cloud atlas
The book is full of shifts in time, style, people, geographies and rhythm. It is also full of patterns and theme.
'The weak are meat, the strong do eat.' The Darwinian pattern does not yield anything better or aspirational. It is, in itself, recursive. It feeds on itself - as does the book's structure.
Instances of love, service and self sacrifice seem to disrupt the 'invisible' force but don't do enough to overcome the puissance of man's bent for supremacy. I don't feel like supremacy is even the right word - but some word that better encapsulates a lust for power, self preservation, esteem, immortality and dominance to the exclusion of everyone else. Whatever the word is, it should sound ugly. Perhaps this is simply a lust to be God.
Maybe this is true. Maybe the stuff of man is reducible to shortsighted and selfish predatory urges that feed on themselves. Maybe 'survival of the fittest' is a misnomer.
Thanks for the book recommendation Steph.
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