The fact that I began recommending this book to people before I had even gotten halfway through testifies as to just how enraptured I was by it.

In my list of all time favourite books (and this list is not intellectually high brow, I warn you, but personally significant to me -to my mind that's the best basis for book ratings - importance to me on a personal level) I can place Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, the Harry Potter series by J.K Rowling, the A Song of Ice and Fire series of G.R.R Martin, The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R Tolkien and, now, Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. As you can see I rarely become truly invested in single novels. In fact, as of Hilary Mantel writing a sequel to her Cromwell vehicle, Cloud Atlas is the only one on that list to stand alone. So the question I asked myself was this; why did Cloud Atlas leave me feeling so profoundly connected by its final page, in one five hundred page offering, whilst others take entire series of thousands of pages and millions of words, to achieve the same thing?

I think there are many answers to that. Cloud Atlas is vast; spreading across five different time lines, arching from the eighteen hundreds to a far flung, dystopian future, featuring a breadth of characters connected in infinitesimal ways, telling stories which are in turn banal and fascinating, complex and the essence of simplicity, harrowing and heart-warming. The depiction of humanity, of human thought as a whole, is there in all its glory and misery but accompanied by, at its root, good fiction and well told stories. I think that to call Cloud Atlas profound is only to take my own view and give it to you, the reader. Another person might find it merely to be a compilation of fantastical stories, whilst others still might find more fitting fare in the recent film version.

Which brings me to a comparison between the word and the screen. The Cloud Atlas film is undeniably an interpretation of the source. The film makers inject more romance into the cinematic version (in fact after seeing the film first and then the book I was surprised at how little a part romance plays in the novel). Both, I think, are majestic in their own ways. While the film portrays the reincarnations of lovers meeting again and again through different time lines, sometimes achieving togetherness whilst at other times missing one another, occasionally by moments, the book is more about the inevitable intertwining of people and how lives can effect one another, even once long finished. The film takes the bold option of using the same actors to play multiple races, genders and roles across various time lines. That, the acting itself and the cinematography is admirable. The book excels at enlarging the cast of characters, enriching each individual beyond the film's capability, and giving more strings to grasp whilst trying to plait everything together, simultaneously referencing the source of each piece. It was a challenge I found both compelling and enjoyable to see the fruits of. I would therefore recommend both film and book with no overwhelming preference for either over the other, merely adoration for the whole.

I write nothing about the plot here because I think it is something, whether through reading or watching, which should be experienced without spoilers or inference, but as a whole. Suffice to say that David Mitchell takes risks, reaches further with each turn of the page, and is a genuinely compelling author. Therefore we are left with a work of fiction which pertains more to fact than you might at first suppose. A true work of art and undeniably my read of the year.