The seemingly strange title of this novel derives from a play written by the ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes titled The Birds. Cloud cuckoo land has since come to be synonymous with someone who is living in such a state of denial that they accept preferred illusions as truth even in the face of factual evidence that they are wrong. A resident of this place is termed a cloud cuckoo lander and is characterized by gullibility steeped in willed ignorance. Such a person essentially denies the existence of reality, rejects the accumulation of knowledge which does confirm to preconceived beliefs, and while generally viewed as too absurdly idiotic for their delusions to present any credible threat to those living in the real world.
Cloud cuckoo landers are the type of people willing to buy into baseless conspiracy theories, elevate an ignoramus who feeds their prejudices to positions of power, and blindly follows figures of authority supporting their own misguide perspective right off a cliff, but get enough cloud cuckoo landers together working in unison as a singular collective and they can become a very serious threat to those who actually recognize reality.
Anthony Doerr’s novel Cloud Cuckoo Land would seem from its title as though it might be following this line of reasoning in a presentation of immediate danger presented to the status quo living comfortably in the established conventions of reality. That is not the case, however, as Doerr’s novel is epic in scope with a timeline stretching from the 1400’s into the futuristic world of 2146. The choice of title remains appropriate, however, because although this is literally a big book spanning almost seven-hundred pages, its message is ultimately quite simple. The myriad narrative threads weave multiple storylines involving an assortment of characters separated by time and space into a tapestry that, distilled to its absolute essentials, stakes an argument for how humanity can possibly avoid the horrifying fate of a small group of dangerously empowered cloud cuckoo landers can kill put the entire species at risk by destroying the planet.
Books. Libraries. Knowledge. Being too smart to be scared of becoming too smart. The single unifying aspect of the story that unites all the various storylines is an ancient text. And the single unifying element of human civilization that comes to the rescue at every point of potential disaster is not weaponry or evolving technology, but libraries. The library is proffered as the real Holy Grail of western civilization in the story and the simple act of reading—make that the simple act of deciding to read—is the key to fending off the most dangerous weapon of cloud cuckoo landers: spreading through word-of-mouth the religion ecstasy that comes with embracing ignorance, laziness, and blind acceptance of any information which conforms to already established opinions.
