“ Cloud Cuckoo Land” by Anthony Doerr (Scribner, 2021 640 pages) Warwick’s and USD present Anthony Doerr From Warwick’s to the Central Library to The Book Catapult, I cannot think of a better city for a person who loves to read and loves to be outside. My editor wanted to see more of Konstance’s relationship with her father, for example, and Seymour’s relationship with his mother, so I spent months expanding and deepening those sections.Ī: My wife’s sister lives in a home for individuals with intellectually disabled in San Diego, so we travel there often. There was plenty of cutting, of course, but also a good deal of addition. Q: What did your editing process look like for this book?Ī: I finished a draft in March of 2020, then spent the entire pandemic editing the novel. They are guardians, protectors, custodians and teachers of human memory. Along the way, I hope a reader will see and feel how librarians can serve as the ultimate stewards of culture. Q: Why did you dedicate this book to librarians?Ī: Each of the five protagonists, at some point in his or her life, has a meaningful relationship with a librarian. If Konstance isn’t there, in our future, as a reader, then all the previous characters’ stewardship would have felt less relevant. Why is she relevant?Ī: Since my goal was to dramatize how a single copy of an ancient text tumbles through time - like a ball bouncing down through the pegs of one of those Plinko boards on “The Price Is Right” - I knew early on that I wanted to show how Diogenes’s text resonated in the past, present and future. ![]() Q: Konstance is a character in the future. What did she wear on her feet? What did she eat for breakfast? How constrained would her life be? It would take me months to write a single scene. Every time she turned around, I had to go scurrying back into research. Q: Of your five main protagonists, who was the most challenging to write?Ī: Probably Anna, a young girl growing up in Constantinople in the 1440s. I loved researching and imagining his life: trying to conjure up the richness, color, superstitions and mythologies of his day-to-day existence. His is a world where every event, from a thunderstorm to the birth of a calf, throbs with supernatural meaning. Omeir, for example, is a boy growing up in the 15th century in the mountains of what we would now call Bulgaria. I chose these traits because I wanted to show that even characters with the seemingly smallest parts to play in history can significantly affect lives in the future.Ī: Probably the distant past. They all act, ultimately, with great decency and courage, and they all love stories. Q: Please describe one trait your diverse characters have in common.Ī: They’re all deeply curious. No matter how separate we might seem - whether by culture, space or time - we are all connected to each other, to our ancestors, to our great-grandchildren and to the other species with which we share this planet. This is a ticketed event.Ī: If there’s a single theme in “Cloud Cuckoo Land,” it’s connection. See location on a map.Warwick’s and USD’s College of Arts and Sciences will present Doerr this Friday at 7 p.m. ![]() It brings together an international team of specialists who will explore the fiction, realia, text, language, story, context and Nachleben of The wonders beyond Thule.Īarhus Institute of Advanced Studies (AIAS), Aarhus University, Buildings 1630-1632, Høegh-Guldbergs Gade 6B, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. The conference is proudly hosted by the Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies – not far from the Thulean regions of the novel's plot. This is the first conference dedicated to this extraordinary Greek writer. The plot, which included the story of the genesis and transmission of the text, also incorporated the adventures of the novel itself – and in a strange case of reality following fiction, the actual fate of Diogenes’ text seems to reflect the novel’s own pseudo-documentary fiction. An experimenter in genre, fiction and the paratext, his was a novel of astonishing erudition and complexity, which recorded the adventures of the intrepid Greek explorer Deinias, as he journeyed beyond the frontiers of the frozen north as far as the Moon. Antonius Diogenes, author of The wonders beyond Thule, has been described as the Nabokov of the ancient world.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |