a sense of ’self’.

2. An excerpt from pg 342 of the book: “All revolutions are the sheerest fantasy until they happen; then they become historical inevitabilities.”

That is Sonmi~451 for you. Not a clone, but, a human like us.