All the Light We Cannot See by
Anthony Doerr
Typically if everyone is gushing
over a book I don’t like it. (The
Goldfinch, which I don’t mind telling anyone I hated, immediately comes to
mind.) I am also pretty much done with
World War II books. I find the time period
fascinating and thrilling (and depending on the book depressing) but it seems
some authors set their books in that time period just to sell the book. This is the exception to both rules. I truly enjoyed this book, it couldn’t have
happened anywhere or anywhen else, and I didn’t want it to end.
Marie-Laure goes blind when she is
six. Her father is in charge of all the
locks and keys at the museum of natural history in Paris. His daughter
accompanies him to work and she learns to navigate her dark world and
appreciate mollusks and other things of nature through lessons from scientists
and other museum employees. Then the
German occupation forces them out of Paris and her known world. Her father is one of four museum employees
trusted with a very precious stone (one is real and three are fakes) and their
journey away from Paris takes them to her Great Uncle’s house in the walled
city of Saint Malo.
As Marie-Laure is fleeing northward
in France, Werner is leaving the house of orphans in a mining town in Germany for
an elite school for boys of the Reich.
At his new school he hears all the propaganda coming from the teachers
and the radio, but for some reason things don’t seem to be right.
I’m hesitant to say more. Of course these stories cross. I can tell you that it is all because of the
radio. In a way this book is a love song
to radio and all the good, and bad, things that it has brought about. After reading this book I have found myself
listening to the radio more than usual and imagining a time where that was your
source of late breaking news and also of comfort.
I am sure many readers of this blog
have already read this gem and are smiling in remembrance of a book well
read. For those of you who, like me,
chose not to read it: think again.
Choose this one. Enjoy.
