The fragrance of old and new books- you ask any book lover and this stands apart as one of their indulgences. Cloud Cuckoo land is a story that celebrates the love for books and gives you a whiff of this fragrance, through words.
Set in three timelines and places (15th Century-Constantinople, 2020 - Idaho and in a certain unspecified near future timeframe in an interstellar ship), the book is a clever compilation of narratives from 5 protagonists whose destinies are interlinked to help uplift the destiny of a lost ancient text while the text in many ways becomes their beacon of hope to make progress in life and to march onwards. In a beautiful symbiotic relationship, the book saves them as much as they help resurrect the book.
With his clever writing style, Anthony Doerr makes the reader work towards building that narrative much like a jigsaw puzzle and that's part of the thrill of reading this book. Chapters are small yet very detailed in presentation, which gives the impression of one watching a canvas being painted. In certain ways it felt like the author was talking about his own experiences in writing- be it the pain to decide on the specific words to communicate something or the pain in choosing the tense of narration. With 5 protagonists and a book within the book, he has managed to weave in 6 different story lines within the novel.
The book touches upon a wide variety of subjects and genres - ecoterrorism, science fiction, subjects of inclusion, pandemic and quarantine. The totem of the owl, the superstitions everything makes it look like magic realism but it is most beautiful when you peel the layers and understand what they stand for and how the individuals in each era have navigated through their lives.
The author has accomplished conveying the message of hope in the most unconventional of ways and the success of it is in making it possible without it being preachy. This is definitely one of those books that I would pick up to reread later to absorb and relive the ideas.
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