Cloud Cuckoo Land By Anthony Doerr

Cloud Cuckoo Land Softcover Edition

 

Title : Cloud Cuckoo Land

Author : Anthony Doerr

Published : September 2021

Genre : Historical Fiction, Sci-fi

Language : English

Thirteen-year-old Anna, an orphan, lives inside the formidable walls of Constantinople in a house of women who make their living embroidering the robes of priests. Restless, insatiably curious, Anna learns to read, and in this ancient city, famous for its libraries, she finds a book, the story of Aethon, who longs to be turned into a bird so that he can fly to a utopian paradise in the sky. This she reads to her ailing sister as the walls of the only place she has known are bombarded in the great siege of Constantinople. Outside the walls is Omeir, a village boy, miles from home, conscripted with his beloved oxen into the invading army. His path and Anna’s will cross.

Five hundred years later, in a library in Idaho, octogenarian Zeno, who learned Greek as a prisoner of war, rehearses five children in a play adaptation of Aethon’s story, preserved against all odds through centuries. Tucked among the library shelves is a bomb, planted by a troubled, idealistic teenager, Seymour. This is another siege. And in a not-so-distant future, on the interstellar ship Argos, Konstance is alone in a vault, copying on scraps of sacking the story of Aethon, told to her by her father. She has never set foot on our planet.

Like Marie-Laure and Werner in All the Light We Cannot See, Anna, Omeir, Seymour, Zeno, and Konstance are dreamers and outsiders who find resourcefulness and hope in the midst of gravest danger. Their lives are gloriously intertwined, and Doerr’s dazzling imagination transports us to worlds so dramatic and immersive that we forget, for a time, our own. Dedicated to “the librarians then, now, and in the years to come,” Cloud Cuckoo Land is a beautiful and redemptive novel about stewardship—of the book, of the Earth, of the human heart.

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When I saw Anthony Doer’s book stacked at the Bookshop last month, I was elated. It’s been so long since my beloved All the Light We Cannot See. Purchased it, and then finished my-mandatory-non-fiction-book, I pick this book, despite the long queue of other books.

And I didn’t read any single word in the blurbs. I trust the big name of Anthony. 

There are five major ‘streams line’ in this book led by five different persons, and three different timelines. First, in every different chapter, we meet one page of ‘Cloud Cuckoo Land’, an ancient book written by Diogenes. 

Then our first protagonist Zeno, set in 2020 when He was a librarian. He’s busy on one winter day rehearsing with several kids that will perform a play Cloud Cuckoo Land. Zeno is a veteran of the Korean War. During the war, he met a man that introduced him to Ancient Greek. He’s in love with the language. Since he was a child, Zeno is always a strange kid. A strange name and strange skin color. During his childhood, he found salvation in the library.

The second protagonist is Seymour. He is also an outcast. Raised by a single mother, Seymour is forced to be an adult in early life. While her mother works very hard in between jobs, the money is never enough. Until Seymour’s uncle's death and they inherited an old house near Lake Idaho. There is a forest at the back of their house and becomes Seymour’s favorite place. He befriended an owl. Seymour cannot tolerate loud sounds or strong smells. 

In the 2020 setting, Seymour is visiting the Library while Zeno is upstairs with the children. They are crossing in this timeline. Eighty-six year Zeno and teenage Seymour.

The third and fourth protagonists are in the 1400s. Anna is an orphan girl living with her sister, Maria in Constantinople. Anna is an explorer, she always seeks freedom outside the wall, rather than living as a sewing worker like Maria. When Anna saw someone reading a book, she was drawn and found it mesmerizing. She learns to read Ancient Greek and later, become a very valuable skill.

Behind the enemy line, there is Omeir. A boy with a cleft palate. He is the only one of the protagonists that didn’t have a close relationship with the book. Omeir, along with man in his country marched to penetrate the wall of Constantinople where Anna lived.

And the last protagonist is Konstance, traveling in a spacecraft named Argos to distant planet Oph2, to flee from pollution, drought, and wildfires.

A lot is going on in this book. Environmental awareness that knitted the present day and fifty years beyond. There is also about autism, a self-searching or redemption thru a war, poverty, and many more. But, above all the stories are interwoven ultimately by the Cloud Cuckoo Land that traveled generations after generations.

The idea of the story is ambitious and brilliant. Even I am not a fan of Sci-Fi, I love the story of Konstance the most. I love history-fiction but am dragged by the story of Omeir and Anna. 

About 4/5 of the books are very slow-paced. I almost DNF several times because it is going nowhere. The story of Anna and Omeir waiting for the war is too long. But yes, Doerr's words and sentences are lyrical and beautiful, still cannot save the boredom in my mind.

And suddenly, the book has a very fast-paced plot. There is a lot of unexplainable cause like what happened in Argos during Konstance self-isolation. What changes Seymour’s mind after the tragedy in the library. Why are the later-adult children in the library willing to meet Seymour, after what happened in the past?

But above all, there are a lot of subtle messages in the book (and hard diction). How the internet radicalizes the pure mind, how in the future to escape natural disasters, we must become refugees to understand the cost of war. All our protagonists are either seeking redemption or purpose in life. The lonesome, misfit that wants a decent place in the world.

Aethons in the story of Cloud Cuckoo Land is the metaphor of this book, a red thread linking thru the time gap and protagonist. This book is also about how we survive during the cruel condition and eventually find the love that saves us, and maybe the earth.

I didn’t love this book as I love All the light we cannot See. It is a great book, but just too exhausting reading 700 pages where most of it is waiting for the game. Anthony Doerr is still the ambitious and idealist, that makes us love him. So in the conclusion, if you have plenty of vacant time, you can read this book and experience 700 years span.