Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell’s latest novel, was nominated for the Man Booker prize earlier this year. It was widely expected to win, but ended up losing to fellow Brit writer Alan Hollinghurst’s The Line of Beauty. A wonderful experiment in narrative, Cloud Atlas features six interlocking stories written in six distinct voices. Mitchell, whose past novel number9dream was also nominated for the Booker Prize, spoke to The Varsity recently about his novels, as well as growing up British, turning Japanese and disagreeing with the masters.
Nathan Stonkus: You told The Guardian: “I lack a sense of citizenship in the real world and, in some ways, commitment to it. To compensate, I stake out a life in the country called writing.” Do you think that there’s a British sensibility to your work?
David Mitchell: If I knew what the British sensibility was, it would be easier to spot it, I suppose. I certainly agree that your culture is a terrifically important factor in your development and in your thinking. There are others, but a lot more come from your culture. This sort of falls into the category-it’s a perfectly valid question-but it’s one that is perhaps most difficult for the subject themselves to answer.
NS: Do you read a lot of contemporary British fiction?
DM: No, not a lot. I read books by friends because they’ve read mine and it’s polite, and because it’s also probably useful to know a little a bit which way the wind is blowing, but I like to get back to the past as far as I can, or read things in translation if possible.
NS: There seems to be a conscious reference to Japanese themes in your works. Do you think you’ve picked up a Japanese influence in your work?
DM: I would like to think so; I would be very happy to think that I have done so. And I would like to think that [living in Japan] has had some direct effect on me.
NS: Nabokov once said, “Satire is a lesson, parody is a game.” Your novels are often described as puzzles-a type of game-but I felt that number9dream, and Cloud Atlas in particular, had a “lesson,” in a broad sense, to impart. Would you consider yourself a satirist or a parodist-or would you even make the distinction?
DM: Are they mutually exclusive? Perhaps in this case you and I can dare to disagree with Nabokov. Great educationalists use humour all the time and use puzzles to entrance and entrap the minds of the people they are educating. You can be a parodist in this bit and then a satirist in the next bit. The two definitions are exclusive, sure, but how about this: Satire and parody are mutually exclusive, but satirist and parodist are not.
NS: Do you want people to take any lessons away from your work? Specifically in Cloud Atlas, the speech by Ewing at the end is pretty overtly political.
DM: It sort of nails my colours to the mast, doesn’t it? (laughs) I would like to think that people could take from it: a) a sense of responsibility for the world, both individually and sort of species-wide, and b) that there’s always hope. That’s what I’d like people to take away from the book.
