All the Light We Cannot See
Set during World War II in both France and Germany, All the Light We Cannot Not See introduces us to two children, who are unknown to one another. In the beginning, we find Marie-Laure, a blind, resourceful French girl, fleeing Paris with her father to live in the coastal town of Saint-Malo during the German occupation of France. We’re also introduced to Werner, a scientifically gifted German boy, who has a passion for building radios and lives in a German orphanage. As Marie-Laure and Werner grow older, she engages in acts of resistance against her town’s German occupiers, and he is apprehensive about his enlistment into the German army. Both of their lives intensify along with the trajectory of the war.
This is not your typical WWII novel, not only because it’s told from two perspectives but because we learn what it must have been like for those Germans forced to fight in a war they wanted nothing to do with. The thing I loved the most about the novel is Anthony Doerr’s gift of turning science into narrative poetry. His turns of phrase are a constant surprise, leading me to believe when someone told me it took Doerr ten years to write the novel. (Makes me not feel so bad about being in the twelfth year of writing mine ) Something that surprised me is Doerr’s use of magical realism in a historical novel. It was a minor part of the book, and because the novel overall was so well written, I just went with it.
