Book Short
“Cloud Cuckoo Land” by Anthony Doerr
Review by Stephanie Miller
It is perhaps no surprise that many authors write about the transformative power of books. Imagine then, a novel in which a single ancient tale about a city in the air motivates a cast of improbable heroes to follow their most outrageous ambitions.
In his newest novel named after this heavenly apparition, “Cloud Cuckoo Land,” author Anthony Doerr, Pulitzer Prize winner for “All the Light We Cannot See,” gives us a soaring novel about the commonality of human desire. In the prologue, we learn the opening lines of a (fictional) first-century Greek story attributed to the philosopher Diogenes, “Stranger, whomever you are, open this to learn what will amaze you.”
And then Doerr amazes us. He gives us a sweeping web of strong-willed characters, many of them children, and we travel with them through desperate adventures of self-discovery and periods of aching yearning. Each with the same talisman: an ancient story of personal growth and triumph. They are dreamers. And outsiders. And warriors for truth. The novel reminds us that people are widely interconnected – despite differences in economic position, faith, nationality, age, and even across past and future centuries. And we are stewards of our lives, our planet, and each other.
The Story
We meet Zeno, an elderly librarian with the heart of a poet rehearsing an ancient play with a group of fifth graders. Unbeknownst to them, a ticking bomb is placed among the books by a troubled young man, Seymour.
In another kind of siege, we meet 13-year-old Anna, an orphan, living 600 years earlier in war-torn Constantinople, who, despite the scolding of the women who raise her, is restless and curious and ingeniously learns to read by charming an irascible tutor desperate for an attentive student. Searching for treasure to sell, she discovers a cache of old manuscripts.
Outside the walls is Omeir, conscripted into the invading army with his beloved oxen, the only source of prosperity his family owns. He and Anna meet.
We enter the interstellar ship Argos, where young Konstance is piecing together scraps of paper on which she’s written parts of an ancient tale told to her by her father. She has never stepped foot on earth.
This gorgeous story is told in alternating chapters in the voice of each character. Although each character lives in different times and places, sharp readers will catch the subtle references which link characters to each other. I found myself pausing, considering how another character had dealt with something similar, paging backward to find the reference, then moving on with a satisfying appreciation for Doerr’s talent. This novel is a keeper.
“Cloud Cuckoo Land” is available in hardcover at all local bookstores and the Portland Public Library.
Micro-Shorts
“Small Things Like These” by Claire Keegan
It’s Christmas 1985 in a small Irish town. Bill Furlong, the local coal merchant, sees something at the convent where young girls are hidden away and struggles with the tradition of complicity in a society controlled by the church. This is a beautifully constructed small tale, challenging each of us to confront our willingness to stand up for fair treatment of others when we see abuse or discrimination.
“Miss Benton’s Beetle” by Rachel Joyce
What would you give up to follow your dream? A British spinster in the 1950s, mocked relentlessly by her domestic science students, is driven to frantically throw away her staid, unhappy life and travels literally to the other side of the world to find a golden beetle that no one has ever seen. Along the way, she must deal with her long-suppressed grief and suffer innumerable indignities. Emancipating post-war heroines is a hard genre to pull off, but this one works well and is alternately funny, interesting (who knew beetles were so varied?!), and poignant. A delightful story, a great beach or rainy afternoon read, and you will want to invite (most of) the characters over for tea.
Bayside resident Stephanie Miller is a voracious reader and bibliophile and spends a lot of time lost in the stacks of bookstores and libraries. Find her online @StephanieSAM.
