Based on my less than enthusiastic reaction to All the Light We Cannot See, I wasn't too excited about reading my book group's July pick--the new 600+ page novel of Anthony Doerr's. And in fact the first 300-400 pages were a real struggle to keep reading. I had heard several people say the first half of the book was hard but the 2nd half made it worth while; that wasn't my experience. Although well-crafted in many ways, it's not a book I would recommend or say that it added value to my life. It's like he did all this research on the three time frames (Turkey/ Ottoman Empire in the mid 15th C, more contemporary U.S., and the future. His characters are largely children and his explanation about why that is so from this interview with him is very enlightening.
Of course, unlike me, many of my fellow book group members, as well as most of the major reviewers ( NYT, NPR, The Guardian, Kirkus, etc.) were effusively positive about this book. But the Washington Post's review is more in line with my reaction. Here is their conclusion:
Any one of these stories — except the sci-fi tale, which has a moldy “Twilight Zone” funk — might have made a compelling novel. But Doerr has not only packed them together, he’s put them in a blender and then laid out the bits in a great scramble, as though his own book were a textual puzzle as complicated as the ancient Diogenes codex.
“'What really matters,' one of the many insightful children proclaims, 'is that the story gets passed on.' Yes, libraries are awesome, and we all love books. But the artificial convolutedness of “Cloud Cuckoo Land” is not enough to confer any additional depth on Doerr’s simple, belabored theme, a theme that thumps through the novel insisting that every character kneel in reverent submission.
What’s worse, julienning these disparate plots saps them of their natural drama, and no amount of grandiose narration can pump that tension back in. The fall of Constantinople inches forward so deliberately you’ll think you’re dragging the sultan’s great cannon along the ground by yourself.
That problem becomes even more acute in the contemporary sections. While
Zeno and the children are practicing their theatrical adaptation of
“Cloud Cuckoo Land,” an eco-terrorist slips into the library carrying a
homemade bomb equipped with a cellphone trigger. It’s a terrifying
setup, but the scenes are laboriously sliced almost into individual
breaths. Had I known the cellphone number, I would have dialed it
myself."
