Anthony Doerr weaves together five tales in ‘Cloud Cuckoo Land’
In his new novel, “Cloud Cuckoo Land,” Anthony Doerr manages to create a plot that begins in the time of the ancient Greeks and travels all the way to 125 years into the future.
Along the way, he develops a rich roster of characters: ancient Greek playwrights and a shepherd who falls under the spell of their creations; Anna and Omeir, two 13-year old peasants whose lives will intersect in and around 15th century Constantinople; Seymour, a troubled teenager, and Zeno, an octogenarian war veteran, who will meet on a catastrophic day in the present at a public library in Idaho; and teenage Konstance and her family, bound for an exoplanet on an interstellar ship in the 22nd century.
Miraculously, there is a connection between all of these characters and even more miraculously, their stories blend and merge into an exciting, textured page-turner.
Inspired by Aristophanes’ comedy “The Birds,” Doerr’s tale centers on a fictional ancient text (which Doerr credits to the real Antonius Diogenes) about Aethon, a Greek shepherd who longs to be turned into a bird and fly to a magical land in the clouds where pain and suffering do not exist.
In different forms, Aethon’s tale and the concept of a cloud cuckoo land are discovered and considered by Doerr’s other characters as all, in their own times, endure war, a beleaguered environment and the consequences of their own actions.
Throughout, Doerr spins a story that is virtually devoid of villains and rich with the notion that the lives of all humans are connected. He explored that same concept in his 2014 book set during World War II, “All the Light We Cannot See,” winner of a Pulitzer Prize.
Doerr dedicates “Cloud Cuckoo Land” to “librarians then, now, and in the years to come,” emphasizing what his novel so beautifully illustrates: story is a great and powerful thing.
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