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literaryvagabond
You’ve waited seven years for this. I’ve read it, and trust me, it’s well worth the wait.
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There are five stories, pastiche-style, spanning 1000 years: from 15th century Istanbul to a futuristic rocket ship community. A touch of Jeff VanderMeer and “Space Odyssey”—well, I never expected from Anthony Doerr. But otherwise, his trademark storytelling grace is there.
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You’ll find the endearing survivalist kids-during-wartime: a Bulgaria boy with a cleft lip, sisters raised by Sisters in a Constantinople orphanage during a Saracen attack. The 10-year-old girl who outsmarts the HAL-like computer.
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What pulls the stories together is a Greek codex/manuscript that survives each century.
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But for me, the heart and hammer of the book takes place in current day, small town Idaho, where the octogenarian library-volunteer finds himself protecting five youngsters (rehearsing a play of the Greek story) from an active shooter teen. This man Zeno, who cannot escape the missed-love-regret from his Korean War days, might be Doerr’s best creation.
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Doerr’s understated, richly poetic, modernist technique shields the built-in sentimentality from being maudlin.
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Cloud Cuckoo Land. Ambitious? Yes. Convoluted? No. Readable? Highly.

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How good it feels to read a damn good book of contemporary fiction. This is my first Anthony Doerr book and it definitely won’t be my last. What initially appealed to me first was the set up in 1453 Constantinople when it get taken over by the Ottoman Empire. There aren’t enough books about this time period and I thank Mr. Doerr for bringing it to the foreground. It is quite impressive how he was able to knit such a great story crossing 700 years of history. At first I couldn’t understand how he was going to succeed. To be able to connect those five very different POVs but it did and it was wonderful; I did not want the story to end. Anna was so courageous, Zeno was so brave and a good, good man. Seymour was so surprising. Omeir was touching.. Konstance was a badass. And all those characters were touched by the magical story of Diogenes Cloud Cuckoo Land. I will read it again and read more of Mr. Doerr in the future. A great read for this Christmassy period!

Thank you Net Galley and the publisher for this e-ARC in exchange of my honest review.

A real epic of a book spanning centuries and continents as it weaves together three stories connected by a fictitious lost Greek manuscript (based on a real lost Greek manuscript). This book pulls you in so thoroughly and manages to juggle so many distinct stories and characters. One storyline explores the ancient past during a siege in fifteenth century Constantinople. Another follows two characters through the more recent past and present as they struggle with being outsiders in an uncaring world. The final story shoots us forward into the future as a girl searches for answers about her father's favorite story while quarantined on a spaceship during an outbreak of a deadly illness. It's a lot of threads to follow, but Doerr manages to bring them all together beautifully. It's a real love letter to fiction.

My one complaint is that the radicalized character is very clearly coded as Autistic, which felt pretty icky. But he did get a redemption arc, so that's something, I guess.

While it is beautifully written, I had a difficult time in the beginning understanding how to read it. Doerr’s migrates between 5 main characters and centuries of time and experiences. However, even as I struggled I was compelled to keep on reading and eventually I reached the point where I couldn’t put it down.

"Cloud Cuckoo Land" by Anthony Doerr is based on a story written centuries ago by Antonius Diogenes in Ancient Greece which has not survived the centuries. The little we know of it comes from only mentions in other ancient texts which say it was a lighthearted fable written to lighten the interest of a dying child.
What Doerr has done is to retell Diogenes' Tale of a Fool who wants to dwell in a paradise of birds in the heavens but believes that he must take a rollicking path across various lands in the guise of all sorts of animals to arrive where he started.
NPR notes that "Between the covers, across hundreds of pages, he (Doerr) has everything — birth and death, love and war, heists, escapes, & the particular (though not unique) perils of growing up in 1453, 1940, 2020 and 2146." He breaks the story into a thousand pieces, then spends every page carefully putting it all back in order again. The main characters, who feature in their separate sections (diced in among one another) are:
Anna, a seamstress in 15th century Constantinople and Omeir, an ox herder in the Sultan's army who is Marching on this city.
Zeno Ninis, an 1950s ex-GI who spent months in a Korean prisoner of War camp alongside a British serviceman who had been a Greek master at a boy's school in London and sparked Zeno's interest in Ancient Greek. Because of Zeno's love of the tale, he introduces it to a group of modern day 5th graders who are stuck in the Library every afternoon because of smoke from our western wildfire. Their interest leads them in a project to re-tell Diogenes' tale in a play.
In addition, Konstance, a teenage American girl who is on a spaceship called the Argos bound for Beta Oph2 in Mission Year 65, sequestered in a sealed room with a computer named Sybil. 
Doerr takes the threads of these diverse groups and merges their mutual fascination with the ancient tale. Like a massive Jigsaw puzzle, it does all snap together.
The majority of critics have found Doerr's creation to be a monumental book which some have called "a joyous epic of love". Another found it so heavy that she wished she had the number of the mobile phone which could activate the bomb to destroy it. Readers will find it to be a delightful puzzle.

