Scan barcode
A review by deathcabforkatey
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
5.0
Wow. What an amazing book that looks at the complexity of war, and specifically of WWII.
The story revolves around two main characters - a blind French girl and an orphan German boy. Both are intelligent young children at the start of the war and both experience and struggle with war in different ways. They meet for only a brief moment, and yet the whole book seems to build up to that short, meaningful meeting of these souls.
Werner's character highlights that complicity in the Reich was so complicated. An orphan who wants to be a scientist - who sees opportunity where previously he had been promised to the coal mines. However Doerr never tries to make excuses for the German soldiers, and even Werner himself. While you empathize with him and his situation, you are simultaneously begging for him to do the right thing.
Marie-Laure's struggle, in contrast, is with family and how family units struggled during the war. How they rebelled and how they survived. Her courage in the face of adversity isn't as simple as going to a battle field or being in a resistance. It was finding a way to survive - it was in the can of green beans when all else was gone.
The significance of the radio is so beautiful as the centerpiece of the novel. Without giving too much away, it connects the characters across borders from the beginning of the novel until the end. To me the radio signified the way that humanity can build things to connect one another and simultaneously destroy one another. Seeing Werner as a tool in that is an incredible struggle within him.
The non-linear timeline of the book was very well done. However, I do think the book could use a timeline of events in the war. Luckily my husband knows a lot about WWII so I just turned to him to ask about when V-E day was and how long France was occupied, etc.
Lastly, as the granddaughter of grandparents who were children Germans during the war this has inspired me to finally ask them the questions I've wanted to ask them about that time. I've heard bits and pieces but this history is so important, no matter which side of the line their birthplace put them. War is mournful, and this book made me cry at the end just because of the way we think about war on such a broad scale. And yet on a minute level we can't dissolve it down. Thank-you for this wonderful novel to wind down my 2017 reading. Definitely deserving of the Pulitzer.
Read if you like: Historical Fiction, WWII Novels, non-linear timelines, complex characters, moral ambiguity, to cry at the end of books.
The story revolves around two main characters - a blind French girl and an orphan German boy. Both are intelligent young children at the start of the war and both experience and struggle with war in different ways. They meet for only a brief moment, and yet the whole book seems to build up to that short, meaningful meeting of these souls.
Werner's character highlights that complicity in the Reich was so complicated. An orphan who wants to be a scientist - who sees opportunity where previously he had been promised to the coal mines. However Doerr never tries to make excuses for the German soldiers, and even Werner himself. While you empathize with him and his situation, you are simultaneously begging for him to do the right thing.
Marie-Laure's struggle, in contrast, is with family and how family units struggled during the war. How they rebelled and how they survived. Her courage in the face of adversity isn't as simple as going to a battle field or being in a resistance. It was finding a way to survive - it was in the can of green beans when all else was gone.
The significance of the radio is so beautiful as the centerpiece of the novel. Without giving too much away, it connects the characters across borders from the beginning of the novel until the end. To me the radio signified the way that humanity can build things to connect one another and simultaneously destroy one another. Seeing Werner as a tool in that is an incredible struggle within him.
The non-linear timeline of the book was very well done. However, I do think the book could use a timeline of events in the war. Luckily my husband knows a lot about WWII so I just turned to him to ask about when V-E day was and how long France was occupied, etc.
Lastly, as the granddaughter of grandparents who were children Germans during the war this has inspired me to finally ask them the questions I've wanted to ask them about that time. I've heard bits and pieces but this history is so important, no matter which side of the line their birthplace put them. War is mournful, and this book made me cry at the end just because of the way we think about war on such a broad scale. And yet on a minute level we can't dissolve it down. Thank-you for this wonderful novel to wind down my 2017 reading. Definitely deserving of the Pulitzer.
Read if you like: Historical Fiction, WWII Novels, non-linear timelines, complex characters, moral ambiguity, to cry at the end of books.