Anthony Doerr’s All The Light We Cannot See

 

All The Light We Cannot See is a war novel written by American author Anthony Doerr. Far more than a conventional war story, it’s a tightly focused epic revolving around two main characters -a blind French girl, Marie-Laure Leblanc, and an orphaned German Boy, Werner Pfenning.

Marie-Laure the daughter of a Paris museum locksmith, Marie-Laure goes blind when she is 6 years old. Shortly after she turns 12, she and her father evacuated Paris and move to her great-uncle Etienne’s house in Saint-Maslo. Her father is arrested, leaving behind a wooden model of Saint-Malo, which hides the Sea of Flames, a valuable diamond. She and Etienne eventually join the French resistance movement, using Etienne radio to broadcast Allied intelligence. When she is 16, she is trapped in her attic for days while German officer von Rumpel searches Etienne’s house for the Sea of Flames. Marie-Laure begins broadcasting from Etienne’s radio and is heard by Werner, who locates the broadcast signal, goes to the house, and saves her from von Rumpel. After the war, Marie- Laure works at the museum where her father used to work. She has a daughter named Hélène and a grandson named Michel.

Werner and his sister, Jutta, grow up in an orphanage in Zollverein, Germany. Werner has a brilliant mind and wants to be a scientist, but he is told he will be sent to work in a coal mine when he is 15. When he impresses a Nazi official named Rudolf Siedler Institute of education at Schulpforta. When Werner is 16, a teacher named Dr. Hauptmann tells the government that Werner is 18 so that Werner can be drafted into the military, and so on.

The dual perspective is really interesting, a bit complicated to follow at times. In particular, you gonna love Marie-Laure, as her blindness allowed for Doerr to zoom in closely on her life, looking at intricate details using some amazing and beautiful imagery. You could really picture the things being described in your mind and really you love when a book does that! It is so interesting to see a dual perspective on the war from the French and Germans. It had been beautifully presented in the book, and it is so lovely to see what happened to the characters after the war, with a positive ending to a fulfilling book that will bring tears into your eyes at times. It is truly one of the best novels and you gonna love this, the story sheds light on so much, the character’s development throughout the novel truly has an effect on the readers. The novel is a sublime piece in English literature and the flow, language, and realism linked throughout the novel truly make it magnificent.