Cloud Cuckoo Land

Cloud Cuckoo Land is a character driven exploration of the power of the written word, where the focus jumps between many different perspectives set in ancient Constantinople, present day Idaho, and a near future generation ship. The five main characters have but a few things in common, including losing at least one parent and finding themselves in bleak situations. Most important to the novel is that they all have a personal connection to a fictitious ancient text, written in Greek and discovered on wooden tablets. Snippets of this farcical and irreverent tale that comment on death, envy, the pursuit of happiness, and what is enough function as a sort of interstitial material in between perspective changes, and is referenced by the characters themselves often. As I eluded to before, while Cloud Cuckoo Land does have some plot, it's far more focused on the individual lives of these characters. If you're looking for a compelling narrative story, I suggest you look elsewhere, though there is an overarching plot of how this text got passed down through the ages. Who saved it, who translated it, who tended to it when it was forgot, these are questions that linger for a long time.

Language is an escape, a crease in the mind out of the horrors that the characters find themselves in. Really this is a book centered around the power of stories and language. How these thing unite and tie us together across culture and time. It's also about the fragility of these stories, how incredible it is that things have survived as long as they have, through the determination of a few good souls. This fragility extends into our own lives, and Doerr uses the characters to show just how vulnerable we are to circumstances entirely out of our control. Doerr has a respect and reverence for libraries, librarians, and readers, especially linguists that breath life back into forgotten texts. At a certain point Cloud Cuckoo Land is a readers novel, something that will find receptive ears with the most dedicated book worms among us.

My main complaint is that you can see the writing on the wall for most of these narrative threads, and the author purposefully drags them out an annoying way. I found myself losing interest despite Doerr's attempts at rising tension. Humorously, I first had this thought right before Doerr makes a point about ancient bards delaying the climax of the story to continue getting room and board. Too bad though, since I picked this up second hand. I will say that the narrative set on the generation ship has the most going for it, and there were some twists that I didn't see coming. Doerr also has a tendency for long-winded descriptions and run-on sentences that can be mind numbing. I noticed my mind wandering a little during the long sections of descriptions event though the prose itself is quite easy and approachable to read. While I do think that he paints a good picture, a little bit more brevity would've been appreciated.

What Doerr does best is writing complex characters with actions that harmonize with their motivations. I can say that I cared for all of them in the end, precisely because so much time was spent diving into their inner worlds.

Cloud Cuckoo Land has to be one of the preferred contemporary fiction titles that I've read over the last few years. I find myself not connecting a lot with newer stuff, so this was a present surprise. I initially picked it up because I heard that it had some science fiction elements, but I can't really agree with this. While a third of it has superficial science fiction motifs, it has nothing to do with the meat of the story. This is clear in that this story in particular has an unsatisfying and unexplained ending that that resolves none of the hanging implications it created.