Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsWell-intentioned but ponderous
Reviewed in Australia on 17 March 2022
Books matter. Writing, reading, preserving and sharing books are worthwhile humanistic pursuits, never less so than in times of war. It’s a thesis we can all agree on, especially here amongst fellow readers. I’m feeling all warm and fuzzy just writing this.
This thematic thread doesn’t just run through Cloud Cuckoo Land, it is the one idea that holds up the entire edifice, a flimsy foundation for a monumental novel that is always on the brink of crashing down.
It doesn’t crumble. Anthony Doerr is a skilled and imaginative writer. He also built his opus as three distinct but interwoven stories, an interrupted narrative that promises depth - just around the corner, reader! - but mostly delivers scope. And lots of it.
Even summarizing the three stories is preemptively exhausting. Suffice to say they take place in different periods – the 1453 siege of Constantinople, a beleaguered 20th century and a distant future where humans travel to Mars, our civilization in tow. All three narratives suggest literature is our one redemptive feature as a species, yet the convoluted structure cannot hide that taken in isolation and read linearly, each tale is somewhat pedestrian in its telling.
To make sure we care – and it’s important that we do, there are over 600 pages to get through – the author repeatedly puts young people (and animals) in harm’s way. That slightly formulaic brand of melodrama worked wonders in uber-bestseller All The Light We Cannot See, but wears thin here, perhaps because the device is used ad nauseam.
Books are messages across cultures and eras, and we readers have a responsibility of stewardship. It’s a beautiful sentiment nearly crushed under the sheer weight of storytelling. At the risk of letting everyone down, I will relinquish my responsibility in this case and fail to recommend the book to others. Rest easy, though, Cloud Cuckoo Land is already adored by many and will be read long after we’ve left our dying planet and settled on Mars.
