All The Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr

Written by Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See, was published by Scribner on May 6, 2014. It has won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the 2015 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction.

An imaginative novel set in the backdrop of World War II, the novel is presented in short, staccato-type chapters that explore and dissect the intricacies and complexities of the human nature and the power of technology.

Synopsis: Set in the backdrop of the horrors of WWII , the novel traces the life trajectories of a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France, as they both try to survive the war and it’s devastating effects.

Marie Laure lives with her father in Paris within walking distance of the Museum of Natural History where he works as a locksmith. At the age of six, due to a congenital defect Marie goes blind, and her father builds her a model of their neighborhood, with intricate details of every house, every drain…so that she can memorize it with her fingers and, then navigate the real streets with her feet and cane. When the Germans occupy Paris, father and daughter flee to Saint-Malo where her father’s uncle lives.

In Germany, Werner, grows up with his younger sister, Jutta, in an orphanage and both are deeply awed by a simple radio that Werner finds. With time, gradually tinkering and playing with the mechanical and technical components of the radio, Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing radios, and this talent saves him from a dreary future of working in the mines, as was the destiny of all the orphan boys at that time. Noticed and recommended by a German sergeant, he wins a place in the much coveted elite military academy and eventually becomes a highly specialized tracker of the Resistance and weeds out all partisans acting against Germany. This job takes him across several places and eventually he lands in Saint-Malo…the very place where Marie Laure is staying with her great uncle, Etienne.

How their different paths converge, how they survive the brutalities and terrors of the war, the sacrifices and losses that each of them suffers….is what this book is all about.

My thoughts:

The book is VERY descriptive and the details meticulously researched and then portrayed. There are some factual errors, such as there is mention of Pakistan Radio, whereas in reality Pakistan came into existence only after 1947, but these can be ignored and forgiven – as they do not have any major impact on the story as it flows. Imaginations are beautifully captured and the life journey of the two main characters explicitly defined. There is a lot of going back and forth in time, to explain and draw out the characters’ perspectives and how each one was brought to where s/he was. So, the book basically is not a linear, straight cut historical fiction.

The language used by the author is highly evocative and many a times, I could literally feel myself in the midst of the story, experiencing the very same feelings and emotions and sensations, that the character was going through at that particular point in time in the story. The chapters, or rather the scenes were short, brief, but very well crafted and visualized. Marie Laure and Werner’s stories are alternated across chapters and you can’t stop turning pages, because you just need to know…WHAT HAPPENS NEXT!

The ending is not as expected….you don’t get your average teens meeting each other and the typical falling in love and happy ever after scenes. Even the little amount of love that comes through between them is short, brittle and all the more haunting.

Despite, all the positive things about the book, there’s one thing that the reader needs to be careful of and that is the heavy handed words used in the book and details, some of which, might seem repetitive, unnecessary and we’ll, might even border on ‘overwriting’.

I heard from a lot of people that they couldn’t go beyond the first 50-60 pages….but I would HIGHLY RECOMMEND this book and ask readers to persist on…as once you’re through the first 100 or so pages….it will be difficult to keep the book down. You’ll see why, if you read on.

So happy reading for now, folks!