I have both read the book, and seen the movie. The book first: It is a very well-written, entertaining tale. Rather, it is a series of tales. After beginning the book as a library copy, I realized that it was long and involved enough that I went and purchased my own copy. It presents at first almost as a collection of short stories. But as I was working my way through them, it became obvious that there are connections weaving their way through completely disparate stories. These threads are not always immediately obvious, and I did not always understand them. But the stories of themselves are completely engrossing, so I didn’t mind not always understanding the larger picture. These stories cover history from several centuries ago, into the future, well into the future.

I will not delve in any detail into the content of the individual stories; I will allow the reader to discover those. One of the drawbacks for me personally was that I read the book over quite an extended period of time, reading other books in between (usually as library books became available, with a deadline). This made my comprehension of the overall sweep of the threads of Cloud Atlas difficult to follow. My recommendation, based on this experience of the book, is to read it over a shorter period of time. It seems to me this would be a very excellent book to take on a several-week holiday!!

Then I checked out the movie! This helped put the various threads into much clearer perspective. The movie covers the various vignettes piecemeal, jumping back and forth from one to the other. I am aware that the movie did not receive great reviews; I believe this to be the result that it could be quite confusing to follow for anyone not having read the book, and understanding what the author, David Mitchell, was attempting to accomplish.

The movie version includes some very high-profile actors, headlined by Tom Hanks. What the movie did, was clear up, maybe simplify, the threads running through the various stories. And the overall message was stunning!! At least to me!! What is presented in the movie is the concept of living various lifetimes, during different eras of history, being incarnated in vastly varying roles in these various incarnations. The movie also depicts the idea of us being incarnated with other souls who have accompanied us throughout our history, often playing very different roles in different lifetimes. So in the movie you have characters played by the same actors, in the various vignettes, relating to each other in very different ways, from historical episodes, to quite far into the future.

For any of you who have been following my often rambling posts on Urban Monk, you know that I’ve been learning about this sort of thing over the past couple decades. Each of us is part of a soul family. We agree to incarnate, often together, but with varying roles. We might be siblings, good friends, rivals, parents or children, etc, during our various lifetimes. And this is always done for the growth of the individual soul in their own progression.

To see this presented in a main-stream movie release is quite astounding!! As they say, art often reflects the truth of what is occurring in society. And I believe what Cloud Atlas does is to present spiritual truths to and about society.

I highly recommend both the book and movie. If you can do only one, see the movie. But be aware of the dynamics of the overall story being presented, to avoid confusion.