All The Light We Cannot See

[Sarah]

next book after Munich

[Shirley]

Again, please don't read this until you have finished the book, I must get this down straight away.
I've just finished reading the book, I think it is probably one of the best things I read in years. It is so thoroughly absorbing that I felt compelled to read it at a fairly slow pace, not wanting to miss one thought, phrase or inference. It is a book full of joy and beauty but also shows painfully explicit horrors of war, how Doerr has balanced these threads is simply incredible. It is no surprise that it took him ten years to write, the responsibility to accurately portray his characters and the millions of people they represent must have been an enormous burden, but one I think he has managed to perfection.
There are many themes we could discuss, I was especially intrigued by the meaning of 'Light' from the title. Light could have a range of interpretations; light from the electromagnetic spectrum, including radio waves, which continually swirl around us, light that comes from knowledge that is built inside a 'brain locked in total darkness', light that is God's truth of the 'quick-fading spark' of any creature or light that is the unseen love between all of us no matter our beliefs or alliances.
We could also consider how the aggressors of war can also be victims; the horrors inflicted on Frederick, Jutta and others, how Werner is haunted by his deeds in the East. Or we could look at the myth of the Sea of Flames, how the fantasy of survival is suggested by its possession and how Doerr manages to make this fantasy succeed in his plot.
Well that's really just for starters, I could talk about this one all day long. I think I'm slightly overwhelmed by its beauty, it's so full of complex little insights, observations and endless empathy, each character, however minor, seeming so well fleshed out that you seem to know them intimately from the outset.
I think it is a beautifully crafted work of art, dug out of our history -a real diamond.

[Shirley]

Sarah, you will cry.

[Sarah]

Brilliant review Shirley. 🙂 x

[Helen]

I absolutely loved this book. Shirley's review is so good that I don't feel I can add much to it. This is a book that I will reread many times. The writing is beautiful throughout, the characterisation is perfect. I loved that I was able to like Werner and Jutta as much as I liked Marie-Laure, her father and Etienne. I am so sad that Marie Laure never found out what happened to her father, but that was the reality for so many thousands of people at the end of the war. I think that Werner returned to the grotto, retrieved the little house and discovered it's mechanisms and the sea of flames and returned it to the sea as per Marie Laure's wishes. He then put the grotto key back in the little house. Why he went back and did that, I don't know. It seems to be a common ploy that the ending of a novel is left open to the reader's interpretation. I'm not a big fan of that, I've followed the story from the beginning, give me an ending!

[Shirley]

Yes I agree Helen it’s not clear wether he put the diamond in the sea on purpose or whether it dropped from the little house before or after he went back; an act of providence perhaps. It’s nice to think that he went back and did it on purpose out of love for Marie Laure, but I don’t remember him having any knowledge of the stone. Suppose he could have gone back to retrieve the house and accidentally found it. Either way we are kept hanging, one more lost memory in the midst of war.