Their journeys leave footprints across our hearts. Doerr’s characters are astoundingly resilient, suggesting that we may yet save ourselves, with literature an essential tool. a profound compassion undergirds the novel as the pieces snap into place. An intricate design emerges: Doerr’s a soothsayer obsessed with our survival, fearing the worst. Layer by layer, Doerr builds a cathedral of a novel, rich with naves and transepts and soaring stained-glass windows, and yet he keeps us close to the pages, turning and turning. Doerr guides us through lavish backstories and broken hearts, war and peace, each chapter a masterstroke. The trope of the child in jeopardy is hardly original, but Doerr digs deep. In a big fiction year - and make no mistake, 2021 has been epic - Cloud Cuckoo Land stands out. Doerr’s reach is galactic, but there’s also a surprising intimacy here, as the elements orbit around a Greek text that has all but vanished. If All the Light We Cannot See was a lyrical tour de force, Cloud Cuckoo Land is a David Mitchell-esque maze of interlocking stories and characters in three different timestreams, past, present, and future. Cloud Cuckoo Land, erudite, exuberant new work, taps all his gifts while moving in a bold, fresh direction.
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