Cloud Atlas and Hesiod's Theogony

I am loving David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas. I am supposedly reading it with a friend, who became too involved with it to stop at the end of the second section, our agreed upon first discussion point, and I am enjoying it too much to speed through it to catch up with her. We didn't do too well reading War and Peace together either.

Mitchell's overarching structure reminds me of Calvino, and each section (there are six separate storylines and incidentally--hah!-- a character named Sixsmith) is a a different voice, a different location and time, most delightful pastiche. I'll be taking a look at Mitchell's earlier works once I'm done with Cloud Atlas.

And speaking of earlier works, I read Hesiod's "Theogony" at work Monday night. Why depend upon Bulfinch and Edith Hamilton when you can read the earliest written versions of myths just as easily for yourself? In translation, of course. I have much more insight into the birth of Aphrodite, for example, after reading this. S. will be reading this next, while I move on to Apollodorus.