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A review by ptstewart
Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr
4.0
This is long. And it’s good, yes—really and truly, it’s good—but it’s long. And similarly, it’s very engaging, but it’s slow. It is absolutely true that had I been reading the book instead of listening to it, I would have put it down and never looked back.
A complicated story spanning seven hundred years and five lives, Cloud Cuckoo Land tangles it all in a web so delicate and precise, the reader almost wants it to be more, to be grander, but that might take away from the subtlety of life that Doerr mimics here. We are all connected, however minimally, and we all cause ripples.
I will say, the message that seems to ring in the ears of each character near the end is, for my taste, muddled. The sentiment was there, the importance of going home, of finding yourself and accepting yourself and your life, accepting the complexity and nuance of the world, was there. For me, the delivery, perhaps in the case of Konstance more than the others, fell flat.
I would not classify this a page turner; the stories did not entangle enough for me until about the midway point. It should be noted that I am against the use of so many perspectives, and the only reason I believe it works here is because they are, primarily, entirely separate, which also causes the aforementioned lack of entanglement that slows my interest. The medieval characters are less interesting than the other three (though I had a soft spot for Omier, given his love for his animals), and I did find myself zoning out sometimes during long descriptions. However, the unfolding of certain complications and intricacies near the end drew me much farther in, and while I am the first to say that a good final third does not make a good book, the preceding two thirds were thoughtful and beautiful and well-constructed, filled with unique characters worth rooting for (or worth rooting against; caring one way or another is enough for me), and the implications of adventure (though maybe not the execution of adventure), and I’ll never argue with that.
A complicated story spanning seven hundred years and five lives, Cloud Cuckoo Land tangles it all in a web so delicate and precise, the reader almost wants it to be more, to be grander, but that might take away from the subtlety of life that Doerr mimics here. We are all connected, however minimally, and we all cause ripples.
I will say, the message that seems to ring in the ears of each character near the end is, for my taste, muddled. The sentiment was there, the importance of going home, of finding yourself and accepting yourself and your life, accepting the complexity and nuance of the world, was there. For me, the delivery, perhaps in the case of Konstance more than the others, fell flat.
I would not classify this a page turner; the stories did not entangle enough for me until about the midway point. It should be noted that I am against the use of so many perspectives, and the only reason I believe it works here is because they are, primarily, entirely separate, which also causes the aforementioned lack of entanglement that slows my interest. The medieval characters are less interesting than the other three (though I had a soft spot for Omier, given his love for his animals), and I did find myself zoning out sometimes during long descriptions. However, the unfolding of certain complications and intricacies near the end drew me much farther in, and while I am the first to say that a good final third does not make a good book, the preceding two thirds were thoughtful and beautiful and well-constructed, filled with unique characters worth rooting for (or worth rooting against; caring one way or another is enough for me), and the implications of adventure (though maybe not the execution of adventure), and I’ll never argue with that.