When everything is lost, it’s our stories that survive.
How do we weather the end of things? Cloud Cuckoo Land brings together an unforgettable cast of dreamers and outsiders from past, present and future to offer a vision of survival against all odds.
Constantinople, 1453:
An orphaned seamstress and a cursed boy with a love for animals risk everything on opposite sides of a city wall to protect the people they love.
Idaho, 2020:
An impoverished, idealistic kid seeks revenge on a world that’s crumbling around him. Can he go through with it when a gentle old man stands between him and his plans?
Unknown, Sometime in the Future:
With her tiny community in peril, Konstance is the last hope for the human race. To find a way forward, she must look to the oldest stories of all for guidance.
Bound together by a single ancient text, these tales interweave to form a tapestry of solace and resilience and a celebration of storytelling itself. Like its predecessor All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr’s new novel is a tale of hope and of profound human connection.
I recently read this book for my book club, and it was initially supposed to have been picked from a “list of best books.” However, this style of book just misses the mark for me, though I can understand why people enjoy it.
Cloud Cuckoo Land is a tale that is woven around a translated story. We follow five different characters and their point of views, and we really do get to meet all the characters and their whole upbringing. Each character is set in their own unique circumstances, with the theme of stories tying them together. Each character arc is developed over the book, and their stories are woven together in the end in a rather unique and refreshing way.
My first complaint, however, is that the book is way too long. It was one of those books where the story really just revolves around the painting of each of the characters, and so if you’re not into a lot of extraneous character details, this may be a struggle for you as well. The beginning is definitely a bit of a slog with all the characters and details, and even my friends who enjoyed the book found the opener to be quite long. Most agree that there was a decent to good payoff though, so if you don’t mind slow entries, this may not be a problem.
The characters were mostly good. And I say mostly because I simply did not want to follow 1-2 of them. 1 or 2 I instantly liked, and the last one I quickly grew to like. But to me, that is simply not enough a book to keep me interested through it. The structure of the book is interesting though, they have this translated story that ties the whole thing together, and the way the stories are related but not forcibly tied together unnecessarily was certainly a good plot device.
The plot was slow at the beginning but definitely picked up when more events started happening. Some of the plot lines were much easier to get into, as the story was more apparent and the struggle and upcoming climax and resolution were more in sight. None of the plots were bad per se, I think I just had less interest in the kind of story that was built in a way where some events were really just for colour and depth and not much for the story. It just wasn’t my style in that sense.
Overall though, there were some good themes and I did enjoy the mythological elements and story telling. The themes and thought-provoking elements of the book were really well done, and whenever those came up, I immediately appreciated those and drank those up. Parts that weren’t like that though were quite slow for me. I didn’t dislike the book, and there were certainly redeeming elements, but for me this just wasn’t the kind of book I could fully enjoy.
Overall Recommendations
Cloud Cuckoo Land is a unique story and is actually a translated tale that binds the story of five people at different time and spaces. Characters are developed well and their stories are rich and nuanced. A bit of a slow start, and by a bit I mean maybe even up to about half the book, so watch out for that. But if you enjoy multiple POVs with a unifying theme and story, and lots of character exploration, this may be the one for you.
Down the Rabbit Hole 