“Is the village Konstance lives in one of the last in the world? Are these the people who will repopulate the earth or are they still caught in its final destruction?”
You think that when Konstance made it to earth, there were no people there?? I didn’t get that at all. I assumed she just broke out of Argos and found earth again, and that it was populated. I didn’t get any sense either way that these people will either repopulate or cause final destruction. I think Konstance was just happy to have a quiet, simple life on earth.
I didn’t think Earth had been destroyed, though it might be in worse shape than now or Seymour’s time due to global warming. I was sort of surprised she just stayed put, but maybe she felt like she’d already explored the world via the library?
I like the observation about the threads parallels. I always wonder how much of this an author does deliberately and how much is just happy accidents, or subconscious.
As I recall there was a plaque mentioned in a chapter before the bomb incident, in honor of Zeno’s bravery protecting the children. Doer spared us the gory details, but from these final words in the chapter, I assumed the phone rang five times, he ran past everyone, the bomb squad,Marian the beloved librarian, out to the lake. ………
From the backpack comes the fourth ring. One ring left to live. For a quarter second, he glimpses Marian crouched behind a police car, sweet Marian in her cherry-red coat with her almond eyes and paint-flecked jeans; she watches him with a hand over her mouth, Marian the Librarian, whose face, every summer, becomes a sandstorm of freckles.
Regarding Zeno’s death ……
Ahead is the lake, frozen and white. “Why,” says one librarian, “you don’t look warm at all.” “Where,” says the other, “is your mother?” He runs through the snow, and for`the fifth time the phone rin
**** the word ring, isn’t finished in my kindle version. It’s just “rin”
In the library Konstance asks “Who was Zeno Ninis?” and gets birth certificate, prisoner of war records, deed to a house, etc. She also gets
obituaries and articles detailing how at the age of eighty-six, on the twentieth of February in the year 2020, Zeno Ninis died protecting five children who were trapped in a rural library by a terrorist.
COURAGEOUS KOREA VET SAVES KIDS AND LIBRARY, reads one headline. IDAHO HERO MOURNED, reads another.
[p. 423]
Then on page 544-45, Zeno asks Seymour how the bombs go off. Answer: 5th ring. Zeno then asks if anyone else has the number. Answer: yes, someone else can detonate them. Zeno picks up a backpack to carry it out and the phone on the bomb rings
Then you get a couple scattered Seymour sections and I do mean scattered - page 561 and then again at 599. No mention of Zeno till the epilogue and then starting at p. 617 you count the rings as he tries to get the bomb as far away from the library and children as he can. Third ring … fourth ring … and
He runs through the snow, and for the fifth time the phone rin
The bomb goes off at the fifth ring. Zeno dies trying to save the children.
I found it ironic because he always thought of himself as a coward but dies a hero.
And for what it’s worth, Zeno is my favorite character.
And another for what it’s worth, I’m annoyed all over again that the narrative has to be that disjointed. Zeno-and-his-heroic tidbits are dropped from page 423 to 618, intermixed each of the other characters and timelines.
And even another for what it’s worth, while Zeno is my favorite character, this book is not about characters or even plot but an idea. Characters and plot serve that idea.
Yes, I think that “Rin” was shorthand for and then the bomb exploded. Still seems to me like Seymore should have been charged with his death.
@ignatius I agree that the novel was mostly about idea and I prefer character driven novels generally, but I felt that all of the characters had enough agency that I didn’t feel like they were only created to serve the idea.
I think someone said before the discussion that they re-read the novel following each of the threads separately. I’m curious how it seemed to read it that way. I did like Zeno a lot.
When I discovered that the Argos was not in space, but actually parked on Earth, it made sense to me. I thought it was a homage to The Time Machine, wherein the Earth was nearly destroyed by the foolishness of its inhabitants, and one group of humans went below the earth, while the other decided to try its chances above ground.
My name is of no consequence. The important thing you should know is that I am the last who remembers how each of us, man and woman, made his own decision. Some chose to take refuge in the great caverns and find a new way of life far below the earth’s surface. The rest of us decided to take our chances in the sunlight, small as those chances might be.
However, unlike the subterranean world in The Time Machine, the Argos isn’t inhabited for long (@Caraid, I think your calculations are spot-on). When Konstance emerges, everything appears to be fine–the danger has passed–at least, as far as we know (since she marries and has children).
I thoroughly enjoyed the book, but had to take a little break sometime in the middle when the bleakness of Seymour, global warming, and Zeno’s heartbreak over Rex were at their darkest. I found all the stories interesting, but not equally interesting all the time. Didn’t see it coming that the Argos was sitting on Earth - that was fun! But I don’t feel like I understand how the people involved with that project intended for it to play out? In 500 years, was Sybil suppose to be like “alright, folks, we’re here!” and the 5x generations of explorers would step out on Earth thinking they were on Beta Oph2 and start planting crops and building huts?
Also, I read Cuckoo Land right after reading Project Hail Mary - Andy Wier and it was super interesting to consider the Argos project in light of Project Hail Mary!
