There was a collective cheer from the four librarians in my reading group when one of our members read Anthony Doerr’s dedication for his latest novel, Cloud Cuckoo Land. It goes like this “For the librarians then, now, and in the years to come”. Thank you Anthony! Cloud Cuckoo Land, at over 600 pages, is a big book and, like most big books, is about a lot of things, but threading through it is the idea of the book – and of the role played by librarians in fostering knowledge and reading. Indeed, the central event of the book takes place in a public library.
Those of you who have read the novel will know what I’m talking about, but for the rest of you I’ll take a step back. Anthony Doerr, from my limited experience of two novels, seems to like two things – multiple-points-of-view and young protagonists. All the light we cannot see (my review) has two protagonists from the same era, but Cloud Cuckoo Land takes it to another level with five protagonists spanning multiple centuries.
“It’s like we’re about to walk into the book” (Alex, fifth-grader)
The critical thing about these five characters is that they are outsiders – subversives, even – each confronting the received wisdom of their times. All live precarious lives. In the fifteenth century, in the Rhodope Mountains of Bulgaria, Omeir is born with a cleft palate. Those were superstitious times, so he, his siblings, mother and grandfather are ostracised and find themselves living in a ravine miles from their village. Omeir “imagines the adventures that might lie beyond”. Over the way, in Constantinople, is Anna, a poor orphan, living with her sister in a great embroidery house where they sew for a living. She daydreams about a better life than this, and, as Constantinople falls, sets about achieving it. Meanwhile, in 20th century Idaho, Zeno is born – in 1934, to be exact. He, too, is ostracised, an “undersized orphan with foreigners blood and a weirdo name. Ahead is what?” In the same state, born early in the 21st century is Seymour, living with his impoverished, hard-working, single mother. From birth he is difficult – fussy about food, textures and sounds – suffering, the school decides, from some sort of “disorder” or “combination thereof”. Nature is his sanctuary, “amazing … Big. Alive. Ongoing”. Out there, inspired by the great grey owl he calls Trustyfriend, “lifelong knots deep inside the boy loosen”. Finally, some time into the future, on the spaceship Argos, is Konstance, stuck in a life not of her choosing, and condemned to live all of it on board. She’s imaginative and suffers for it, mystifying her mother who believed their “imaginative faculties” had been “suppressed”.
Threading through each of their stories is a fictional codex from the real Ancient Greek author, Diogenes. It features Aethon, who, having all his life “longed to see more”, wants to become “a fierce eagle or a bright strong owl” and fly to the “city in the clouds”, the titular “Cloud Cuckoo Land, where no one wants for anything”. This codex plays different roles in the lives of our protagonists but for all of them it represents, at some time, hope, dreams and the value of books.
I’ve focused a lot on these characters, but that’s because they are the book. From these introductions you can see that Doerr has chosen young people who have little agency over what happens to them. The novel explores what they do to survive and make meaningful – authentic – lives for themselves in an imperfect world. What does it take to cope?
Fundamentally, the book is about challenge and change. For Aethon, our unifying character, the journey is not simple, and he is changed into undesirable creatures like a donkey and a “humble crow”. For our other characters, life also does not go to plan, with each surprised by what it dishes up to them. There are tricks in store for them – as well as for the reader – including in the codex itself which, in the course of its journey from Ancient Greece to the future, becomes jumbled, so its true ending is lost. However, in 2020, 86-year-old Zeno’s fifth-graders, who are rehearsing his translated and dramatised version in the public library, decide on an end, one that encompasses life’s reality.
Cloud Cuckoo Land, then, is also about books, but they too are vulnerable, as the scholar Licinius tells Anna:
“… books, like people, die. They die in fires or floods or in the mouths of worms or at the whims of tyrants. If they are not safeguarded, they go out of the world. And when a book goes out of the world, the memory dies a second death.”
Fortunately, though, Doerr clearly believes enough of us will safeguard them, and the novel ends way into the future with Aethon’s book being read to a young boy:
“And the tale I have to tell is so ludicrous, so incredible, that you’ll never believe a word of it, and yet”—she taps the end of his nose—“it’s true.”
As many of you will know, I love this.
Now, I’ll return to the title. “Cloud Cuckoo Land” is, literally, the name of an idyllic place in a real Ancient Greek play, Aristophanes’ The Birds, the place Aethon seeks in our codex. But, for me, the title also encompasses some interesting imagery. Cuckoos are birds, and all sorts of birds feature throughout the novel, representing nature, and freedom, amongst other things. Cuckoos, themselves, are sacred in some cultures, but some species, as we know, lay their eggs in other bird’s nests forcing, we could argue, those young to be resourceful outsiders. Then there are the “clouds”. As I read this book I couldn’t get the Joni Mitchell song “Both sides now” out of my head, with its line “it’s clouds illusions I recall .. I really don’t know clouds at all”, progressing to “life’s illusions … I really don’t know life at all”.
These two ideas – resourceful outsiders and life’s illusions – encapsulate for me this truly engaging book. Doerr presents for us life’s challenges – historic, economic, climatic – but he also offers the dreams and resourcefulness of humans in confronting these challenges. Zeno’s friend Rex describes the codex as “part fairy tale, part fool’s errand, part science fiction, part utopian satire”. This could also describe Doerr’s novel, but it is more too. Rich, complex, and highly readable, it contains multiple treasures and connections for engaged readers to find and make on their journey. I have barely skimmed its surface. It was a very popular start to my reading group’s year.
Anthony Doerr
Cloud Cuckoo Land
London: 4th Estate, 2021
627pp.
ISBN: 9780008478308 (e-Book)
Whispering Gums 
Oh gosh, I really should get round to reading All the Light We Cannot See, I’m getting left behind!
Too many books Lisa…
What a wonderful review. Thank you!
