Seriously though, the book is carefully crafted, but the master in that regard is a previous CC Book Club selection, The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton. I’ve yet to see its match in complexity of structure and symbolism.
That’s what I don’t quite get about my reading experience in this instance. I loved The Luminaries and Cloud Atlas. Here, in general, I would get interested in characters or plot and then - poof - gone. I never attached and for some reason felt a lack of suspense. Obviously the book survives, so I never worried too much. Again, I enjoyed what I read but was never in a hurry to grab the book again. Part of my problem is that I read more than one book at a time and this wasn’t the one I wanted when I sat down to read. My interest picked up some time around page 400. My major critique is that I actually felt the author pulling those various strings of his as he wrote. Maybe a case of too smart for his own good. While I like each of the characters and their stories, they are always secondary to the author’s “craft”.
Don’t misunderstand me. I like the book. The difference is that I don’t love it.
I told my librarian daughter that I was the odd man out here. One and all seem to love the book. She laughed and said someone isn’t being honest or rather not posting. (She obviously wasn’t a fan. She did think I would be because I loved Cloud Atlas).
The biggest surprise came when Konstance finds she’s not traveling through space. Seems cruel overall. If the pandemic hadn’t happened, all those people would have lived and eventually died as nothing more than an experiment.
I did love it, but I also had serious reservations. The other book I was reading at the time (and am still reading!) is so dark that I dread picking it up to find out who dies next. (It’s a sort of Godfather tale set in a Hong Kong-like place with people getting extra powers from jade.) There’s the possibility that everyone will come to their senses and stop fighting, but I am not counting on it!
As to The Luminairies, I liked it, but did not love it. It’s been a while, but I know I did not catch on to any of the structure or most of the symbolism. I think there was also some note of magical realism towards the end that caught me totally off guard. And I didn’t find the characters particularly appealing.
I found the Omier sections of the books the most hard to read. All that trudging on the road! All that misery!
I agree about the Omeir sections being miserable. Dozens and dozens of pages about dragging the canon, almost going in the river, oxes getting eaten right and left. The second time I read the book, I skimmed most of that.
I didn’t love the book. I had a difficult time getting into it, since it switched stories frequently, so I re-started it and then re-re-started it so I could tell who was who. I felt, and still feel, that’s it’s just separate, diverse stories with a few common threads, but I didn’t feel that it merged into a cohesive whole. I have held back with my point of view because I was hoping all you smart people would point out what I was missing and I’d go “Aha!!” – but that’s hasn’t happened yet.
Has anyone mentioned that libraries and librarians run throughout the various timelines? Anna, Zeno and Seymour throughout their lives and Konstance on the Argos all experience the wonders of libraries and the kindness of librarians (though it’s looser in Anna and Omeir’s time).
Doerr also dedicated the book to librarians - past, present, future.
I liked the book a lot (maybe even loved it, despite my confusion at various parts). But possibly that is because my prior book**, for a local/Zoom book club was usually a chore to read. Cuckoo was easy to pick up and enjoy.
** “The Sellout” (Paul Beatty) … a book loved by many readers and critics…. but endured by me for exposure to “something different” and occasional appreciation of its humor and satire. (3 of the 7 in our club opted to not even finish).
@ignatius, it turns out Doer spent many hours in library, his safe haven, and in this interview, he admits there are parts of Seymour in him. He’s angry about the destruction of the environment,
Here is what he says about Libraries, ( also I think his mothers name is Marilyn, close to Marian as can be )
SIMON: I want to read the dedication. (Reading) For the librarians then, now and in the years to come.
Librarians have been important in your life.
DOERR: Absolutely. Each of the main characters in the novel has a relationship with a librarian and a broader definition of what a librarian can be, a custodian of books in some way. And yeah, and my mom was a science teacher. And understandably, she was tired at the end of the day sometimes and would use the library as a kind of de facto day care center for my brothers and me. And so, yeah, the shoutouts to the Mayfield Public Library in Cleveland, Ohio, and the Bainbridge Public Library - those were real havens. They were third places for me. They were a place where I felt completely safe. And just the miracle of them, there’s something that - talk about peeling the scales off your eyes. Like, here’s the work of all these masters available to you for free. And you can take them home.
Never hold back with your point of view! It doesn’t matter how well a book is crafted or whether we discover in the course of discussion that Anthony Doerr is a certified genius. What’s important is whether or not the book grabs you. If yes, why? If no, why not? The group may tend to lean one way or the other, but that makes the outliers all the more essential to a good discussion (waving at @ignatius).
Cloud Cuckoo Land hit me at the right time; sometimes, that’s all it takes regardless of a book’s quality. The last few books I read were just “meh” to me, though acclaimed by others. Doerr’s book swept me up. Can’t pinpoint why, but I was just glad it did.
