*This book was sent to me by Jonathan Ball Publishers in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
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By the Sally Rooney illustrator, Henn Kim’s collection of visual poetry is a beautiful encapsulation of love and loneliness. While mostly consisting of one line of text, the art style was unique and impactful, tactfully demonstrating the themes of our daily existence in this world.
I have never read visual poetry before this book, but I was happily surprised to find that the text and artwork could be viewed in a way as to appreciate its beauty, or to analyse its deeper meaning. Done solely in black and white, I found myself drawn to the illustrations, and their simplistic style. There were numerous pages that stood out to me and that I will be reading many times again.
This book is a fast read, but will remain in your mind for long after. Each illustration can be viewed as a separate artwork, yet they are all tied together by the emotions and themes they bring out. If I had to be picky, I would say that that I would have preferred more text, but that’s just a personal preference.
I really enjoyed the experience of reading this. It’s a stunning book filled with creativity and raw emotion. I highly recommend everyone do themselves a favour and purchase a copy!
*This book was sent to me by Jonathan Ball Publishers in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
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Cloud Cuckoo Land tells the story of 5 different characters centuries apart, all intrinsically connected by a single book. Anna is an orphan in Constantinople, living in a house of women who embroider for a living, who learns to read and discovers the story of Aethon. Omeir is a village boy who lives just outside the walls of Constantinople. Five hundred years later is the story of Zeno who rehearses five children in a play adaptation of Aethon’s story. Hidden near their rehearsal space is a bomb, carefully placed by a troubled teenager, Seymour. And finally, in the far future, we follow the story of Konstance who is alone in her vault, writing out the story of Aethon on scraps of sack.
“Why is it so hard to transcend the identities assigned to us when we were young?”
Cloud Cuckoo Land is immersive and provocative with a level of complexity that is just about genius. You follow each character as if you were right there beside them, completely transported to another world. Whether you end up enjoying this book or not, it is something that can’t be missed.
The entire book circles around another book, namely ‘Cloud Cuckoo Land’, which was an aspect I initially found confusing. ‘Cloud Cuckoo Land’ is essentially Aethon’s story, a story that each of the characters find themselves engrossed in. The stories seem very unrelated at the beginning, but the conclusion ties everything together well. I did feel that some of the excerpts from this ‘story’ were ineffectual, rather than philosophical as I hoped it would be, but nevertheless I understand the decision to include them.
Each character, along with their backstory, was unique and the writing was unimpeachable, yet for a large portion of the novel I felt rather lost. As mentioned before, we follow 5 characters, with their inimitable views of the world and the struggles they face. Having 5 POVs, and especially making them connected to one another, was a concept that I found fascinating, until I was met with lengthy descriptions detailing unnecessary aspects of their lives. The POV switch often happened just as I was getting wrapped up in one of the stories and I’d end up feeling disconnected from the characters.
I think the main reason this book is not one of my favourites was the pacing and lack of plot. I personally enjoy more plot-driven novels, so that’s just a personal preference, but I did find that the book took a while to pick up and for me to become really invested in the characters.
That is not to say that the book was at all bad. Individually I think all the stories are powerful and bring up a variety of issues such as war and climate change, all tactfully dealt with. When the story comes together at the end, it felt momentous. The meaning of the novel goes beyond surface level and the words hold a lot of wisdom. I think the world-building was brilliantly done.
Cloud Cuckoo Land was truly a new experience and although I didn’t enjoy it as much as I hoped to, I am positive that others will enjoy it a lot more.
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