Anthony Doerr: All The Light We Cannot See

I may have been the last person on earth who had not read Anthony Doerr’s ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE. Forty-one weeks on the New York Times Print/Hardcover Best Sellers List and counting. National Book Award Finalist. One of the Ten Best Books of 2014 selected by the New York Times Book Review.

Well, I finally remedied this lamentable lapse in my reading life this week. It’s a page-turner, all right. Laundry, cooking, feeding the (very patient) dogs – everything was ignored while I read. And read. And read.

Set mainly in France and Germany in 1934-1945 (with brief chapters in 1974 and 2014), it interweaves the stories of two young people: Marie-Laure LeBlanc, a blind, motherless girl who lives with her father, the
locksmith at the Museum of Natural History in Paris and Werner Pfennig, an orphan living (along with his sister Jutta) in a small German mining town. Destined for work in the mines, Werner has a talent for building and repairing radios and similar devices.

If there is a weakness to the book, it is that almost all the French characters are remarkably kind and brave whereas almost all the Germans are completely evil and sadistic

Marie-Laure’s father constructs tiny scale models of their Paris neighborhood which she “reads” by touch and, thus learns to navigate the outside world. They are forced to flee Paris as the Germans advance and take refuge in the home of her great uncle, Etienne, in the walled coastal town of Saint-Malo. The town is soon occupied by German forces and under siege by Allied bombers. Marie-Laure’s great-uncle is psychologically damaged by World War I and has not left the house in two decades. His long-time housekeeper dies, and Marie-Laure’s father is arrested and sent to a camp. Then all the men remaining in the town are rounded up and taken away, including Etienne. We move from one time period back to another and then forward again. We know where characters are physically and then we back up to learn how they got there. Doerr’s genius is that this is never confusing or annoying.

In the meantime, young Werner has been plucked from the mining town and sent to a special school for cadets who will serve the Reich. From there, he becomes part of a team sent out to locate radio transmissions by members of the Resistance as well as by Allied forces. During the bombing of Saint-Malo, he is trapped in the basement of a bombed grand hotel – only a few streets away from where Marie-Laure, alone and hungry, is hiding.

Throw into this mix the Nazi gemologist who is searching for a priceless diamond once in the Museum of Natural History in Paris. The museum has had three fakes created. The fakes and the real one have been distributed to four trusted people (including Marie-Laure’s father) in an attempt to protect it until the war is over and it can be returned to the museum.

Doerr’s techniques are particularly interesting. Most of the chapters are only two to three pages long and they alternate between the stories of Marie-Laure and Werner. This results in a very rapid pace. Nor is the chronology strict. We move from one time period back to another and then forward again. We know where characters are physically and then we back up to learn how they got there. Doerr’s genius is that this is never confusing or annoying.

If there is a weakness to the book, it is that almost all the French characters are remarkably kind and brave whereas almost all the Germans are completely evil and sadistic – especially at the school Werner attends. It is a place where very young boys are turned into killers and torturers, all for the glory of the Reich. Only one boy has the courage to refuse and he is beaten so badly that he is left brain-damaged and helpless, unable even to feed himself, for the rest of his life. Werner himself is seduced by the praise he gets and stands by while his friend is beaten. Only toward the end of the book does he begin to question what he has been trained to do, what he has become.

ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE is, nonetheless, an extraordinary book and well worth reading. Just feed the dogs and do the laundry before you start because you won’t get back to those tasks for a while.

(P.S. And, no, he’s not related to Harriet Doerr who published her debut novel, STONES FOR IBARRA at age 74.)