Thanks Deb … have you read it? I’m guessing you have?
Yes. I read it and immediately recommended it to my brother.
Here’s my attempt at a review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4132287600
Oh thanks Deb, I’ll come look.
I’ve had a look – and yes, I had lots of notes about the themes and ideas, but decided that most of the ones I wanted to discuss could also give away too much, so I decided to leave them out. I still have my notes though!
A wonderful engaging review, I did enjoy All the Light and your review certainly makes me want to pick this one up too, he seems such an expansive storyteller and appears here, to have pulled off an ambitious novel succesfully. And yes, hoorah for librarians and all they absorb and share and recommend. 🥳
Thanks Claire – “expansive” is a good description. I think he’s pulled it off. I think some reviewers found it too convoluted, but most felt it worked. For me it did, though I’d love to have spent time thinking more about the structure and why he put some parts of the story where he did. I made a lot of notes too about ideas and themes in the novel, but used almost none of them . Too expansive! Ha!
I think 🤔 I should start read this Book 📖
It’s a good read Mira.
This does sound rich and wonderful. Like Lisa above, I’m yet to get to All the Light…
It’s a good read Mallika – one you can get your teeth into. I also enjoyed All the light….
I rushed to Audible to have a trial listen (for the narrator, not the text !), but found there some American woman with the usual nasal intonation. I have so few American narrators: the voice doesn’t lend itself readily to listening to entire books. Woe ! 😦
And actually, M-R, I think one member of the reading group felt it didn’t work well in audio form. She found it hard to bat into until she tried reading it. It has a very disjointed structure which I suspect would be harder to manage without all the page markers though it may work!!
Then I am going to have to bite the bullet, ST, and buy [gasp !] A BOOK !! Because this sounds totally wonderful ! – thank-you, as always, for your skill.
Oh no … that’s a big step M-R, but I’m really glad you are intrigued by it.
Not for me, but good that your reading group liked it.
Why in particular not for you Guy? Sounds like there’s something very clear that doesn’t interest you.
I start yawning at the thought of various characters in various centuries connected by ….
Ah yes … makes sense to me … that thought did turn me off too – all that and 600 pages! I probably wouldn’t have read it if not for reading group, but it turned out well. It’s good for me to be sometimes pushed out of my prejudices!
I loved All the Light, and I have About Grace (2005) still to be read. Cloud Cuckoo Land sounds like a really great read. Quite intrigued about the connection with Aristophanes The Birds – I actually have an ebook of this, to be read sometime. I love reading all the old stuff. If I can get hold of a copy of Cloud Cuckoo Land, I might read The Birds first.
I’d be impressed if you read The Birds first, Karen, and would love to know what you thought if you then went on and read Doerr’s, book.
Hmm, I sense a challenge here. Well, I’ve already checked, Cloud Cuckoo Land is available from my local library, and I could start on The Birds now. Doerr’s book is a bit of a brick, so might take me a little while, but challenge accepted. Will let you know the outcome.
Oh, I love people accepting a challenge Karen. It is a bit of a brick but is quite a fast read.
I think this is a book all readers will love. I certainly loved it! https://necromancyneverpays.wordpress.com/2022/10/01/cloud-cuckoo-land-anthony-doerr/
Thanks Jeanne. I’ll check out your post. I’m really not keeping up with who’s reading what at the moment!
On my TBR, Sue. Bumping it up on the strength of your review.
Incidentally, I saw Anthony Doerr speak (via satellite) at Adelaide Writers Week last year and he was magnificent. Such positive energy! I loved ‘All The Light We Cannot See’, too.
Do I need to have read All the Light first ..?
No, M-R, you don’t. Different characters, different eras and stories. It’s just that that was his Pulitzer Prize winner so most have read it rather than his other novels.
Oh good, Angela – it’s sort of reassuring when someone says things like that ie that they too had liked All the light, and that the author was great. I mean, they are writers so don’t have to be great in oral situations, but it’s wonderful when they are articulate and engaging. “Positive energy” sounds about right – because this book has some tough stuff but the overall energy is, I think, positive.
I liked All The Light very much indeed. I did view it as a YA novel, though, and thought of it read that way as well.
Interesting, fourtriplezed. While it was about young people it felt too big and complex to be YA, but perhaps that’s underestimating young people. If it is YA, I’d call it a cross-over book. After all it won the Pulitzer for adult fiction didn’t it?
It won the Purlitzer? I never knew that. To be honest I have a lot of time for it, as I said I really really enjoyed it, but it was not at that level IMO.
The Pulitzer is a good prize to win but – if I put my literary snob hat on – I wouldn’t put it up there with the top literary prizes. The winners in my experience tend to be well-written, interesting/thoughtful crowd-pleasing books which is not to put them down but to say that overall they don’t push boundaries.
Still All the light was interesting for telling stories in both sides of that war and showing what it did at the individual level particularly for innocents caught up in it.
I absolutely adored All the Light but this one has languished in the TBR stack since it was released, and I’m not sure why I keep passing it over in favour of something else. Of course, your review motivates me, although my book group would have a fit if I suggested a 600-page book 😀
Haha Kate … I understand … it’s one of those books that looks off-putting.
As for the reading group, we have an agreement that we can schedule a big book over summer. (Our “beach read!) Other times of the year 600 pages would be a no-no.
That’s a good strategy for the bigger books. We used to do similar – need to remind my group!
Sounds like you should – I wonder how it will go?
Poorly I reckon 😀 (my book group are pretty slack!)
Perhaps you shouldn’t try! We run a pretty tight ship. If some forget our rules of think there’s always someone who will remember! It seems to work. People only leave if they leave town.
Every time I hear more about this book, I can’t help but wonder how it is so different from Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. Have you read it, or read the synopsis?