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BASICS
Author: Anthony Doerr
Release Date: May 6th 2014
Publisher: Scribner
ISBN: 1476746583
Number of Pages: 531
Genre: Historical Fiction, Adult Fiction
MY OPINION
"Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever."
Oh, this book.
I was quite intimidated by it when I started reading.
It was a big book - you should have seen the German hardback edition. It's enormous.
But apart from it's physical size, the topic this book is about isn't easy.
It's about World War Two, and therefore about loss, destruction and death.
But Doerr truly managed to show us "all the light we cannot see" in this darkness.
He wrote poetry in prose. Which is magnificent and intimidating at the same time.
Even one of the authors (it could have been some magazine tho) stated in a blurb on the back:
"He sees the world as a scientist but feels it like a poet" - definitely true!
His characters were complex, the good ones and the bad ones alike. And he has a way to describe the scenery which makes you feel like you're there with them.
The downside of Doerr's poetic writing style that it can become quite boring and slow to read.
It's not for everybody. But I recommend you to try at least.
The book itself consists of very short chapters with little dialogue.
And it constantly switches from POV to POV. At the beginning it's divided into Marie-Laure's chapters and Werner's but soon other characters follow.
All The Light We Cannot See has two main characters, as I said already: Marie-Laure and Werner.
Both are teenagers during World War Two.
Marie-Laure LeBlanc lived in Paris and later in Saint Malo, a famous walled city in France.
She's blind since she's six years old but thanks to her father she managed to live with her disability.
He built her first a little model of Paris, later one of Saint Malo. And exactly this model may or may not harbor one of the most famous gems in the world.
Werner, an orphan from Germany, is a member of the Hitler Youth but he's no fighter.
He has a passion for radios and the Nazis know how to use him.
The story follows both Werner and Marie-Laure through most of their teenage years until they finally meet one day in August 1944. I loved their (few) scenes together.
And that's exactly the reason why I had to withdraw one star from the rating. As I've already mentioned, after a while Doerr's writing style gets harder to read. It's very exhaustive. Don't get me wrong: It's very beautiful and he put a lot of effort in his prose (it took him ten years to write it!), but it's tiring - especially when nothing happens for several chapters.
I still remember the exact chapter where I started to really enjoy the book. It's called "Around the world in 80 days". I'd say it's one of my favourites in the book!
Marie-Laure's notion of the world and way to conquer her blindness really inspired me!
She was such an inspiring character! And it's not only her but her whole family: Her father, Étienne and Madame Manec.
And I adored the friendship between those old women. They were the heroes of the book.
I definitely recommend you to give it a try! There's nothing to loose!
Favourite Quotes:
“So how, children, does the brain, which lives without a spark of light, build for us a world full of light?”
“That something so small could be so beautiful. Worth so much. Only the strongest people can turn away from feelings like that.”
“Don’t you want to be alive before you die?”
"Don't you want to be alive before you die?" RATING
4 out of 5 stars
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