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr
Genre: Historical Fiction | Literary Fiction
Pub Date: 28 Sept 2021
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 5/5 stars!!!

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐞: An imaginative coming of age story for children in troubled times who find their way through them with resilience, hope—and a book.

Anna lives in a convent of sorts in Constantinople among women who spend their lives embroidering the robes of powerful and abusive priests. She learns to read in secret where discovers a book, the story of Aethon. Outside the walls of Anna’s Constantinople is Omeir, a shunned village boy conscripted into the Sultan’s invading army.

500 years later, Zeno rehearses the local children in a play adaptation of the book Anna. Unbeknownst to them, hidden among the library stacks below is a bomb, planted by a troubled, idealistic teenager named Seymour.

On the interstellar ship Argos, we find child of the future Konstance alone in a vault, copying down the story of Aethon as told to her by her father. She's never set foot on Earth, yet the words of its ancient inhabitants endure in her.

Anna, Omeir, Zeno, Seymour & Konstance are spectacularly intertwined by the transporting words of Doerr. They are dreamers & pariahs bound by the cruel rules of society; they are intellectual warriors who find courage & strength in the face of danger; & they are flawed creatures who are capable of great love and redemption.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐆𝐨𝐨𝐝: Absolutely could not put it down!! I know Doerr has a legion of loyal fans, but he was new to me and now I must read everything he’s ever written. I sometimes struggle with remembering all the details or digesting several characters and worlds when multiple timelines are used, but I did not do so here. It felt like a real accomplishment made possibly by highly engrossing writing.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐚𝐝: It was frightfully thick but don’tdon’t let that heft intimidate you from the layered and lovely worlds within.

Read if you:
🏡Are a bibliophile
🏡Took Latin in high school—classics nerds unite!
🏡Have a well-worn library card in your wallet
🏡Soak up rich characters like a biscuit in coffee

Thank you to @NetGalley and @scribner for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

With all of the hype surrounding the book, I was looking forward to reading this novel. I must admit that I struggled with it at first. The story that intertwines the lives of Konstance, Anna, Omeir, and Seymour seemed out of place until the story really started to unfold. The book they are all reading (same as the title of the novel) was written in Greek and provided a source of hope for these young ones living through perilous times, whether it was during the siege of Constantinople in the 1400s or some future world several hundred years from now. Once I was about halfway through the novel and really understood the reason for the various points of view and was able to better grasp the story of Aethon from the Greek story of Cloud Cuckoo Land, I was hooked.

I was absolutely blown away by this book in the same way I was by his first book, All The Light We Cannot See. They’re alike in a lot of ways: slow burns, very literary, a lot of character development but not a lot of plot. This is not typically what I like in a book, but I can’t help but acknowledge how good his writing truly is. The character of Seymour should be reprehensible, but yet I felt sorry for him. The character of Omeir and Anna should’ve been so distant from my life and experiences as to be unrelatable, and yet I felt I could truly see them. I wanted to know more about Zeno and I wanted so badly to liberate Konstance from the prison she lived in. I wondered throughout the entire book how he was going to make everything connect, and yet somehow he did so in a very pleasing and cohesive manner. I could’ve done without the folios honestly, and I didn’t read them for the most part. What’s funny is that this entire book is about Aethon’s journey and story and how it connected generations, and I couldn’t care less about it. Sometimes it isn’t about the story—it’s about how it impacts the people who read it. Which is, in a way, super meta and kind of the point.

