All the Light We Cannot See: A Novel

I resisted reading All The Light We Cannot See when it was published in May, thinking the world did not really need another novel about the Second World War. Well, I was wrong.It is quite a vocabulary challenge to find the adjectives to describe this marvelous book without falling into cliché. Anthony Doerr’s wordsmithery is superb, his storyline development masterful, and the characters described so vividly that it is absolutely inconceivable that a reader could resist engaging in their lives. The main protagonists are a German orphan boy and a blind young French girl. I assure you there is no schmaltz in this story, which was what I feared when I read some of the blurbs. This is not a book to be read quickly, but one the reader will want to savor, soaking in all the luscious details of the plot evolution.Werner Pfennig and his younger sister Jutta live in a Children’s House with about a dozen other children of various ages in a small German mining town of Zollverein. Frau Elena is their loving caregiver who also teaches them French. It is 1934 and curious, clever Werner peppers Frau Elena with questions, and with his sister Jutta scours the junk piles in search of “stuff” from which he makes things. One day he finds an old radio and figures out to repair it, which opens a new world to the Children’s House. For one hour an evening, they listen together to music and programs on the radio, after which Werner takes it back up to his sleeping area. When unable to sleep one night, Werner finds a broadcast by a French man teaching science to children and playing classical music. Werner and Jutta listen faithfully for weeks until no longer able to receive his signal. This “French professor” and his broadcasts will turn out to be a link to a young blind Parisian girl living about 300 miles from Zollverein.Marie-Laure LeBlanc lives in Paris with her father Daniel, the chief locksmith at the National Museum of Natural History, just a few blocks from their apartment. Marie-Laure’s blindness was caused by congenital cataracts and by age six, her sight is gone. Daniel built his daughter a replica of their Parisian neighborhood, whittling every building in exact miniature and making sure she memorizes it. He also takes her out for walks and makes her find the way to different destinations and back home, always a step or two behind, always close, always coaching her to use logic and reason. While Daniel is working, “Laurette” spends her time at the museum learning about locks while shadowing him and occasionally learning about shells, mollusks, whelks and other topics from the museum’s expert, Dr. Geffard with whom she spends occasional afternoons.All the characters in this book had to accept and learn to live with harsh realities. Werner and Jutta’s father died in a mining accident and with their mother already gone, the Children’s House was their only option. Werner would be sent down to the mines when he reached his 15th birthday, as were all the boys. His engineering skills earned him a different fate. Still, the lack of autonomy, opportunity and individual choice in society at that time is sobering to see in print.It is refreshing to read a book about the Second World War that writes Germans as real people, not stereotypes goose stepping their way through life. The trek that Daniel and Laurette make when they have to leave Paris to join his uncle in the seaside town of Saint Malo is horrific, exhilarating and inspiring. The starkness of daily life during wartime for the civilians, soldiers and French resistance are depicted in heart-wrenching detail. Doerr wraps up the stories of the main characters at the end of the book, taking us to the year 2014.I have read some great books over the past year, some superb for their genre, but I believe All The Light We Cannot See is a modern classic, even though it was only published 4 months ago.

The book was good but by the end I found myself just wishing it would just end. Great story, beautifully written but could have been much shorter.

This book was truly incredible. I have to say that it's very well written, and I loved the characters. The characters are really complex, and you get to see all sides of them. You really feel for them, which is what a good book is all about, in my opinion.I didn’t like “All the Light We Cannot See” at first. It was very hard to follow. I downloaded the audiobook to this book, and that helped. The narrator gave all of the characters unique voices, and I had no problem following the story anymore.I became captivated by the story of the main characters, a blind French girl and the smart German boy. I was enthralled with the stories of Marie-Laure and Werner and how their lives intersected together. The book has beautiful language and descriptions, and the characters are well-developed. You can tell that the author spent some hours researching the events of Saint-Malo. And, even though it's long, the story's pacing really helps keep you reading (or listening) until the end. I think this book shows how deeply the author understands the human spirit. It's a beautiful story that takes you to places you've never been before, or maybe, to places you have been to but never really understood.“All the Light We Cannot See” is stunning and is a beautiful story that carries you to places you've never been. It is a novel full of amazingly strong characters, hero's and heroin's, old and young, that made up the resistance in France, and even some from Germany that only tried to survive.This is a must read (or listen to). I was completely immersed in the story, and I think you will be too.

