Cloud Cuckoo Land

by Anthony Doerr

He thinks of the Christians sitting up on the walls, and the people praying inside the houses and churches of the city, and he wonders at the mystery of how one god can manage the thoughts and terrors of so many.

One bad-tempered abbot, the tall scribe said, one clumsy friar, one invading barbarian, an overturned candle, a hungry worm—and all those centuries are undone. You can cling to this world for a thousand years and still be plucked out of it in a breath.

That’s what the gods do, they spin threads of ruin through the fabric of our lives, all to make a song for generations to come.

Why is it so hard to transcend the identities assigned to us when we were young?

July 22, 2030 Dear Seymour, I was happy to hear from you. Here is everything I could gather from the trial, from Mr. Ninis’s house, and that we recovered at the library. The police might have more, I’m not sure. Nobody ever did anything with all this, so I’m trusting you with it. Access is part of the librarian’s creed, after all. If you can make any sense of it, I think one of the children Zeno worked with would be interested: Natalie Hernandez. Last I heard from her, she’s taking classes at Idaho State in Latin and Greek. At one time you were a thoughtful and sensitive boy and it is my hope that you have become a thoughtful and sensitive man. Marian

he realizes that the truth is infinitely more complicated, that we are all beautiful even as we are all part of the problem, and that to be a part of the problem is to be human.

“The world as it is is enough.”

“That day,” he says, “all those years ago, I took something precious from each of you. I know I can never fully atone for what I did. But because I, too, know what it’s like to lose a place you cared about when you were young—to have it taken from you—I thought it might mean something to you if I tried to give yours back.”