Cloud Atlas

by

David Mitchell

Robert Frobisher Character Analysis

Robert Frobisher is the protagonist of “Letters from Zedelghem,” which contains his letters from Belgium to his companion Rufus Sixsmith in England. Robert’s letters later end up in the possession of Luisa Rey. Robert is a brilliant young composer but also a big spender. He resents his father for disinheriting him, which Robert feels is partly because Robert could never live up to the legacy of his brother Adrian (who died in World War I). To try to win back his father’s respect, Frobisher decides to become the assistant of the legendary British composer Vyvyan Ayrs, who lives in Belgium and hasn’t produced any new work in a long time. Their artistic partnership starts well, but Robert soon tires of Ayrs, who is temperamental and eventually begins to steal Robert’s ideas. Robert’s most successful work is the Cloud Atlas Sextet, which has an unusual interlocking structure that seems to mirror the structure of the novel itself (which also has six “soloists,” or central characters). Robert is chronologically the first in a lineage of characters who all have a comet-shaped birthmark, and his suicide seems to set into motion a cycle of rebirth and reincarnation. Robert’s character embodies how destruction and creation can coexist, exploring how artistic success doesn’t necessarily lead to happiness.

Robert Frobisher Quotes in Cloud Atlas

The Cloud Atlas quotes below are all either spoken by Robert Frobisher or refer to Robert Frobisher. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Cycles of History Theme Icon
).
Chapter 2 Quotes

A telegram, Sixsmith? You ass.

Don’t send any more, I beg you—telegrams attract attention!

Related Characters: Robert Frobisher (speaker), Adam Ewing, Rufus Sixsmith, Vyvyan Ayrs
Page Number: 52
Explanation and Analysis:

V.A. was unsure of himself for once. “I dreamt of a … nightmarish café, brilliantly lit, but underground, with no way out. I’d been dead a long, long time. The waitresses all had the same face. The food was soap, the only drink was cups of lather. The music in the café was”—he wagged an exhausted finger at the MS—“this.”

Related Characters: Robert Frobisher (speaker), Vyvyan Ayrs (speaker), Sonmi~451, Papa Song
Page Number: 79
Explanation and Analysis:

She plays with that birthmark in the hollow of my shoulder, the one you said resembles a comet—can’t abide the woman dabbling with my skin.

Related Characters: Robert Frobisher (speaker), Luisa Rey, Timothy Cavendish, Sonmi~451, Meronym, Rufus Sixsmith, Vyvyan Ayrs, Jocasta van Outryve de Crommelynck
Related Symbols: The Comet Birthmark
Page Number: 85
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3 Quotes

Robert Frobisher mentions a comet-shaped birthmark between his shoulder blade and collarbone.

I just don’t believe in this crap. I just don’t believe it. I don’t.

Related Characters: Luisa Rey (speaker), Adam Ewing, Robert Frobisher, Rufus Sixsmith
Related Symbols: The Comet Birthmark
Page Number: 120
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4 Quotes

I will not deny a nascent sense of a silver lining to this tragic turn. My Haymarket office suite housed ninety-five unsold shrink-wraps of Dermot Hoggins’s Knuckle Sandwich, impassioned memoir of Britain’s soon to be most famous murderer. Frank Sprat—my stalwart printer in Sevenoaks, to whom I owed so much money I had the poor man over a barrel—still had the plates and was ready to roll at a moment’s notice.

Hardcovers, ladies and gentlemen.

Fourteen pounds ninety-nine pence a shot.

A taste of honey!

Related Characters: Timothy Cavendish (speaker), Robert Frobisher, Dermot Hoggins
Page Number: 150
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10 Quotes

Spent the fortnight gone in the music room, reworking my year’s fragments into a “sextet for overlapping soloists”: piano, clarinet, ‘cello, flute, oboe, and violin, each in its own language of key, scale, and color. In the first set, each solo is interrupted by its successor: in the second, each interruption is recontinued, in order. Revolutionary or gimmicky? Shan’t know until it’s finished, and by then it’ll be too late, but it’s the first thing I think of when I wake, and the last thing I think of before I fall asleep.