Anthony Doerr at his best. Three time periods, many complications, many characters, and yet it comes together and we care about most of the characters. It’s slow starting, but stay with it.

Thanks to netgalley.com for the ARC (even though I read it after it came out).

This was such a great book...It was a bit confusing at first but once I figured out all the characters and their timelines, it was easy to follow along. I loved all the references to Greek history and the language and religion as that is my background. The stories were both heartbreaking and hopeful at the same time and came to a good conclusion at the end.

Cloud Cuckoo Land is a beautifully written book that I just did not enjoy.. I was so excited to read this one as I enjoyed his last novel, but I think this is an example of where the multiple story lines did not work. I think we could have cut out a few and had a much better book. There were a lot of moving parts and it was confusing for far to long (not to mention it is a long book). It didn't work for me, but many people are enjoying this book (it was already nominated for awards) so if you like high literary fiction then check it out.

Thank you to Netgalley, Scribner Books and Simon & Schuster for the electronic copy of this book.

Dystopian fiction is not a favorite of mine. I very much enjoyed Doerr’s first book, even though war is far from utopia, so looked forward to reading Cloud Cuckoo Land. Though the writing was excellent, the book did not live up to my expectations due to the subject and setting. Those who loved Hunger Games or similar books will truly enjoy this one.

I'm so late on reviewing this book and I still cannot fully express my feelings towards it.
I loved watching as these three separate and amazing stories started to connect to each other - it was so brilliantly done and I loved how they were connected through more than just a story. This book was filled with passion and heartbreak, joy and many tears. Anthony Doerr can do no wrong and I cannot wait to see what he writes next.

Wars, siege, ecofiction, science fiction. Disabilities, exclusion, orphans. 1400s, 1930s-50s, 1970s, 2010s, 2150s. This book has a little bit of everything. And I found this book very readable (even on kindle--it did NOT feel like 600 pages), but also just to be too much. Does it need everything? No. It's a weird mashup of Cloud Atlas and Bewilderment, and even my old fave The Girl in Hyancinth Blue--only here, the character that brings all of these different storylines together is a story itself. It also feels like Doerr maybe should have started his own universe (a la David Mitchell) rather than packed all of this into here. It's unwieldy and I wanted both less of some storylines and also more detail from some of the storylines at the same time. It's also just sad and emotional. Every one of the storylines just hit me in the gut and really, one of those is more than enough from me for any novel.

That said, I read it in 7 days while also reading other books. It definitely pulled me forward and made me keep reading.

I absolutely LOVED All the Light We Cannot See, so I had high hopes for this book. Unfortunately, it just fell flat for me. The story was too difficult to follow and it jumped around too much. I appreciate the opportunity to read and review this story.

After reading and loving this author’s last book, All The Light We Cannot See, I had to have this book. However, it fell super flat for me. I did not enjoy the layout and the back and forth. It became hard to follow with all of the characters and it was just not my type of book. I really wanted to love it, and I’m afraid that’s why I ended up not liking it.

Engaging, beautifully constructed, lovely writing. It took a little while for me to get into this, as there were a lot of characters and story lines to keep straight, but I'm so glad I invested the time and energy. I don't re-read many books, but I think this one is so intricate that I may go back and read it more slowly. I thought the New York Times was spot in it's review of the book when it said, "Although “Cloud Cuckoo Land” is a thoughtful, learned book, it’s also accessible".

Slow moving stories of five characters loosely connected by a nonsensical Greek story, “Cloud Cuckoo Land”. Doerr was trying to make a point but it was buried beneath all the words. It only became somewhat interesting during the last one hundred pages.
Don’t waste your time on this one. Doerr’s “All The Light We Cannot See” was amazing; Cuckoo Land is not.
Advanced reader copy courtesy of the publishers at NetGalley for review.

Such a sweeping novel - I really enjoyed how this story spread across geography and time. Despite its length, it just flew by for me. Absolutely would recommend.

I did not know what to expect going into this story other than the fact that everyone loved it. It is not what I usually think of when I think of Historical Fiction books but I preferred it. The multiple story lines/timelines were confusing at first but I grew to really enjoy them. I will definitely be recommending this title.