paperback, 544 pages
English language
Published April 4, 2017 by Scribner.
From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, a stunningly ambitious and beautiful novel about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II. Marie Laure lives with her father in Paris within walking distance of the Museum of Natural History where he works as the master of the locks (there are thousands of locks in the museum). When she is six, she goes blind, and her father builds her a model of their neighborhood, every house, every manhole, so she can memorize it with her fingers and navigate the real streets with her feet and cane. When the Germans occupy Paris, father and daughter flee to Saint-Malo on the Brittany coast, where Marie-Laure's agoraphobic great uncle lives in a tall, narrow house by the sea wall. In another world in Germany, an orphan …
From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, a stunningly ambitious and beautiful novel about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II. Marie Laure lives with her father in Paris within walking distance of the Museum of Natural History where he works as the master of the locks (there are thousands of locks in the museum). When she is six, she goes blind, and her father builds her a model of their neighborhood, every house, every manhole, so she can memorize it with her fingers and navigate the real streets with her feet and cane. When the Germans occupy Paris, father and daughter flee to Saint-Malo on the Brittany coast, where Marie-Laure's agoraphobic great uncle lives in a tall, narrow house by the sea wall. In another world in Germany, an orphan boy, Werner, grows up with his younger sister, Jutta, both enchanted by a crude radio Werner finds. He becomes a master at building and fixing radios, a talent that wins him a place at an elite and brutal military academy and, ultimately, makes him a highly specialized tracker of the Resistance. Werner travels through the heart of Hitler Youth to the far-flung outskirts of Russia, and finally into Saint-Malo, where his path converges with Marie-Laure. Doerr's gorgeous combination of soaring imagination with observation is electric. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, Doerr illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another. Ten years in the writing, All the Light We Cannot See is his most ambitious and dazzling work
A moving and endearing story with great characters. Tends toward fancy, excessively detailed descriptions of settings, but I should have expected that from the Pulitzer seal on the cover.
Stunning.
An enduring best seller and one of the few books you'll see that has a sympathetic WWII-era Nazi in it. Don't let its thickness scare you; it's not a 530-page book, it's a 300 page book. There's tons of air in it because its chapters are seldom longer than three pages. The chapters shift back and forth between the two main characters and in time and sometimes reading it is like watching a table tennis match. But don't let that keep you from it. Despite the brevity of the chapters, there's lots going on, both in the story and the writing. Doerr has the gift of phrasing and it's so subtle you'll want to make yourself slow down.
This is a novel worthy of studying and discussing with others, the better to get more out of it.
I've been left feeling really underwhelmed by this book, I was so looking forward to it, Pulitzer prize winner, good reviews from friends and one of the most impressive plots I've come across in a book. But the writing is poor, reminds me of [b:The Da Vinci Code|968|The Da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon, #2)|Dan Brown|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1303252999s/968.jpg|2982101] at times, really rushed and no passion from the author. With the time the plot takes part you would expect to be shocked at some of the things that were happening, but I was left felling Meh! as a 14 yr old boy gets slapped around the face with a rubber hose, something has gone wrong if that scene makes you feel nothing.
The book was set for a 2* rating, but the last 15% of the book was what I was expecting, some exciting drama, moving scenes and really well written, it was like …
I've been left feeling really underwhelmed by this book, I was so looking forward to it, Pulitzer prize winner, good reviews from friends and one of the most impressive plots I've come across in a book. But the writing is poor, reminds me of [b:The Da Vinci Code|968|The Da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon, #2)|Dan Brown|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1303252999s/968.jpg|2982101] at times, really rushed and no passion from the author. With the time the plot takes part you would expect to be shocked at some of the things that were happening, but I was left felling Meh! as a 14 yr old boy gets slapped around the face with a rubber hose, something has gone wrong if that scene makes you feel nothing.
The book was set for a 2* rating, but the last 15% of the book was what I was expecting, some exciting drama, moving scenes and really well written, it was like it was by a different author. If the rest of the book had been written like that then I would have considered this a modern day masterpiece.
Hope they make a movie of this, would be pretty good.
All the Light We Cannot See has received bundles of praise and a Pulitzer Prize so I’ve been left wondering if I missed the point. With the exception of the last 100 or so pages, I felt the prose was unemotional and the characters were rather romanticised.
Marie-Laure loses her sight aged just six. It didn’t portray any of the frustration you would expect of a young child going blind and her father is so perfectly patient with her. By nine years old she is a proficient braille reader, reading Jules Verne, imagining worlds she will never see. During her childhood, war breaks out across Europe and France is occupied. Yet she still seems to lead a mostly privileged lifestyle, even if she must stay indoors.