I think they were all “snookered,” as @mathmom put it, and that Konstance’s father put her in the vault as a last-ditch, desperate attempt to save her life, as everyone on the ship was dying rapidly. The question is, if the pathogen came from outside the ship (as suggested by the ant), why is everyone (it seems) okay when Konstance emerges? Perhaps the deadly illness had run its course in the year that she was locked in the vault, but that seems a little too tidy.
The story made me feel the climate crisis on earth was leading to an apocalyptic change. The photos Seymour hid in the atlas were images of dried out lands, people protesting, and fights for water. Catastrophic climate change was also the reason for Argos. Konstance’s father said there had been one green year in the last 13 years (in Australia) when he applied to join Argos. Konstance settles in Greenland and only mentions it being hot, but certainly places like Greenland would still be one of the cooler, more inhabital places left on earth in a climate apocalypse. I looked up Qaanaaq, Greenland’s current average temperatures. Daytime averages range from a low of -10F in the coldest of winter to a high of 38F in the warmest of summer.
I definitely still have questions. It seems like a quick timeline for an apocalypse. I hope humans can do better, create better technology, and save lives, but I’m not sure that’s what happened in this story. I don’t think Konstance’s village in Greenland has the only survivors, but I don’t think Konstance’s earth is the same as her father’s, which was already getting bad. The story makes me feel like much of the Earth may already be uninhabitable or close to getting there.
Above @Marilyn mentioned the importance the role home plays in the story. In all the stories the characters are trying to go home, either the one they know, or one they can create. Konstance’s only home was Argos. She knew nothing else. She is living where she can still see Argos, which is also her parents’ grave and the grave of everyone else she ever knew up to the age of 14.
It looks like my memory failed me on Zeno’s death. The article does not say he was murdered, just that he was a hero.
Kudos to Doer, for protecting the reader from two gruesome events.
@Caraid, in a 600 page novel he skimmed over graphic details about the bomb going off, so much so, I’m sure many readers weren’t quite sure what exactly happened.
And, the horror, of Anna, and other women. being captured , raped, enslaved as Constantinople fell, was avoided by allowing Anna to choose to be with kind Omeir. Whew!!!
Was it just coincidence a character was named Omicron ? And, can’t we all relate to a virus aboard a space vehicle or circulating earth more than ever before ! Relatable!!
@VeryHappy every headline I now read about effects of climate change reminds me of something in Doer’s book.
The same site also has a different set of discussion questions. Again, feel free to ignore, but sometimes they act as a reminder for some part of the book you want to talk about:
Discussion Questions - Set #2
What are your initial thoughts on Konstance and her situation? Does your impression of her change throughout the book?
How would you describe the personality of Zeno as a boy? How does his sexuality affect him, and why do you think Zeno enlists in the military?
How would you describe Zeno’s personality and why do you think Zeno is unable to go with Rex’s escape plan?
What are your initial thoughts on Seymour when we meet him in the book? How does your perception of him change as you learn about him as a child? How does his upbringing affect how things turn out for him?
What did you think of the story of Aethon in Diogenes’s Cloud Cuckoo Land? Are there other stories it reminds you of? What about the story appeals to you or doesn’t appeal to you? Do you think this story would provide comfort to a dying girl?
What did you think of the way the Doerr incorporates the Cloud Cuckoo Land story into the book? How did this add or detract from the narrative for you?
In what ways can the characters (like Anna, Omeir, Zeno, etc.) relate to Aethon’s story? How are their own journeys mirrored by the one told in Cloud Cuckoo Land?
What did you think of the way Doerr structures his narrative? Did you like the way the story it told and the pacing of it?
What do you think of the journey that the Cloud Cuckoo Land book takes (from being found in the priory all the way into the future)? Why do you think Doerr has chosen to tell this story and did you find it meaningful?
What did you think of Seymour by the end of the book?
Why do you think Zeno makes the decision he makes at the end regarding the bomb?
Which character in the book did you like the most? Which storyline appealed to you the most and why? Which storyline appealed to you the least?
What were your favorite and least favorite aspects of this story?
Parts of Cloud Cuckoo Land were heavily degraded, such as the last folio. Were there parts where you had ideas for what could have happened in those missing sections? What do you think about the conclusion that Zeno reaches about how the story ends?
What did you think of the ending of the book? Would you have changed anything? What questions did you have left over?
That was me. I. I needed to do that to make sure I understood each story. Especially because not only were the stories mixed up through the book, but even each story had a forward-and-backward look. Not chronological, in other words. We see old Zeno at the library before we see young Zeno, and then we hear of Hillary in London before we know who s/he is. So I wanted to at least get each story straight.
I can understand the need to reread, to dissect this beast of a book. I can’t imagine Doer’s storyboard, or outline, or blueprint for this maze.
I have a pile of post it notes, I wrote, while reading this book. It was dense, but Doer’s writing style, simple, austere,concise, short sentences, short chapter, made this an enjoyable reading experience for me.
One annoying thing I noticed, was on every kindle page, a mention of some kind of bird. At first I found it amusing, but then it became so annoying!