Related Characters: Robert Frobisher (speaker), Luisa Rey
Related Symbols: The Comet Birthmark
Page Number: 445
Explanation and Analysis:

Time cannot permeate this sabbatical. We do not stay dead long. Once my Luger lets me go, my birth, next time around, will be upon me in a heartbeat. Thirteen years from now we’ll meet again at Gresham, ten years later I’ll be back in this same room, holding this same gun, composing this same letter, my resolution as perfect as my many-headed sextet. Such elegant certainties comfort me at this quiet hour.

Related Characters: Robert Frobisher (speaker), Rufus Sixsmith, Vyvyan Ayrs
Related Symbols: The Comet Birthmark
Page Number: 471
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Cloud Atlas LitChart as a printable PDF.
Cloud Atlas PDF

Robert Frobisher Quotes in Cloud Atlas

The Cloud Atlas quotes below are all either spoken by Robert Frobisher or refer to Robert Frobisher. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Cycles of History Theme Icon
).
Chapter 2 Quotes

A telegram, Sixsmith? You ass.

Don’t send any more, I beg you—telegrams attract attention!

Related Characters: Robert Frobisher (speaker), Adam Ewing, Rufus Sixsmith, Vyvyan Ayrs
Page Number: 52
Explanation and Analysis:

V.A. was unsure of himself for once. “I dreamt of a … nightmarish café, brilliantly lit, but underground, with no way out. I’d been dead a long, long time. The waitresses all had the same face. The food was soap, the only drink was cups of lather. The music in the café was”—he wagged an exhausted finger at the MS—“this.”

Related Characters: Robert Frobisher (speaker), Vyvyan Ayrs (speaker), Sonmi~451, Papa Song
Page Number: 79
Explanation and Analysis:

She plays with that birthmark in the hollow of my shoulder, the one you said resembles a comet—can’t abide the woman dabbling with my skin.

Related Characters: Robert Frobisher (speaker), Luisa Rey, Timothy Cavendish, Sonmi~451, Meronym, Rufus Sixsmith, Vyvyan Ayrs, Jocasta van Outryve de Crommelynck
Related Symbols: The Comet Birthmark
Page Number: 85
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3 Quotes

Robert Frobisher mentions a comet-shaped birthmark between his shoulder blade and collarbone.

I just don’t believe in this crap. I just don’t believe it. I don’t.

Related Characters: Luisa Rey (speaker), Adam Ewing, Robert Frobisher, Rufus Sixsmith
Related Symbols: The Comet Birthmark
Page Number: 120
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4 Quotes

I will not deny a nascent sense of a silver lining to this tragic turn. My Haymarket office suite housed ninety-five unsold shrink-wraps of Dermot Hoggins’s Knuckle Sandwich, impassioned memoir of Britain’s soon to be most famous murderer. Frank Sprat—my stalwart printer in Sevenoaks, to whom I owed so much money I had the poor man over a barrel—still had the plates and was ready to roll at a moment’s notice.

Hardcovers, ladies and gentlemen.

Fourteen pounds ninety-nine pence a shot.

A taste of honey!

Related Characters: Timothy Cavendish (speaker), Robert Frobisher, Dermot Hoggins
Page Number: 150
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10 Quotes

Spent the fortnight gone in the music room, reworking my year’s fragments into a “sextet for overlapping soloists”: piano, clarinet, ‘cello, flute, oboe, and violin, each in its own language of key, scale, and color. In the first set, each solo is interrupted by its successor: in the second, each interruption is recontinued, in order. Revolutionary or gimmicky? Shan’t know until it’s finished, and by then it’ll be too late, but it’s the first thing I think of when I wake, and the last thing I think of before I fall asleep.

Related Characters: Robert Frobisher (speaker), Luisa Rey
Related Symbols: The Comet Birthmark
Page Number: 445
Explanation and Analysis:

Time cannot permeate this sabbatical. We do not stay dead long. Once my Luger lets me go, my birth, next time around, will be upon me in a heartbeat. Thirteen years from now we’ll meet again at Gresham, ten years later I’ll be back in this same room, holding this same gun, composing this same letter, my resolution as perfect as my many-headed sextet. Such elegant certainties comfort me at this quiet hour.

Related Characters: Robert Frobisher (speaker), Rufus Sixsmith, Vyvyan Ayrs
Related Symbols: The Comet Birthmark
Page Number: 471
Explanation and Analysis: