Title: All the Light We Cannot See
Author: Anthony Doerr
Publisher: Scribner
Genre: Historical Fiction
Year of Publication: 2014
Date of Publication: May 6, 2014
Pages: 544 (hardback)
ISBN‑10: 1476746583
ISBN‑13: 978‑1476746586
Audiobook Read by: Zach Appelman
Summary of All the Light We Cannot See
All the Light We Cannot See follows Marie-Laure, a blind French girl, and Werner, a German soldier, during World War II. We follow Marie and Werner from their early childhood days through their teenage years and then the story splits timeline and you see them during the war and the consequences it has on both their lives.
The story tells us about the time before Marie-Laure lost her sight, her love for reading, and how her father pushed her to develop independence. Her father created detailed models of the town she lived when she was a child and when they moved to Saint-Malo, where her great uncle lives, be began building new models of the city to allow Marie-Laure move around freely. Her uncle lived at Number 4 rue Vauborel and this location plays a significant role in the book.
“…father works on the model, sanding, nailing, cutting, measuring, each day working more frenetically than the last, as if against some deadline know only to him.”— Narration about Maure-Laure’s thoughts on her father’s time spent on the models.
We also learn about Werner, how he grew up in an orphanage called Children’s House and how his love for repairing radios started. The story also focuses on other characters including Werner’s sister Jutta, Marie-Laure’s father, Daniel, her great uncle, Etienne, and a gemologist called Reinhold von Rumpel.
Werner and Marie-Laure’s lives intersect in occupied France as Marie-Laure struggles to survive with her family, while Werner is swept into the Nazi war machine. What brings them together is a valuable gem and a secret radio broadcast. But more importantly, they both find themselves in positions where they are each seeking hope amidst devastation.
Main Plot & Characters
- Marie-Laure LeBlanc: A blind French girl who loves books and puzzles. She lives in Paris with her father and later flees to Saint-Malo during the German occupation.
- Werner Pfennig: A German orphan who is skilled with radios and electronics. He is recruited into a Nazi school and later sent to the front as a radio operator.
- Daniel LeBlanc: Marie-Laure’s father; a locksmith for the Museum of Natural History in Paris. At the start of the war, he and three others are each given a diamond from the museum to deliver to particular locations for safekeeping. Only three of the diamonds are real but none of them know, which ones are real, and are all tasked with treating the diamonds as if they are the authentic versions.
- Etienne LeBlanc: Marie-Laure’s great-uncle. A reclusive World War I veteran living in Saint-Malo. He runs an illegal radio broadcast from his attic.
- Madame Manec: Etienne’s loyal housekeeper. She helps the French resistance and encourages Marie-Laure to take part after the war breaks out.
- Jutta Pfennig: Werner’s younger sister. Although she was very young at the time the war broke out, she spent a lot of time listening to foreign radio broadcasts. The things she heard were completely different from what the Germans were saying and reporting as true and because of that she started to question the truth about Nazi teachings.
- Frau Elena: She is the caretaker of the orphanage where Werner and Jutta grow up. Frau Elena is kind and a very maternal woman.
- Dr. Hauptmann: A teacher at the Nazi school who mentors Werner and uses him for his technical expertise.
- Frank Volkheimer: A giant, loyal student nicknamed “The Giant.” He later becomes Werner’s companion in the war. Although he is feared by most of the students, he is actually a very kind person.
- Reinhold von Rumpel: He is a 41-year old gemologist who is obsessed with diamonds. Before the war he ran an appraisal business. He is known for being able to spot fakes at a glance. When the war hits, he becomes obsessed with finding precious objects and creating a museum that includes all the greatest achievements in human culture. He works off a 400 page document that contains a wish list of items to create this museum. Reinhold von Rumpel becomes the main antagonist, hunting down Marie-Laure.
- Claude Levitte: His nickname is “big Claude.” He ran a perfumery before the war but is always thinking of the next opportunity.
- Madame Ruelle: She is the elderly baker in Saint-Malo, who also plays a discreet yet crucial role in the French Resistance. She is a close friend of Madame Manec and assists by concealing secret messages for the Allies.
Writing Style
Doerr’s tells the story using a narrator that focuses on multiple perspectives. You get to see what the war does to both Marie-Laure and Werner and view the war from a human perspective.
The chapters are extremely short so it’s easy to get through each one pretty quickly but the pacing of the story is slow. With that said, Doerr’s descriptions of each setting is fantastic. As a reader you are able to visualize each scene clearly as though you are watching a movie unfold.
“The window glows. The slow sandy light of dawn permeates the room. Everything transient and aching; everything tentative. To be here, in this room, high in this house, out of the cellar, with her: it is like medicine.”— Werner’s reflections
The book is written in a way that you cannot help but think about the innocence of being a child with how brutal war can be.
“War, Etienne thinks distantly, is a bazaar where lives are traded like any other commodity: chocolate or bullets or parachute silk.”
Memorable Quotes:
- “Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever.”— Etienne LeBlanc
- “You know the greatest lesson of history? It’s that history is whatever the victors say it is. That’s the lesson. We act in our own self interest of course we do. Name me a person or a nation who does not? The trick is figuring out what your interests are.”— Herr Siedler
- “Is it right to do something only because everyone else is doing it? ”— Jutta Pfennig
- “How can one country make everybody change its clocks. What if everybody refuses?”— Marie-Laure
- “Circling the drain.”—Volkheimer
- “When I lost my sight, Werner, people said I was brave. When my father left, people said I was brave. But it’s not bravery; I have no choice. I wake up and live my life. Don’t you do the same?”— Marie-Laure
- “There are boys who have been admitted not because they are good at anything in particular, but because their father’s work for ministries and the way they talk? One must not expect figs from thistles.”— Werner’s reflections
- “If your same blood doesn’t run in the arms and legs of the person you’re next to, you can’t trust anything.”
- “Time is a slippery thing; lose hold of it once, and its string might sail out of your hands forever.”— Marie-Laure‘s reflections
- “All your life you wait, and then it finally comes, and are you ready.”— Werner’s reflections
“…because that is how things are with Neumann Two, with everybody in this unit, in this army, in this world, they do as they’re told, they get scared, they move about with only themselves in mind. Name me someone who does not.”— Werner’s reflections
Impact of All the Light We Cannot See
All the Light We Cannot See won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2015.
What are your thoughts on All the Light We Cannot See? Have you had a chance to read it? Let us know in the comments!
Authors
You May Also Like:
Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Book Review
Trust by Hernan Diaz
Four Treasures of the Sky by Jenny Tinghui Zhang
Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell
The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue
The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich Book Review
The Alice Network by Kate Quinn
Beloved by Toni Morrison
