Cloud Cuckoo Land

Folio Λ

Aethon is a fish swimming amongst a school of others. A giant whale comes and takes the fish into its mouth. The fish begin living inside the whale’s “gullet,” as if living “inside a second sea” (305). They travel the world, observing the places and creatures the whale encounters from inside him. Aethon becomes listless because he still has no idea where Cloud Cuckoo Land is or if it is real.

Omeir: Constantinople; April-May 1453

Outside the city walls of Constantinople, the Ottoman troops prepare for battle. Everyone watches with horror and anticipation as the giant bombard fires its first round at the walls. At first, the troops feel a sense of accomplishment, but as the battle drags on into May, they lose their morale. Omeir’s oxen, who transport artillery all day, struggle to continue working. When Omeir stops to tend to them, his quartermaster drives them forward regardless. Omeir has often been ostracized over his kindness toward animals. He hides these feelings from his quartermaster, as there is no place for such sympathy for his animals when so many around him lie dead, dying, or worse.

Anna: Constantinople; April-May 1453

Anna and the eight remaining seamstresses try to adjust to the sounds of war. Having accepted that the siege marks the end times, many in Constantinople aim only to “cleanse the besmirchment from one’s soul before” they die (313). Anna takes advantage of the situation by stealing as many candles as she wishes to read at night. Fear consumes Maria, however, especially when news arrives of Serbian silver miners being brought in by the Ottomans to dig tunnels under the walls. Anna comforts her by reading bits of Aethon’s tale. Everyone assesses their remaining days. Widow Theodora says her rosary prayers; Maria embroiders her birds; Himerius, who has been “drafted into the city’s stop-gap naval defenses,” watches the waterfront of his beloved city as he too waits for death (318).

Folio M

Still inside the whale, fish-Aethon is caught by a fisherman who takes him to a wizard. The wizard lives on a mountain on an island inside the whale. Aethon asks the wizard to turn him into a bird. The wizard calls Aethon foolish for looking for Cloud Cuckoo Land, but he agrees to transform Aethon in exchange for telling the fishermen where to find the bigger fish to eat. Aethon tells them and flies out of the whale’s mouth.

Konstance: The Argos; Mission Year 64, Days 1-45 inside Vault One

Konstance awakes inside Vault One, and Sybil refuses to open the door. For days, she wonders about the fates of the other passengers. She cannot understand why her father would trap her in Vault One while the deadly disease ravages the rest of the ship’s inhabitants. The Library is empty, and Sybil simply says “Everyone is elsewhere” when Konstance asks where the others are (331).

Konstance spends time in the Atlas searching for answers about why her father would leave her to survive alone. Sybil restricts her access to the Library, however, and forces Konstance to maintain a normal routine. Konstance accommodates Sybil simply to get access to the Atlas, her only source of relief. She looks for Scheria, the name her father gave her for his homeland, in the Atlas but learns that it is a mythical land. Konstance researches her father’s true origin and learns that he is from Nannup, Australia. When she visits Nannup in the Atlas, she finds a tiny sign labeled “Scheria” outside an otherwise unremarkable farmhouse. In the rendering, she can see into a corner of her father’s childhood bedroom, and inside she sees a copy of Cloud Cuckoo Land translated by Zeno.

Zeno: Lakeport, ID; 1953-1970

When Zeno arrives home, he is struck by the mundane normalcy of life in Lakeport. He gets a job with the highway department. Sometimes, other men covertly signal to him that they are also gay. He has sexual encounters with them but no lasting relationships. Zeno fears that his life will always be mundane. Zeno’s search for Rex is the one thing that motivates him. He contacts the British Commonwealth Forces Korea for information but struggles to get definitive answers. He writes to everyone named Rex Browning in the UK but gets no concrete responses. In 1970, he receives a letter from Rex, who reports that since returning home he has delved deeper into his studies of Greek literature. He invites Zeno to visit him and his partner Hillary in London. Zeno is anxious but wants to go.

Seymour: Lakeport ID; 2016-2018

Since finding Trustyfriend’s wing on the side of the road, Seymour has dedicated much time to studying the other effects of climate change. He is passionate about the cost of environmental destruction and how poor education about climate change is. His tenth-grade English teacher suggests that he revive “the Environmental Awareness Club” as an outlet for these concerns (349), and Seymour agrees. He prepares signs and a speech for the first meeting, filled with grave warnings. His fatalist approach yields mockery from some members. A girl in Seymour’s grade named Janet takes a different approach and suggests some steps that the club could take at school to encourage sustainable practices. Janet and Seymour become friends.

Folio N

Now a crow, Aethon flies out of the whale’s mouth over the ocean, but he cannot find a place to land for two days. On the second day, he encounters a thunderstorm and a jet of water propels him into space past the moon. He observes “moon-beasts charging along their ghostly plains and drinking milk from great moon-lakes” (363). Further from home than ever, Aethon wonders why he began this journey at all.

