It's not that often that a book really really blows my mind, but Cloud Cuckoo Land knocked my socks off. It's the kind of book that I will re-read. The kind of book that I will miss the experience of reading for the first time through. The kind of book that makes me crave excellent writing and so outside-the-box storylines. The kind of book where stories are woven together in such a remarkable way. I crave more books like this.
The book tells three different stories set in three different time periods: Anna and Omeir in 1453 during the siege and eventually capture of Constantinople by the Ottoman Empire (Anna, a poor orphan who embroiders vestments for priests with her sister but dreams of flying and learns to read, a big no-no for women; Omeir, a boy with a cleft lip, believed to be a demon by small-minded peasants, and lives in the country with his family and his two remarkably strong oxen), Zeno and Seymour in current day Idaho (Zeno, a Korean war vet and librarian who has translated an important ancient Greek text; Seymour, a boy/teenager on the spectrum with a sensory disorder who finds peace in the woods near his home and the rare owl he sees only to have it all taken away by developers), and Konstance in an undefined date in the future (living on a spaceship called the Argos after the climate destruction of earth, bound for a new, Earth-similar planet). So even just those descriptions have you saying "WTF," right??
The stories are woven together so beautifully, in particular, based on the Greek story of Aethon, a donkey who wants to rise above his station in life, written by Antonius Diogenes. Anna is saving the already degraded scrolls of the story before the city is destroyed, the story comes to Zeno after hundreds of years for translation, and the story becomes important to Konstance, having been told the story by her father, but finding out that his knowledge/history with the story unlocks some critical information for her.
And it's not just how this story links the three timelines together, but what the story is about and how it reflects the desires of all of the characters - just like Aethon the donkey, wanting to fly above the world to somewhere different than they are, but maybe discovering that where they are isn't all that terrible in the end.
I feel like I'm not even remotely giving this novel justice. It was all parts beautiful, suspenseful, heart-breaking, and with at least one surprise that I was NOT prepared for. You will not regret reading this book - I'm going to become that person who shoves this book down everyone's throat because I loved it that much and I want them to love it too.
Next up, back to the lists with The Last of the Mohicans. Never seen the movie and don't really have a good sense what it is about other than Native Americans.
By the way, have I mentioned that you should go out and read Cloud Cuckoo Land? Because you should. I'll probably mention it again. And again.
