Cloud 9, pt. II

Am about to begin the sixth story in Cloud Atlas, and (again) have a bunch of scribbled notes to post (if for no other reason than to slow down my time with this wonderful book)....

• Mrs Latham wears Nefertiti earings. (Eve's black horse is named Nefertiti.)
• Cavendish reads the MS of Half-lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery with v. amusing results (pp. 158, 164, 169).
• This reminds me that the news article re. Sixsmith--if it were really published in a California paper--would put periods in the titles (e.g., Dr., Ms.). But it doesn't. Don't know if this is intentional or a mistake on the part of the copyeditor. Actually, if the MS is really by a "Hilary V. Hush," she may not have known the difference, and so the mistake is hers, right? (Clever but not Clever enough, as Mr. Cavendish would say.) (Does the US edition correct this, I wonder?)
• Cavendish encounters delays, much like Sixsmith.
• Saffron Walden and Cambridge--Cavendish passes through Frobisher's territory.
• Cavendish uses "Mater" and "Pater" exactly like Frobisher (p. 165). I think I know where all this is going...
• The little boy Cavendish encounters at Ursula's house says, "Don't move a muscle or I'll mackasser you and put you in a stew!" Uh oh. Now I'm not quite sure. The scrambled reference to Frobisher's old prof Mackerras doesn't come from Cavendish's lips...
• Cavendish: "My fellow passengers' features melted into forms that were half familiar..." Curiouser and curiouser.
• His bitter musings on the book trade made me laugh aloud: "The memoirs are bad enough, but all that ruddy fiction! Hero goes on a journey, stranger comes to town, somebody wants something, they get it or they don't, will is pitted against will. 'Admire me, for I am a metaphor.'"
• p. 173, "A howling singer on the radio strummed a song about how everything that dies some day comes back." Does this section have the most commentary on this sort of thing because it's the first to not be immediately identified as a document (not journal, letter, or novel)--i.e., it's more self-aware? (It's only in Sonmi~451's section that we discover it's a film.)
• Love that this Sonmi is "451." (I'm sure Bradbury would enjoy this book immensely.)
• Love how it's the fairy tales that inspire hope and a longing for something better. (Very Chestertonian.)
• p. 204, the birthmark resurfaces
• p. 206, evolving language = growing intelligence
• Sonmi~451 reads Cavendish's beloved Gibbon (who's even referenced obliquely on p. 5 in Ewing's section. I'm sure all these inter-references work forwards as well as backwards, which means I'll just have to read this one again).
• I like that a "Suleiman" is the true author of Boom-Sook's thesis.
• Amused by the lack of "gh" in all words where they're supposed to be...and the proper nouns that have become common nouns in Sonmi's universe (ford, disney, starbuck, etc.). I don't think we're that far from the latter, though...which is a bit "fritening" to think about.
• So The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish is a film and it's Sonmi's turn to comment on the prior work and what actually happens when the story cuts off... Think it's very funny she labels him a "book thief."
  

Nearly halfway through and I just...need...to...s l o w...d o w n...!