But anyway, the book I'm reading now is Called "Cloud Atlas" by David Mitchell, and so far, it's suuuuper interesting. From what Mr. Hill has told me, it seems to be a collection of six stories, all intertwined in some way and all from different viewpoints and styles of diction. The first story, or chapter I guess, is a series of entries in the 'Pacific Journal' of one Adam Ewing. Written in the early 1800's, this journal is Ewing's rosary of adventure, or maybe more like scribblings of his stressors. In his somewhat Cavalier accounts of living in South America, for reasons unknown, he uses a dialect I find strikingly obscure. For example, he says "His pidgin delivered his tale brokenly, so its substance only shall I endeavor to set down here."
Once you get used to his style, the journal is pretty gripping. When the journal ended with... "& morning watches so both starboard & port shifts might" (it cuts there and begins the next story of the book) I was kicked with a sense of confusion and even laughed a bit. The e
nding of Ewing's journal is one of those instances in a book that humors me and keeps me reading. I paused a bit after reading that and thought about why it might have stopped so abruptly. My favorite of my theories is that maybe the boat he was on hit a huge rock or a sandbar. Or maybe he was just axed in the back of the head in mid sentence. Take your pick. Heh, that reminds me of the mystery behind the "Fall Be Kind" album cover (seen here). My friend Miqueas and I spent like 10 minutes staring at it and trying to make something out. I think it's a super-close up of a dog's eye whose watching as his master is about to axed unknowingly. Strange, indeed.
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