Omeir was one of my favorite characters. I was glad he eventually found happiness with Anna. Doerr’s depiction of the horrified response to Omeir’s cleft palate was accurate:
The earliest traceable history of cleft lip and palate is that of horror and utter disbelief. In ancient times, many congenital deformities, including the cleft lip and palate, were considered to be evidence of the presence of an evil spirit in the affected child. Facial deformities were most condemned and the infants were “removed from the tribe or cultural unit and left to die in the surrounding wilderness"…
The learned archbishop of Uppsala in Sweden, Olaus Magnus, took the level of ignorance to its nadir when he in 1550 proclaimed that “however, there is one misfortune that many women meet with in pregnancy, either by eating or by leaping over the head of a hare; they bear children with a hare mouth, who have the lip permanently split between the mouth and nostrils, unless right from the beginning they sew a small piece of the breast of a very tender chicken, killed on the spot and still bleeding.” This state of ignorance is evident even up till 1889 when Keating reported a series of congenital anomalies, including harelip, and opined that the anomalies were provoked in each case, by the mother looking a person with a similar deformity during her pregnancy. Cleft lip: The historical perspective - PMC
I also have always loved libraries. My kids loved/love libraries and book stores. My folks even noticed this when they watched our kids so we could go to Europe when they were very young. She said they were always happy anywhere there were books until the place closed.
I have been thinking about Konstance’s name and wondering if there was a reason Doerr picked it. The name Konstance, starting with a K or a C, means - constant, steadfast. Steadfast seems like a great description of Konstance. Her ability to keep to task and find answers is why she survived. This made me wonder about the names of the other main characters.
Sybil - prophetess, oracle
Aethon - burning, blazing, or shining (this was mentioned in the book)
Omeir - long living
Anna - grace, (the biblical definition says gracious, always giving)
Zeno - gift of Zeus
Seymour - Tailor
Sybil as an oracle seems logical. The name Seymour, meaning tailor, ties into the thread theme. I feel like I can make some kind of connection for all the names, but still wondering why Doerr picked the name Zeno, if he was doing it purposefully, for that particular character.
Great list @Caraid , Doer definitely selected those names with intention, ( Marian, the caring kind librarian is so similar to his mother’s name Marilyn)
In one of the Boise Idaho NPR radio. Interviews, Doer, mentions the name Seymour, indicating he could “ SEE MORE”, he was attuned to the environmental destruction, Connected to the animals, and hyper alert about the world.
Somewhere a reviewer mentioned that Zeno, so close to xenophobic - “ having or showing a dislike of or prejudice against people from other countries.”
What are your thoughts Bput the name Argos, the space vehicle?
But…I didn’t feel that Zeno exhibited this type of prejudice. He didn’t even seem to harbor any real animosity toward his captors (as he was way too focused on Rex at the time).
I like the “gift of Zeus” idea better. The gods gave Zeno to the children at the library just when they needed him.
@jerseysouthmomchess, the name Argos means all-seeing and/or vigilant guardian. Sounds a bit like Sybil. It’s a sensible name for a ship with Sybil doing the monitoring. Sybil’s success at being a vigilant guardian is up for debate.
I can’t pull the quote into memory, but there’s something about having to be a “little mad” in order to deal with reality. I keep thinking about the character on the Argos who tried to break through the hull - had he found similar things in the Atlas and that’s what drove him?
All the main characters here are outsiders of some kind - Zeno who never quite fits in and who only achieves peace with himself at the end, Seymour who I hope at least got the appropriate medication in prison, Omeir whose physical appearance caused people to push him away, Anna who didn’t meet expectations in the house of the embroiderers or at first in Omeir’s home, Konstance who wants to visit the old school Atlas, the children who weren’t in extracurricular activities and so end up at the library (as do Zeno and Seymour as kids).
And yet they ultimately are the most…sane? human? Seymour “sees more” and helps others to do so as he plants more reality into the Atlas; he tries to atone for his actions with the children. The children quietly rewrite the play in the midst of terror. Omeir turns his back on war, Anna learns to read. Zeno tries so hard - he supports that horrid old lady for years and sublimates his love for Rex into a love for the book; even if he could come out I don’t think he would interfere with the relationship with Hillary.
Are they fools, like Aethon? Or is it the fool who sees through the illusion, who strives for something more, who really lives the authentic life?
I think he did. It seemed like the librarian also knew those secrets were in the atlas. I wondered whether she suspected they were still on Earth or just saw them as photos of what Earth really looked like when the Argos’ journey began.
I also thought Konstance’s name was an echo of Constantinople.
I thought of the Jason and the Argonauts and his quest for the Golden Fleece. Look where his boat went! “After many more adventures, the Argo passes Constantinople, heading for the Straits of Bosphorus.” from In Search of Myths & Heroes . Jason & the Argonauts | PBS It’s not a happy story!
Interestingly Argos (with the “s”) is the name of Odysseus’ dog that recognizes him when he finally returns home from Troy.
Yes, that’s right! Thanks for the reminder. Elliot Fischenbacher. He had it figured out:
Konstance sighs, bracing for it, the great warning story of Crazy Elliot Fischenbacher, who, after his Library Day, would not get off his Perambulator day or night, ignoring his studies and violating every protocol in order to trek alone inside the Atlas until the soles of his feet cracked, and then, according to Mother, his sanity cracked too (p. 262).
Elliot tried to hack his way out of the Argos, was confined to his apartment, and then committed suicide and his body was sent out the airlock. But of course, since they weren’t actually in space, his body was sent somewhere else…which begs the question of whether he really took an overdose of sleep drops or was the victim of something more nefarious at the hands of the Ilium Corporation.
Oh, no, @mary13, Zeno was gentle, lovely person. I think he was victim of prejudice and hatred, hence the xenophobic connection. Sorry can’t find the link to that comment.
).
