Cloud Cuckoo Land
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Reviews
St Just Thursday Evening Reading Group 6th October 2022.
Cloud Cuckoo Land. Anthony Doerr.
Some of the group found this book somewhat challenging (and a few gave up before the end); others said they loved it.
The main obstacle was the multiple narratives, taking place in different historical eras. When starting to read the book, readers seemed to find it too disjointed, and had only just started to engage with a character when the focus shifted to something hugely different. The length of the book was also off-putting to those in this position.
The group members who persisted despite all this, or who liked it at the outset, thought that the story ‘seemed to clarify’, and in the end considered this to be a very good book. The underlying theme of the impending destruction of the planet came across very forcefully, along with the analogy of the planet as a space-ship. The main characters were ‘portrayed in very believable ways’, some more than others. The character of Seymour, in particular, seemed to resonate with readers: was he a villain or a victim? A person totally focussed on a cause and believing in it completely, but led to do wrong things in its cause – set in our own time also, his was an easy character to believe in.
A cleverly written book, a sad story about the way human beings damage both each other and the environment, but one which somehow seemed to be expressing hopeful sentiments as well. Ultimately an engaging book, but perhaps one demanding quite a bit of reader input!
