All the Light We Cannot See

by Anthony Doerr

gouges,

harrying

Saint-Malo

Doors soar away from their frames. Bricks transmute into powder. Great distending clouds of chalk and earth and granite spout into the sky. All twelve bombers have already turned and climbed and realigned high above the Channel before roof slates blown into the air finish falling into the streets.

skeins

moves

stucco—there

prefecture,

wallow.

cherub

visage

glowering

béchamel.

lorgnettes

Burguet;

leeks,

shuck

itinerants

raciological

Calipers

himmelblau,

Nationalpolitische

Erzie-hungsanstalten

hungsans...

falconries,

lorry

Stukas

flanks.

Cancale,

portcullis,

curbstone

Volksempfängers

Deutchlandsender.

Schulpforta.

Pflicht.

In winters past, Werner used to tow her in their wagon to this very spot, and they would watch skaters race along the frozen canal, farmers with blades fixed to their feet and frost caked in their beards, five or six rushing by all at once, tightly packed, in the midst of an eight- or nine-mile race between towns.

Schnee.

eels.

aperture

whelk.”

His voice is low and soft, a piece of silk you might keep in a drawer and pull out only on rare occasions, just to feel it between your fingers.

Heterodyne.

coverlet

Music spirals out of the radios, and it is splendid to drowse on the davenport, to be warm and fed, to feel the sentences hoist her up and carry her somewhere else.

slats,

scabbard

NCOs

reedy

refectory.

phrenologist