Rating
Synopsis
When everything is lost, it’s our stories that survive.
Constantinople, 1453:
An orphaned seamstress and a cursed boy who has 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. She must look to the oldest stories for guidance to find a way forward.
Bound together by a single ancient text, these tales interweave to form a tapestry of solace, resilience, and a celebration of storytelling itself.
Review
There is a lot to love about Anthony Doerr’s Cloud Cuckoo Land. It’s a story about the power of stories. About how important stories are to us as human beings. How they are so intrinsically woven into our cultures and ways of life. And how even the oldest stories still have the power to impact us.
This should be a must-read if you are a lover of stories.
The story shifts between five characters spread out over hundreds of years, all connected by an ancient (fictitious) text written by Antonius Diogenes, Cloud Cuckoo Land. The story enters all of their lives at the moment when they need it the most and helps them to overcome various struggles. It is found in Constantinople, translated in Idaho and used as a guide in the future.
The story is so well written, with some incredible descriptions and dialogue that draw you into the stories told within. It helps to make the characters and settings come alive and gives them a 3D quality.
I will warn you that while the writing of Cloud Cuckoo Land is rather beautiful, the beginning was a little confusing. It took some time to work out what was happening and what direction it was going. This may be because the title and cover made me think it was a fantasy novel. It, in fact, is not. Not even slightly. Don’t be fooled! I have classified it as literary fiction simply because it crosses genres. There is an element of historical fiction, contemporary fiction and future fiction (which I wouldn’t consider Sci-fi).
There are a lot of topics covered with the 622 pages. There are discussions on love, friendships, and human nature. These discussions also cross into religion, belief, the environment and humanity's impact on it.
I enjoyed Cloud Cuckoo Land, even though it wasn’t quite what I expected it to be.
If you haven’t already, I suggest giving it a go.
