"All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr is a beautifully crafted story set during World War II, focusing on the parallel lives of a French blind girl, Marie Laure, and a German orphan boy, Werner. The book intricately weaves together their individual experiences, struggles, and choices, ultimately leading to a fateful encounter. Through short chapters alternating between characters, the author paints a vivid picture of the war's atrocities and the interconnectedness of lives amidst chaos, showcasing the humanity on both sides of the conflict.
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Sensitive Topics/Content Warnings
Content warnings include themes of war, violence, loss, and trauma, particularly related to the context of WWII.
From The Publisher:
*Winner of the Pulitzer Prize* A New York Times Book Review Top Ten Book* A National Book Award finalist *
From Anthony Doerr, the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning author of Cloud Cuckoo Land, the beautiful, stunningly ambitious instant New York Times bestseller about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II.
Marie-Laure lives in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where her father works. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure's reclusive great uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum's most valuable and dangerous jewel.
In a mining town in Germany, Werner Pfennig, an orphan, grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find that brings them news and stories from places they have never seen or imagined. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments and is enlisted to use his talent to track down the resistance. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, Doerr illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another.
Doerr's "stunning sense of physical detail and gorgeous metaphors" (San Francisco Chronicle) are dazzling. Ten years in the writing, a National Book Award finalist, All the Light We Cannot See is a magnificent, deeply moving novel from a writer "whose sentences never fail to thrill" (Los Angeles Times).
Ratings (371)
Incredible (92) | |
Loved It (152) | |
Liked It (76) | |
It Was OK (35) | |
Did Not Like (12) | |
Hated It (4) |
Reader Stats (677):
Read It (382) | |
Currently Reading (7) | |
Want To Read (221) | |
Did Not Finish (20) | |
Not Interested (47) |
7 comment(s)
“Open your eyes, concludes the man, and see what you can with them before they close forever”
Hauntingly beautiful words/sentences, every single one of them!! Addicting prose in the book with an incredible story about characters you become deeply addicted to reading about!!
By now this book has probably been reviewed by lots of people, some much smarter than I am. For me, what stood out (besides the plot's beautiful symmetry, the aching sadness between many of the characters, and the lush prose) is Werner's predicament. Werner joins the Hitler Youth and dedicates himself wholeheartedly to the program because his nightmare is to return to the orphanage and be sent to work in the coal mines at 15. Since his father died in the mines, he will do anything to avoid them. At first this doesn't seem so bad, meeting the disciplinary expectations of the school, but as he moves into war he begins to realize the far-reaching consequences of his actions. Doerr paints an empathetic picture of a character that no one should forgive: a Nazi. Werner fought for his place in the organization to avoid what he thought was a worse fate, but when he realizes what he has become, he despises himself. It's a character study that not many authors could pull off with the necessary combination of deftness, forthrightness, and sympathy.
I am still trying to work out what, exactly, I thought of this one. Some things I liked. Some I didn’t. It was slow at times. It was beautiful at times. There were weird anachronisms. It was stilted at times, verbose at others. It ran a little long. I liked the characters. I don’t know where I’ll eventually settle. It was a paradox.
This is one of the best books I have ever read. St. Malo and the Breton coast & culture really comes alive. All of the characters are fascinating and authentic.
This book was fine.
There was some beautiful imagery and prose, but for the most part I found this fairly unengaging. The characters were distant and cold; the settings didn't feel real; and at no point did I feel like I was there, like I could picture the surroundings, like I cared about what was happening. There was a fair bit of naval gazing, to the point that every third paragraph could probably be removed without impacting the story flow. I was also unsatisfied about how the two story lines did - or, rather, didn't - converge.
It took me over five months to finish this, and the only reason I did was because I felt obligated to follow through. Unfortunately, the ending was underwhelming, but I'm at least glad I can check this off my list.
pretty prose, sometimes a little purple, but the main characters are unique and compelling
One of my top 10. Thrilling novel with lots of historical fiction.
What can you read after
All the Light We Cannot See?
About the Author:
Anthony Doerr is the author of All the Light We Cannot See, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the Carnegie Medal, the Alex Award, and a #1 New York Times bestseller. He is also the author of the story collections Memory Wall and The Shell Collector, the novel About Grace, and the memoir Four Seasons in Rome. He has won five O. Henry Prizes, the Rome Prize, the New York Public Library's Young Lions Award, the National Magazine Award for fiction, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Story Prize. Born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, Doerr lives in Boise, Idaho, with his wife and two sons.
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