The Cloud Atlas
The story is about a priest and a shaman, and centers on events during World War II that involved the Japanese balloon bombs that were sent against North America.
There's also a romantic interest in the story, and the story bounces around from the present day to memories of WWII.
The basic concept of the balloon bombs is based on reality, but the author adds a lot of things that I don't believe actually happened in relation to the balloon bombs. The description of the bombs on pages 22 and 23 of the story seem to be pretty accurate, but away the story refers to some men being killed by a bomb exploding in a particular place, and no such thing happened.
On page 38 the author talks about the balloon bombs being mistaken for “comets and flying saucers.” The term “flying saucers” did not come into use until after the end of the war. There was a thing called “foo fighters” that were sighted, but that is what they were called, and they involved planes in the air, not anything relatively near the ground.
The story does refer to a fear of some of the balloons eventually being manned, which was actually one possibility the Japanese considered. Another possibility they considered, and one referred to in the book, was the use of germ warfare by attaching infected fleas or other insects to the bomb, then dropping those on populated areas. The book refers to the source of these germs as Unit 731, which was the actual source. However, the existence of Unit 731 was top secret, and a regular soldier like the one in the book, Louis, would not have known of the unit's existence.
Louis also refers to a Japanese plan to use kamikaze planes loaded with the germs to attack San Diego in 1945. I have not read about any such plan anywhere else. It also probably wouldn't have worked since the crash of the plane would have triggered an explosion and fire which would have killed the fleas or whatever, this not counting the incredible difficult for the Japanese of getting a plane all the way to San Diego late in the war. There was a sub that could launch a small plane that did exist and had been used to bomb Oregon forests, but that was earlier in the war when the Japanese had the time, ships and men that they could use to carry out such a raid.
As for the story itself, revolving around Louis, Ronnie, the shaman, and a woman, Lily, the story isn't that very interesting. The whole book, basically, was somewhat of a disappointment to read.
Main Index
Japan main page
Japanese-American Internment Camps index page
Japan and World War II index page
|