Cloud Atlas: El Fin

So I think the general consensus based on class yesterday was that the last few pages of Ewing’s journal were a bit much.  I personally thought the novel could have ended on a more subtle but just as poignant note—it ended up sounding a little too forced, like it wasn’t Ewing’s voice at the end.  I thought a lot about that, how his attitude and tone one-eightied toward the end.  It seemed unrealistic that he would have an epiphany and suddenly adopt ideals he had spurned before.  I guess when you have a near-death experience, though, those things can happen. Again, the message of humanity’s future was interspersed throughout the novel to begin with, and I think that message has more value to the reader when she has to work to find it and piece it together, rather than having it laid out in the last chapter.

Like Catherine, I’m still wondering why Mitchell picked the number 6. Six stories, Sixsmith, six movements in Frobisher’s piece. Too bad that part wasn’t in the interview.  There were a couple of things that Google and I came up—not sure if any hold any significance to the novel.

The Life Path Number 6

If you add the eight digits of your birthdate (mine is 03/19/1987) repeatedly until you end with only one digit, that’s your life path number. If yours is 6:

“You are idealistic and must feel useful to be happy. The main contribution you make is that of advice, service, and ever present support. You are a humanitarian of the first order. It is your role to serve others, and you start in the home environment. You are very human and realistic about life, and you feel that the most important thing in your life is the home, the family and the friends.

This is the Life Path related to leadership by example and assumption of responsibility, thus, it is your obligation to pick up the burden and always be ready to help. If you are like the majority with Life Path 6, you are one who will willingly carry far more than your fair share of any load, and you are always there when needed. In doing so, you take ownership and often become an authority over the situation.

The natural burdens of this number are heavy” (http://www.astrology-numerology.com/num-lifepath.html)

Sounds like a lot of our characters. More:

“The number 6 is completing the second level of spirit manifestation. We called this level the level of the life-giving forces. While on the first level of spirit manifestation we were talking more about the abstract ideas that were observable in the spiritual world only, on the second level of spirit manifestation we are dealing with the materialization of those ideas.

The task of the first two numbers in the second level was to manifest the spirit into the material world (the number 4) and to bring the whole structure to life (the number 5). However, the number 6 is completing the task of this level by making the life in a material form comfortable for the spirit. In other words the number 6 is dealing with the final touch of the spirit materialization and manifestation in the material reality.

The symbol of the number 6 is a beehive with bees and honey-combs. This is one perfect example of the life (represented by the bees) that inhabits comfortably in the matter (represented by the well-built beehive and the honey-combs). Such cozy level of existence was unthinkable with the number 5, where the grass stroke was struggling to get through the asphalt. In other words, the number 6 represents the final stage of implementation of a harmonious, well-established, material life.” (http://www.usenature.com/article_numerology_6.htm)

The spirituality of 6 ties in with the birthmark and reincarnation. Maybe this is too far-fetched and fanatical, but it’s kind of fun to pick out common threads between numerology and Cloud Atlas.

 

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