David Schwinghammer's Blog - Posts Tagged "best-books-of-2014"
All the Light We Cannot See
The title ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE is a double entendre. It’s about a blind girl during WWII, but it also shows us some light that shown through the horrible events.
Marie-Laure has congenital cataracts, but she probably sees more than most of us. At one point in the story, she describes to another girl what she sees. She sees colors, not darkness. Her father, a locksmith at a Paris museum, makes a miniature model of their neighborhood, and she must memorize it with her fingertips. He takes her six blocks from their apartment and tells her she must lead him back to their apartment. She’s terribly frustrated at first, but she eventually does it, and then she knows there’s virtually nothing she can’t do.
The second main character is a German, Werner, who is kind of an electronic genius. Doerr ties him to Marie-Laure in that he and his sister Jutta listen to her grandfather’s radio broadcasts about science. Werner and Jutta are orphans, and another “light” in the story is Frau Elena who treats her wards like her own children. There’s a parallel in Marie-Laure’s story where Madamn Manec, her great uncle’s housekeeper, is a freedom fighter who can make soup out of stones. I’m not exaggerating much.
Werner wins a spot at a school for the best of the Hitler youth where the technical teacher gives his charges an assignment: make something out of spare parts. Werner is able to make several devices, and he becomes the teacher’s research partner. There were people in Germany who hid their Jewish friends. Not everybody was a skunk. One was Frederick, Werner’s bunk mate, at the Hitler Youth camp. When the students are required to pour cold water on a prisoner to show they will follow orders, Frederick refuses. That makes him a weakling in the director’s eyes, and he’s got a big target on his back, but we know Frederick is really another one of the “lights” in the story.
When the teacher is promoted, Werner is sent to Russia to ferret out partisans who are sending out radio signals. Here he is reunited with Volkheimer, the giant student who served as an enforcer for the camp director. Only Volkheimer likes and respects Werner. At first we think Volkheimer is a stone cold killer, but we gradually learn that he was swept up in events just like millions of other people who would never have thought to do in everyday life what they did in the war. At the end of the book, we see what a mensch Volkheimer really is under the rough exterior.
Marie-Laure’s father and his daughter escape from Paris prior to the Nazi invasion, taking them to St.-Malo, an island where his uncle lives in a house with six floors, plus an attic. He hasn’t left the building in years, thanks to a gas attack during WWI. Madamn Manac prods Etienne into using the giant radio in the attic to help the partisans.
Another parallel between the two stories is the American invasion at Normandy and the French partisans who are helping the Allied army find German coastal artillery. Werner is sent to Saint-Malo. There’s another plot line involving the Sea of Flames, a great diamond the director of the museum may have given Marie-Laure’s father to protect. It’s one of four, but three are fakes. Marie-Laure’s father doesn’t know if he has the real one. A German sergeant major thinks he knows where it is.
I usually look for character-driven novels, and Marie-Laure and Werner are two of the best I’ve encountered since I read Kent Haruf’s PLAINSONG with the two wonderful bachelor farmers. When you reach the climax, pay close attention. Doerr often suggests rather than tells what’s happening. If you don’t, you’ll only have to go back and reread it.
Marie-Laure has congenital cataracts, but she probably sees more than most of us. At one point in the story, she describes to another girl what she sees. She sees colors, not darkness. Her father, a locksmith at a Paris museum, makes a miniature model of their neighborhood, and she must memorize it with her fingertips. He takes her six blocks from their apartment and tells her she must lead him back to their apartment. She’s terribly frustrated at first, but she eventually does it, and then she knows there’s virtually nothing she can’t do.
The second main character is a German, Werner, who is kind of an electronic genius. Doerr ties him to Marie-Laure in that he and his sister Jutta listen to her grandfather’s radio broadcasts about science. Werner and Jutta are orphans, and another “light” in the story is Frau Elena who treats her wards like her own children. There’s a parallel in Marie-Laure’s story where Madamn Manec, her great uncle’s housekeeper, is a freedom fighter who can make soup out of stones. I’m not exaggerating much.
Werner wins a spot at a school for the best of the Hitler youth where the technical teacher gives his charges an assignment: make something out of spare parts. Werner is able to make several devices, and he becomes the teacher’s research partner. There were people in Germany who hid their Jewish friends. Not everybody was a skunk. One was Frederick, Werner’s bunk mate, at the Hitler Youth camp. When the students are required to pour cold water on a prisoner to show they will follow orders, Frederick refuses. That makes him a weakling in the director’s eyes, and he’s got a big target on his back, but we know Frederick is really another one of the “lights” in the story.
When the teacher is promoted, Werner is sent to Russia to ferret out partisans who are sending out radio signals. Here he is reunited with Volkheimer, the giant student who served as an enforcer for the camp director. Only Volkheimer likes and respects Werner. At first we think Volkheimer is a stone cold killer, but we gradually learn that he was swept up in events just like millions of other people who would never have thought to do in everyday life what they did in the war. At the end of the book, we see what a mensch Volkheimer really is under the rough exterior.
Marie-Laure’s father and his daughter escape from Paris prior to the Nazi invasion, taking them to St.-Malo, an island where his uncle lives in a house with six floors, plus an attic. He hasn’t left the building in years, thanks to a gas attack during WWI. Madamn Manac prods Etienne into using the giant radio in the attic to help the partisans.
Another parallel between the two stories is the American invasion at Normandy and the French partisans who are helping the Allied army find German coastal artillery. Werner is sent to Saint-Malo. There’s another plot line involving the Sea of Flames, a great diamond the director of the museum may have given Marie-Laure’s father to protect. It’s one of four, but three are fakes. Marie-Laure’s father doesn’t know if he has the real one. A German sergeant major thinks he knows where it is.
I usually look for character-driven novels, and Marie-Laure and Werner are two of the best I’ve encountered since I read Kent Haruf’s PLAINSONG with the two wonderful bachelor farmers. When you reach the climax, pay close attention. Doerr often suggests rather than tells what’s happening. If you don’t, you’ll only have to go back and reread it.
