On my quest to find a Pulitzer Prize winner worth my time I came across this gem, Anthony Doerr's All the Light We Cannot See. I know everyone in the English speaking world has probably read this book but me, so my review is somewhat invalid, but it was fantastic! If I hadn't read The Girl on the Train last year this would've been my favorite read of 2015! There are not enough adjectives for me to describe how much I truly loved and appreciated this book. And while at times it was long and didn't make much sense it was 100% worth it!
Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. 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, the orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the resistance. More and more aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure’s converge.
Doerr’s “stunning sense of physical detail and gorgeous metaphors” (San Francisco Chronicle) are dazzling. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, he illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another. 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”
If this book was a Real Housewife, it's tagline would be "I may be dense, but I sure am worth it!" (okay, so it's either a Real Housewife or a L'Oreal commercial), because that's exactly what this book is. No offense to Doerr, but this book is long. I was about 100 pages in and was like "where the hell are we going? And why do I do this to myself?". At this point the only thing I was interested in was the Nazi, von Rumpel (yes, real name) and his swollen nut. I knew right away that he had cancer. Which PSA guys if you have a problem down there, don't hesitate to get it checked! Unless you're a Nazi like von Rumpel, then you could probably skip the visit. Soldier on.
In a mining town in Germany, the orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the resistance. More and more aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure’s converge.
Doerr’s “stunning sense of physical detail and gorgeous metaphors” (San Francisco Chronicle) are dazzling. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, he illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another. 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”
If this book was a Real Housewife, it's tagline would be "I may be dense, but I sure am worth it!" (okay, so it's either a Real Housewife or a L'Oreal commercial), because that's exactly what this book is. No offense to Doerr, but this book is long. I was about 100 pages in and was like "where the hell are we going? And why do I do this to myself?". At this point the only thing I was interested in was the Nazi, von Rumpel (yes, real name) and his swollen nut. I knew right away that he had cancer. Which PSA guys if you have a problem down there, don't hesitate to get it checked! Unless you're a Nazi like von Rumpel, then you could probably skip the visit. Soldier on.
Since our main character Marie-Laurie (God I love saying her name!) is blind the suspense is really amp'd up when you are reading her parts. The book is told entirely in third person, so all of that beautiful imagery of what is happening around her is in there. I'm a real history buff, so I did have to look some of the references that were unknown to me. Not that I'm a fact checker or anything, but if you're going to do it you might as well do it right. I was in love with the setting, which was really Saint-Malo, France. A citadel on the northwest coast of France. Even though we did go other places, Germany, Paris, Austria; Saint Malo is really our setting. The imagery is beautiful, I haven't enjoyed that in a novel for a really long time. I get really into books and this is a book that totally immersed me in every way shape and form.
Marie-Laurie is joined by our co-main character Werner, although I feel like we spent more time with ML than we did with Werner as a whole, he is important. Werner, an orphan who is drafted into Hitler Youth and shows a proficiency in radios, and I believe physics or math (I'm bad at both so they went right over my head) becomes some what of a whiz-kid and a help to the Reich. Werner fell in love with radios after rebuilding his first from a broken one in the orphanage. From there he and his sister (Jutta) listen to the far off lessons of science through a radio station in France. The connection between he and ML are these radio transmissions or radio transmissions as a whole. I don't want to go to into detail because of spoilers and also it will just confuse the hell out of you.
We also have a couple of supporting characters two that are a help to ML and Werner and one who is their common enemy. I hated the character of von Rumple, which was the point. I would get nervous and sweaty when be would come into play. I enjoyed the urgency during his parts, as he searched for the "Sea of Flames", and the mystery surrounding it all was enough to keep you interested. The way Doerr drifts out of the past and present and between battlefront's and home-fronts is very engaging. I never felt bored, but I did sometimes feel just kind of over it. It's unnecessarily long and I feel really bad saying it because I did enjoy this book so much. I just wish that maybe we could've wrapped it up a 100 pages sooner, but then I found myself wanting more. I really am conflicted. Still a good read though. Let's wrap this up before I keep rambling. Do I recommend All the Light We Cannot See? Yes! 100% I think if you enjoy historical fiction you are going to like this, or if you just enjoy fiction that's beautifully written you will also enjoy this. That's all for now!
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