Being the recipient of the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, my expectations for 'All the Light we Cannot See' were extremely high. With all things considered, I feel confident in saying that the critical acclaim was warranted and deserved in this case. Despite two minor annoyances, which I cover at the end, 'All the Light we Cannot See' is a phenomenally written, percipient, and remarkable example of sound literature.Author Anthony Doerr tells the story of how 18 years old Werner, a geeky, crafty, and thoughtful engineering prodigy in Germany, meets 16 years old Marie-Laure, a sweet, astute, and affable blind French girl during the siege of Saint-Malo in 1944. WWII, with all its stentorian and fervid trappings of war is the backdrop to Werner and Marie-Laure's fateful encounter. Written in short but vividly described, intricately woven chapters, the backstory of how they are brought together is told over the course of ten years starting in 1944 and flashing back as far as 1934. Through alternating timelines from both their perspectives, they meet and thereafter, the aftermath and implications of the encounter is written about up until the year 2014.Several pages into the novel, I knew I had a special literary piece in my hands. Werner and Marie-Laure are easy to fall in love with as Doerr writes them in a way that is honest and open. They are both multi-faceted in their strengths and their vulnerabilities, without either one playing a victim. Or at least, I never saw either one as a victim. I also appreciated that foibles, frailty, and other unsavory personality traits are depicted for both, allowing them to be alive with authenticity. I never want to read about characters who are too perfect and give the sun, the moon, and the stars all of the time. In the case of this novel, the two main protagonists are realistic for their time and for the circumstances they find themselves in. Joining Werner and Marie-Laure is a dynamic, and at times unfortunate mix of supporting characters who collectively illuminate the radiance and light of when humanity is good and kind. Juxtaposed, others in the mix depict the ugly darkness of when humanity resorts to selfishness and evil. Though they are fictional, we should all be so lucky as to encounter characters like Frederick, Madame Manec, Frau Elena, and Dr. Geffard, and hope the world breeds less of Dr. Hauptmann, Bastian, and Reinhold von Rumpel.'All the Light we Cannot See' has many lessons to impart on the reader, with one of the most profound being the titular Light that we must all see. The novel soundly shows us how those who are blind in the literal sense, can see more than those who have the ability to gaze as far as their eyes will carry. Additionally, the novel allows the reader to see for themselves how people whose visions are symbolically foggy, can still find goodness of heart and lightness of mind in unlikely places, and in the unlikeliest of people. Thought-provokingly, Doerr weaves for the reader how darkness creeps and consumes those who choose to be figuratively blind and who later become disillusioned by their own rancor, malevolence, and enmity. In the heart of strong-willed characters, we see how love, patience, understanding and empathy become the key that open and illuminate the path into light.I very much enjoyed this read, and surprisingly, the short chapters were not an annoyance as can sometimes be when the author is not skilled enough to execute them. Doerr is skilled and in the case of 'All the Light we Cannot See,' he, in what was in many instances only a page and a half, or even only half a page, has written cohesive chapters that are richly dense, brimming with cerebral atmosphere that envelopes the reader at the turn of every page. In this regard, I could see Marie-Laure's loneliness, and Werner's moral conflict. I felt the fear and uncertainty in Jutta, Daniel LeBlanc, and Etienne's reticence. I could taste the saltiness in the breeze that wafted over Saint-Malo, while also I could smell the acrid, grey, and gritty skies of Zollverein. Each time a character was famished due to scant war rations, I tasted the sweetness of the cool water they drank and I could taste the crust and crumb of the loaf of bread they tore apart. These are not things easy to achieve in books. Doerr however has done so fantastically.It goes without saying that there is plenty beauty and radiance to be found in 'All the Light we Cannot See.' Some of it emanates directly from the characters, while other times, it comes from the reader's own willingness to be open-minded. Taking that into mind, there were only two minor concerns I had with the novel. First being that when the author went into descriptive details of radio repair and engineering principles, my eyes would on occasion glaze over a bit since neither subject matter are strengths of mine. Nevertheless, as a curious reader, I know that it was necessary for me and other readers to know Werner's technical acumen when the author painstakingly described the workings of transmitters, transceivers, and the intricacies of repairing electronics.The second minor concern I had with the novel was the very last chapter, which covered the year 2014. So that I don't inadvertently give spoilers, I will simply say that I would have liked this chapter better if it was written differently. I loved the significance of it and the observations made, but I would have liked it better minus the game playing grandson. Also, I would have preferred the scene take place during a final visit to Saint-Malo rather than where the scene is depicted. Even better would have been if this very last chapter had been cut altogether. Ending the novel on the previous chapter labeled "Frederick," would have had a better impact in my view.Despite the minor misstep in the last chapter, 'All the Light we Cannot See' is superb all around and I absolutely recommend it. I also want to point out that unlike some readers, the back and forth narrative depicting differing timelines and differing character perspectives did NOT bother me one bit. This is a technique that I appreciate and think it is one of the reasons why this novel is so special. Readers who complain about this non-linear technique must challenge their ability (or lack of it) to retain multiple levels of story details as the plot progresses. For serious readers who like their books to have weighty, loaded implications, and for readers who appreciate intelligent writing that give literary gifts every turn of the page, 'All the Light we Cannot See' is for you. Read carefully and "open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever." 5 Stars!