The two editions of Cloud Atlas

Where do the variants occur?

• UK paperback: ISBN 978-1-444-71021-2 ("P edition") [cited in Dillon volume]
• US electronic: eISBN 978-0-307-48304-1 ("E edition")
• All US Random House print editions ("E edition")
• Most prominent changes in "An Orison of Sonmi ~451"

What happened then?

What are the effects of the changes?

• Changes to language
• Changes to syuzhet
• Changes to theme

Cumulative effect and counter-invalidations of close readings

Changes to language

• Accidentals (copyedits): “Isn't that what all dumped women do?” (P) / “Don’t all dumped women?” (E); “3rd Avenue” (P) / “Third Avenue” (E)
• Interpretative rewrites: “No other version of the truth has ever mattered to me” / “TRUTH IS SINGULAR. ITS 'VERSIONS' ARE MISTRUTHS”
• Meta-textual rewrites: “I have no earliest memories, Archivist. Every day of my life in Papa Song's was as uniform as the fries we vended.” / “Fabricants have no earliest memories, Archivist. One twenty-four-hour cycle in Papa Song’s is indistinguishable from any other.”

Changes to syuzhet

• P edition's question/responses: 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11, 12, 21, 22, 23, 24, 32, 33, 37, 43, 44, 56, 60, 74, 128, 159, 172, 173, 189, 190, 207, and 208 have no equivalent in the E edition
• E edition's questions/responses: 10, 33, 34, 49, 61, 78, 116, 117, 118 (R only), and 176 have no equivalent in the P edition
• P edition: 131 question/responses before break and total of 210 questions/responses
• E edition: 108 question/responses before break and total of 194 questions/responses

Syuzhet visualization

Differences of theme

• Fabricant humanity
• Changes to trans-textual interactions
• Archival meta-historicity

Fabricant humanity

• Details of scale of Papa Song's absent in E (P4-6)
• Greater focus on fabricant eloquence and humanity in P edition (P21-24)
• Far more violence towards fabricants in P edition (P43-44)

Changes to trans-textual interactions

• Self-consistency undermined by P159 (on Unamity and conspiracy)
• Additional information on the Abbess (P172-173)

Death, Politics and the Archive

• E116-117 (not present in E) are about the Archive
• The archive as the function of state manipulation
• The death-penalty convict as outside the law & subject of the archive
• The Holocaust