A Matter of Tone in Cloud Cuckoo Land

The reflective tone in Cloud Cuckoo Land reinforces the story being told and creates an exciting reader effect. It is clear from the first page what the tone and style of this book are going to be, “A fourteen-year-old girl sits cross-legged on the floor of a circular vault. A mass of curls haloes her head; her socks are full of holes. This is Konstance.” This first line is a bit jarring. The choppy nature of the writing doesn’t seem to have any flow. 

This sort of tone stays with us throughout the novel, but the reader can get used to it as the pages go by. On page 33, there is a scene break, and the following passage begins simply, “Dawn.” While I appreciate the tone, using a noun in a single sentence doesn’t work for me. That being said, the tone of the book does generally work. It is not the way I would write it. The effect on the reader is somewhat tricky. There are moments when the writer seems to tell more than show, and it was easy to pick out the scenes where some more dramatic telling would have been good. However, the tone does work; it’s just a bit odd. The technique draws the reader into the multiple braided stories throughout the book. 

One of the areas where the tone works well is in the chapters regarding “Seymour.” The writer describes anxiety with a common anxiety-release technique where you recite what you know, “Each crystal that strikes the windshield makes a barely audible tap, yet the sound seems to penetrate all the way to the roots of his molars. Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap. Owls have three eyelids. Their eyeballs are not spheres but elongated tubes. A group of owls is called a parliament.”

Tone also makes the initial conflict of the book work well. When the library bomber places his bomb among the stacks, the writer vividly describes the feelings of the bomber through physical characteristics. The passage about “Seymour” marks the time from ten before four p.m. up to the hour. It also includes this, “A thousand tiny black spots open Seymour’s field of vision. A road rises inside his ears. He sticks his right hand into the right pocket of his windbreaker, and his finger finds the pistol’s trigger.”

The writer can maintain this tone across time and space. Whether Seymour and Zano in Idaho or Anna in Constantinople, the tone becomes a unifying, narrative force. The book crosses between modern times, ancient Greece, 12th century Constantinople, and an unknown future in a spaceship. Cloud Cuckoo Land is a play, a story, a place, and a concept. We move between these times and spaces in the short chapters, and the tone remains the same. That consistency works as a bridge across the different environments that tell the story. 

The tone does tend to break down in the sparse moments of dialogue. But even the dialogue is sharp and cutting. The conversation is short, “How’s our little pine tree today Father?” asks Konstance. On track to punch through the ceiling before you’re twenty.” (pg. 263) That is all the conversation on the page. The writer immediately moves back to narration in the same curt tone familiar in the middle of the book. Back in Constantinople, the conversation remains the same. Dialogue is not a big part of storytelling because the tone of the narration is what drives the plot forward and tells the story. 

The consistency of the tone inspired me; even though it was not my favorite, I definitely wanted to have a specific technique throughout the whole book. It is definitely something I want to look into as I begin the process of wrapping up book one heading into my G4.