Anna: Constantinople; May 1453

Weeks into the siege of Constantinople, Maria weakens each day. Anna continues reading her Aethon’s story. Like Diogenes who inscribed the text to his dying niece, Anna feels she is prolonging Maria’s life with the story. Maria dies before the end of May. Anna grows weary, knowing she must face reality without her sister forever. The Ottomans are slowly taking Constantinople, and its inhabitants feel the effects. To lift spirits and appeal to God for help, a special bearer carries “the Hodegetria, the city’s most venerated icon—a painting with the Virgin and Christ child on one side and the crucifixion on the other” through the city (368). This fails when a storm breaks out, and the bearer drops the Hodegetria into the mud. This is a bad omen symbolizing the end of an era—perhaps even the end of man.

Chryse tells Anna that Constantinople will fall. She cuts Anna’s hair and tells her to run because once the Ottomans have breached the walls, “the most valuable thing will be girls” (379), who will be raped and taken as slaves. Chryse gives her some food, and Anna packs the codex, Maria’s unfinished embroidery piece, and the snuffbox and abandons her home. She takes Himerius’s skiff out to sea.

Omeir: Constantinople; May 1453

Omeir is delivering artillery when Moonlight drops dead. He can do nothing to save the ox, and he feels very guilty. Omeir is heartbroken as several men prepare Moonlight to be cooked and eaten. The next morning, Tree refuses to stand and accepts death like his brother. Omeir’s new job is to burn the refuse from the latrines because, without his oxen, he ranks lowest amongst the troops.

As the siege drags on, the troops grow desperate, and it is not until the end of May when the Sultan decides to breach the weakened walls. Omeir will be placed at the front of the attack, inevitably “caught [...] between a hailstorm of stones from the ramparts above and the whips of the sultan’s Chavushes behind” (376). The night before the attack, Omeir feels homesick and thinks only of his family. He resolves to go home. Carefully, he picks his way through the massive camp, worried that someone will find him before he escapes.

Folio Ξ

The second half of the work is in worse condition than the first, which makes it more difficult to translate and understand. Crow-Aethon continues searching for Cloud Cuckoo Land in many “strange” places, though the details are lost. From his vantage point in the sky, the earth and its inhabitants are insignificant. He sees what might be Cloud Cuckoo Land in the distance and finally lands there.

Konstance: The Argos; Mission Year 64; Days 45-276 inside Vault One

Konstance researches the Cloud Cuckoo Land folios after seeing her father’s copy in the Atlas. The Library does not contain a copy translated by Zeno. When she researches Zeno, she learns about his past—including his death in 2020 in the Lakeport Public Library—but finds nothing about his translation. Disappointed by Sybil’s inability to answer her latest questions, Konstance begins to write. She memorizes several lines at a time in the Library, then returns to the vault and writes them because she cannot take things out of the Library’s virtual space. In the Atlas, Konstance tries to find Lakeport Public Library, but the building has been replaced. She searches the streets and finds a book drop box decorated like an owl. She finds this to be extremely odd, so she touches it. Despite what she expects, the drop box is solid. As she opens it, it starts to snow.

Zeno: London; 1971

Zeno is elated to see Rex and dreams of running away with him but feels uncertain about Hillary. At the airport in London, Zeno is shocked to learn that Hillary is a man. Rex and Zeno greet each other with an outpouring of emotion. Rex tells Zeno about the book he wrote titled Compendium of Lost Books about lost classical works from Greek scholars. Zeno struggles in London because nothing is as he had pictured it, especially Rex’s life with Hillary. He wishes that he and Rex could talk about—and even return to—Camp Five, but when Rex says that he loves Hillary, Zeno’s hopes are dashed away without having ever been voiced. Rex gifts Zeno a copy of his compendium and a Greek-English dictionary. Rex encourages Zeno to get back into Greek translation, and they exchange an awkward goodbye.

Seymour: Lakeport, ID; February-May 2019

Janet shows Seymour a video of Bishop, the radical figure who inspires Seymour to bomb Eden’s Gate Realty. Bishop discusses how climate change affects the most impoverished people, while the wealthiest nations and people who produce the most CO2 and waste suffer no consequences. Seymour becomes obsessed with Bishop because he feels Bishop is voicing the rage he feels toward Eden’s Gate. While watching Bishop’s videos at the library, Marian invites Seymour for a surprise that weekend: a new book drop box decorated to look like a great grey owl. On the day of the unveiling, Seymour arrives late because he is engrossed in Bishop’s videos, and Marian is very upset that he did not show up.

Seymour makes destructive changes: He stops going to the library, stops taking his medication, and pulls away from the people closest to him. When Bunny gets a new tablet and smart speaker with a payday loan that require Wi-Fi—something they cannot afford—Seymour breaks into one of the Eden’s Gate homes and steals a modem. Seymour and Janet see a man leave his RV running while he walks his dog. They decide that his lifestyle is too wasteful. Seymour, thinking of Bishop and overcome by “the roar,” throws a rock through the RV’s window.