Marie-Laure’s story just didn’t seem to go anywhere. The chapters are short and alternate mostly between her and Werner’s stories, which had the very …
All the Light We Cannot See has received bundles of praise and a Pulitzer Prize so I’ve been left wondering if I missed the point. With the exception of the last 100 or so pages, I felt the prose was unemotional and the characters were rather romanticised.
Marie-Laure loses her sight aged just six. It didn’t portray any of the frustration you would expect of a young child going blind and her father is so perfectly patient with her. By nine years old she is a proficient braille reader, reading Jules Verne, imagining worlds she will never see. During her childhood, war breaks out across Europe and France is occupied. Yet she still seems to lead a mostly privileged lifestyle, even if she must stay indoors.
Marie-Laure’s story just didn’t seem to go anywhere. The chapters are short and alternate mostly between her and Werner’s stories, which had the very tenuous link of radios. For the most part, I felt like I was reading two different stories, constantly being torn away before I could connect with either.
Understandably, Werner is something of a spectator to his life, an orphan with no choice to follow the desires of the state. A state whose ideals he’s not sure he believes in. He stands by while awful things are done, so his portion of the story seems distanced. There are glimpses of a boy who cares, but it takes him time to do anything noteworthy.
The plot regarding the mysterious and valuable diamond might have been more enjoyable in a short novel, but I’m not sure it bound together the narratives. There’s a German on the hunt for it, who becomes obsessed, maybe believing in its curse. Not to forget an immensely talented forger who can make faultless copies of a rather unique gemstone.
There’s a completely unnecessary rape scene. It does nothing to further the plot or characters, in fact it’s minor characters that are involved and it isn’t revisited. It was a bit like the author thought he hadn’t got round to mentioning how awful the Russians were in this war, so let’s throw in a rape to show that.
It’s all just a bit meandering and went on far too long. There’s better examples of WWII novels and portrayals of blind characters out there. I spent ages being annoyed by the use of the term terrorist, which seemed modern and out of place. However I did look it up, and will let Anthony off, as it was originally coined during the French Revolution, so it is possible it was commonly used in France during the war.
Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever.
This novel is a gorgeous accomplishment, a profound story in so many ways. And one that I will remember well for quite some time.
A compelling romance of the Second World War. I found it interesting to compare this to Suite Francaise, another book that's mostly concerned with the Nazi occupation of France. In that book, Irene Nemirovsky was writing about what was happening around her at that very moment, and Suite Francaise is unfinished because of her internment and murder at the hands of the Third Reich. This book, on the other hand, was written in the 21st century by the American writer-in-residence for the state of Idaho.
Those differing perspectives result in some very similar books, however. Both books involve a nascent, never-fully-realized romance between a German soldier and a young French woman. That romance is more fully developed in Suite Francaise; here it's background to the story of how those two people survived in Europe during the worst years of the 20th century, and how they came to meet.
Both books …
A compelling romance of the Second World War. I found it interesting to compare this to Suite Francaise, another book that's mostly concerned with the Nazi occupation of France. In that book, Irene Nemirovsky was writing about what was happening around her at that very moment, and Suite Francaise is unfinished because of her internment and murder at the hands of the Third Reich. This book, on the other hand, was written in the 21st century by the American writer-in-residence for the state of Idaho.
Those differing perspectives result in some very similar books, however. Both books involve a nascent, never-fully-realized romance between a German soldier and a young French woman. That romance is more fully developed in Suite Francaise; here it's background to the story of how those two people survived in Europe during the worst years of the 20th century, and how they came to meet.
Both books are told very cinematically. I understand Suite Francaise is already a film in Europe, coming to the US soon. I won't be surprised to see All the Light We Cannot See not far behind.
This book garnered a LOT of attention due to being easily read (and because it won a few notable awards). I figured I'd not fall into that trap, and wondered whether I'd really read it.
“You know the greatest lesson of history? It’s that history is whatever the victors say it is. That’s the lesson. Whoever wins, that’s who decides the history. 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 where your interests are.”
I got into the style about 15% in, and couldn't stop. It's not that the contents lured me, rather that the book was so well-written; the space, the characters, the jumps between Germany and England... It got to me. All in all, it's like attending a course you'll remember for quite some time: you're glad you saw the how-tos, …
This book garnered a LOT of attention due to being easily read (and because it won a few notable awards). I figured I'd not fall into that trap, and wondered whether I'd really read it.
“You know the greatest lesson of history? It’s that history is whatever the victors say it is. That’s the lesson. Whoever wins, that’s who decides the history. 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 where your interests are.”
This book garnered a LOT of attention due to being easily read (and because it won a few notable awards). I figured I'd not fall into that trap, and wondered whether I'd really read it.
“You know the greatest lesson of history? It’s that history is whatever the victors say it is. That’s the lesson. Whoever wins, that’s who decides the history. 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 where your interests are.”
