Or the unresolvable mystery of something lost forever – and how, at a time of decline, that calls our attention to all we can save.Īmongst much else, there are also recurring themes of consumerism, greed and enough.

Or the sharing of stories and the stewardship of knowledge through time. Because this is a work of fiction and nothing is spelled out, others will find entirely different themes to explore, around history and identity.

You know that feeling with a novel with multiple storylines, when you turn the page and realise the next chapter is about character X, and your heart sinks a little? I didn’t get that with Cloud Cuckoo Land, and there is magic in the way Doerr winds them together across the ages, all the pieces slotting in as the book concludes.įor lovers of books and libraries, there is much to enjoy. Each of these characters encounters the lost Greek novel somehow, learning from it, protecting it, passing it on.Īll five of the characters’ stories are riveting in their own way, each one fully realised and sensitively handled. And finally, Konstance, who is on a spaceship sent out in hope from a dying earth. Seymour is a child with autism, whose actions later in life will profoundly impact others in the story. Zeno is drafted into the Korean war, where he struggles with his identity in a prisoner of war camp. Omeir is her contemporary, and a disfigured outcast.

Anna is in Constantinople in 1439, the city threatened by an invading army equipped with new-fangled weaponry of shock and awe. Fragments of this lost book form the backbone of the novel, with the stories of five other characters shaped around it. At the heart of it however, is lost Greek myth about a shepherd who seeks a mystical land of eternal plenty – the land of the title. It’s also got war, terrorism, daring escapes, romance, and spaceships. Cloud Cuckoo Land is a novel with lots to say, and it’s by Anthony Doerr, a Pulitzer Prize winner for his previous book All the Light we Cannot See.Ĭloud Cuckoo Land is about a book – sort of. I don’t review novels very often, but making an exception every once in a while is a good reminder that you can say all kinds of useful things through fiction, and you might reach a lot more people in the process.

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