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All the Light We Cannot See
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All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr- 4.5 Stars
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I'm so glad you loved it too. It has been one of my most memorable reads in the past few years.
My favourite novel of 2016, and for a number of years prior not counting rereads. I may well listen to it again sometime.
This sounds interesting. If only I could get past the overuse of the holocaust and WW2 as a backdrop for books. I would love to read some of these books if only the authors would choose a different time period. Makes my stomach turn to think of reading yet another book in this setting.
J.W. wrote: "This sounds interesting. If only I could get past the overuse of the holocaust and WW2 as a backdrop for books. I would love to read some of these books if only the authors would choose a different..."That's how I often feel, but this book had something special about it that really transcended much of that for me. It really doesn't discuss the prison camps, etc, but it is in the war.
This is a story that could not have been told in a different setting, but it is not your usual wartime story.
If I had to describe this in one word, I would use the word lovely.
All the Light We Cannot See follows two stories. I only wish they converged sooner. The first story follows Marie-Laure and her family. She turns blind, and her and her father have to flee Paris during the Nazi Occupation to the city of Saint-Malo, where her uncle lives. The second plot shows Werner and his sister Jutta grow up in an orphanage. Werner gains knowledge and skill as a radio fixer, and get's into an elite Nazi school.
The descriptions in this book were great. I enjoyed the plot, I think the only reason I didn't give it 5 stars was because I found parts of the middle to be a little slow moving. I understand why it's slower- to give more definition to what is happening at the moment and describe things with justice. The characters build and grow- you can see their inner turmoil and their feelings played out by their actions and lack of action. There's definitely some heavier subject matter being war and all, but it was all done very though out to the situation and how the characters perceive what is going on.
What I REALLY thought was impressive were so many different uses of the word 'light' and the phrase 'cannot see'. In comparisons to blindness and vision, in comparison to the spoken word, in ignorance or "turning a blind eye", so many more. I loved the layers and meanings unfolding of the presence and absence of light. Very thought out and poignant.