I got into the style about 15% in, and couldn't stop. It's not that the contents lured me, rather that the book was so well-written; the space, the characters, the jumps between Germany and England... It got to me. All in all, it's like attending a course you'll remember for quite some time: you're glad you saw the how-tos, …
This book garnered a LOT of attention due to being easily read (and because it won a few notable awards). I figured I'd not fall into that trap, and wondered whether I'd really read it.
“You know the greatest lesson of history? It’s that history is whatever the victors say it is. That’s the lesson. Whoever wins, that’s who decides the history. 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 where your interests are.”
This book garnered a LOT of attention due to being easily read (and because it won a few notable awards). I figured I'd not fall into that trap, and wondered whether I'd really read it.
âYou know the greatest lesson of history? Itâs that history is whatever the victors say it is. Thatâs the lesson. Whoever wins, thatâs who decides the history. 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 where your interests are.â
I got into the style about 15% in, and couldn't stop. It's not that the contents lured me, rather that the book was so well-written; the space, the characters, the jumps between Germany and England... It got to me. All in all, it's like attending a course you'll remember for quite some time: you're glad you saw the how-tos, …
This book garnered a LOT of attention due to being easily read (and because it won a few notable awards). I figured I'd not fall into that trap, and wondered whether I'd really read it.
âYou know the greatest lesson of history? Itâs that history is whatever the victors say it is. Thatâs the lesson. Whoever wins, thatâs who decides the history. 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 where your interests are.â
World War II. Occupied France. Two young lives in different places, both impacted by the conflict. They come together in this unique, well-written work of historical fiction. The writing is both beautiful and sad. My heart broke into a million pieces several times while reading.
I fell in love with Marie Laure, her father, and Entienne. Marie Laure was an unusual heroine who filled me with hope. And I felt sympathy for Werner, who grew up fighting for the Nazis. In war, there are no winners, only survivors. Marie Laure and Werner both found a way to survive despite the world around them.
Read it. You just might, like me, find yourself leaving a piece of your heart in Saint Malo.
As intricate and well-crafted as Helprin's Soldier of the Great War, or Sunlight and Shaddow, only more enthralling and accessible. Loved the skipping around in time and place, fullfilling the thesis that mind and spirit aren't restricted to the linear progression of time and can fly through the air like birds or radio waves.
I loved this book. One suggestion: Keep track of the dates on a notepad as you read. It jumps around within the space of a few years, and I found it a bit confusing since I was reading on a Kindle and couldn't flip back and see what the date for the previous section had been. Anyway, a beautiful and thought-provoking novel that I would highly recommend.
This is an excellent book. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, so much so that I had it read in 2 days and it's not exactly short. This book examines WWII, the people caught up in it, the atrocities, the landscape of Europe itself, in a way that never feels clichéd, never feels like the same old same old. In fact there is never a Jewish person that is secreted away in some attic or basement of some kind hearted villager! Not that that did not happen of course, and admirably, but yes, we've already examined that issue in countless other books. Rather, it is a story about family ties and how war can tear apart those ties in a blind instant. (OMG that's a bad pun. I'm sorry LOL) It is a tale of perseverance, of courage, even of dreams and wonder of ordinary people amidst such a terrible …
This is an excellent book. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, so much so that I had it read in 2 days and it's not exactly short. This book examines WWII, the people caught up in it, the atrocities, the landscape of Europe itself, in a way that never feels clichéd, never feels like the same old same old. In fact there is never a Jewish person that is secreted away in some attic or basement of some kind hearted villager! Not that that did not happen of course, and admirably, but yes, we've already examined that issue in countless other books. Rather, it is a story about family ties and how war can tear apart those ties in a blind instant. (OMG that's a bad pun. I'm sorry LOL) It is a tale of perseverance, of courage, even of dreams and wonder of ordinary people amidst such a terrible backdrop. Oh, there are atrocities, this is WWII Europe of course but they are not examined closely only alluded to, or dispassionately mentally recorded by the characters . But what shines forth is the human will, the dreams and desires of our deepest selves that survive despite the horror and pain of war. Not just despite but defiantly! It is a testament to what makes us human, what makes some people excellent specimens of the human race.
What keeps me from awarding this 5 stars??? The ending seemed forced even if I understand why it was needed.
Read this book. It reads effortlessly but rewards nonetheless.
There's so much about this book that made me want to love it... namely the details. Stylistically, in many ways this book employs many of the techniques that made Amelie such a rich movie. There were many quirky elements - a blind girl growing up in Paris, small model replicas of the town in which she lives, a curse, radio broadcasting, etc.
And yet, for some reason I found it a bit hard to track what was actually happening. I'm not sure if it's because the perspective shifted back and forth so rapidly between two stories (blind French girl vs. German military orphan) or if it's because I was listening to this book rather than reading it. That's why I'm not giving a full five stars, but I suspect that if I were to sit and read it with focus, I could nudge it up to a five-star read.
