All the Light We Cannot See in CMU Alumni Association Faculty Bookshelf

Dec 21, 2017 L rated it it was amazing

Best book I’ve read in a really long time!

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Jan 25, 2017 Emily Green rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction

In Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See, Marie-Laure, a Parisian girl, and Werner, a boy from a coal mining town in Germany, are brought through their youth and into the Second World War.

Maurie-Laure loses her sight before the age of ten, but her single father, a determined man and employee of Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle, spends his time teaching her to live with her new limitations while appreciating the world around her. He instructs her to move independently about their home In Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See, Marie-Laure, a Parisian girl, and Werner, a boy from a coal mining town in Germany, are brought through their youth and into the Second World War.

Maurie-Laure loses her sight before the age of ten, but her single father, a determined man and employee of Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle, spends his time teaching her to live with her new limitations while appreciating the world around her. He instructs her to move independently about their home and the surrounding area, including the Museum.

Werner, raised in an orphanage with his younger sister, develops a capacity for math and science at a young age, which allows the siblings to explore the larger world through a jury-rigged radio. He manages to escape a life in the coal mines by being recognized for his talent at repairing radios. Sent away to a special school to be learn more about the sciences and trained to be a soldier in Hitler’s army, Werner finds himself at odds with his sister and his sense of right and wrong.

The novel moves back and forth in time, the novel present being after the bombing of Saint-Malo, where both Marie-Laure and Werner find themselves. The dramatic tension of the novel arises from Werner being trapped in a bombed-in hotel basement and Marie-Laure abandoned in her uncle’s house. Chapters are closely paralleled between the boy and girl, with a few focused on other characters interspersed. Each chapter is short and usually focused on a scene or short period of time. Doerr has a brilliant talent of focusing on visual and technical details, which helps to brilliantly highlight Werner’s interest in radios and Marie-Laure’s passion for shells. Doerr also has a genius for capturing place, each setting inherent to the character and action at that point of the plot.

All the Light We Cannot See is a beautiful novel, and transcends the genres of historical fiction and more specifically World War II fiction. The story is not as desperately sad as some tales of Nazis and the destruction caused by the war. Doerr’s focus on how the circumstances of childhood shapes the rest of a life helps to create a full and rich book.

If anything, I could have done without the 1974 and 2014 sections of the book, but some might find the flash-forwards fulfilling. Doerr is an excellent story teller, and All the Light We Cannot See is his best work yet.
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