Clouds, Twisting and Twining (2 of 5)

I’m back, as prophesied by advocates of temporal cyclicism! In Cloud Atlas, something there is that eternally recurs. That something is the will to power. Its disguises are many. Behind the parasitic death-worm of Dr. Henry Goose wriggles the will to power. Behind the depredation of the Maori stalks the will to power. Behind the whitewashing of Seacorp seethes the will to power. Now before this rather dreary picture makes you glum about the mouth, the will to power does have modalities other than violence and brutality. There’s insight, autonomy, and self-understanding. The gullible notary from San Francisco has his worm plucked and eyes opened; Frobisher attains aesthetic independence; investigative journalist Luisa Rey exposes corruption; Cavendish escapes Aurora House; Somni ascends, etc. Like Nietzsche, Mitchell sees the will to power and its manifestations everywhere at work in the world. But he introduces a moral twist, or rather a twist with a moral. Unlike Nietzsche, Mitchell rejects egosim as a basis for a “good” or “healthy” morality. The salvation of the world, if it’s to happen at all, must start with people who, like Adam Ewing, break the identification of the “I” with the individual and devote themselves to something bigger and more important than the narrow interests of their paltry, little selves.

Clouds, Twisting and Twining (1 of 5)

In David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, there’s a heady brew of post-Christian metaphysics, which is heavily influenced by Nietzsche’s doctrine of the will to power and eternal recurrence. Which in turn is heavily influenced by Schopenhauer’s doctrine of the will to life. Of course, both Nietzsche and Schopenhauer labor in the long shadow of Kant. So by the transitive power invested in me by the golden state of California, I hereby pronounce that David Mitchell’s apple has fallen from Kant’s tree. Huh? Come, follow me. The basics of Kant’s metaphysics are tolerably clear. The world of appearance consists of things we can know and study through the arts and sciences. We can conceive of a reality independent of what we experience. This is Kant’s noumenal reality. Because there’s a categorial difference between appearance (which we can know) and noumenon (which we can’t), we can never know the intrinsic nature of reality. Schopenhauer adopts Kant’s appearance / thing-in-itself distinction but claims that we can know the intrinsic nature of noumenal reality. It’s will to life, a blind ceaseless striving for self-preservation. For Schopenhauer, everything consists of will, from stones and apples, to earwigs and beetles, to chimps and men and women. Everything, without exception. According to Nietzsche, however, Schopenhauer’s doctrine of the will to life ignores a remarkable feature of the human condition. There’s something more important than self-preservation, and we’re often willing to risk life and limb for it. Power. The elite rock climber risks life to chart a daring new route. The artist forgoes warmth and comfort to create an innovative aesthetic vision. The politician defies public opinion to advance a set of narrow interests. Nietzsche has several different conceptions of the will to power. And while they don’t always jive well together, the basic idea is simple enough: The will to power is the ability to lead one’s life in a way that is maximally consistent with one’s conception of how it should be lived, come what, come may. Behind the twisting, twining world of appearance, then, there is something that remains the same — for Schopenhauer, it’s will; Nietzsche, power. Mitchell? Well, you’ll just have to await my eternal return…

Kodak of Cloud Atlas

Book: Cloud Atlas

Chapter: The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish

Scene: T. Cavendish, publisher, is at a bar with author Dermot Hoggins, when Hoggins, drunk and doleful, sees Felix Finch, a critic who had savaged Higgins’ fictional memoir. Hoggins sidles up alongside Finch, grabs him by his lapels, and tosses him over the 12-story balcony railing. Murderer. What does he do next? He saunters over to a table and…

Sentence: “He selected a Belgian cracker adorned with Biscay anchovies and parsley drizzled with sesame oil.”

Is it just me, or is that a perfect ruddy sentence? I’ll have you know that I’ve tried memorizing it—without success. Probably because I’ve never tasted a Biscay anchovie. Still, what a delectable sentence!