Will Byrnes's Reviews > All the Light We Cannot See
All the Light We Cannot See
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Will Byrnes's review
bookshelves: books-of-the-year-2014, all-time-favorites-fiction, fiction, literary-fiction, historical-fiction, world-war-ii
Jun 28, 2014
bookshelves: books-of-the-year-2014, all-time-favorites-fiction, fiction, literary-fiction, historical-fiction, world-war-ii
4/20/15 - PULITZER WINNER for 2014
Werner and Jutta Pfennig are raised in a German orphanage after their father is killed in the local mine. Werner has a gift for electronics, and is sent to a special school where, despite the many horrors of the experience, his talent is nurtured. He develops technology for locating radio sources, and is rushed into the Wehrmacht to apply his skill in the war. His assignment brings him to Saint Malo, where his path and Marie Laure’s intersect.
Anthony Doerr
There are three primary time streams here, 1944 as the Allies are assaulting the German-held town, 1940-44, as we follow the progress of Werner and Marie Laure to their intersection, and the 1930s. We see the boy and the girl as children, and are presented with mirrored events in their young lives that will define in large measure the years to follow. Werner and Jutta are mesmerized by a French radio broadcast, a respite from the anti-Semitic propaganda the government is broadcasting. The Professor in the French broadcast offers lectures on science, and inspires Werner to dream of a life beyond the orphanage.
The author, in a video on his site, talks about the three pieces of inspiration that provided the superstructure for the novel. While 80 feet below ground in a NYC subway, a fellow passenger was griping about the loss of cell service. Doerr appreciates the beautiful miracle that is modern communications. At the start of the book I wanted to try to capture the magic of hearing the voice of a stranger in a little device in your home because for the history of humanity, that was a strange thing. I started with a boy trapped somewhere and a girl reading a story. A year later he was on a book tour in France and saw Saint Malo for the first time. Walking around this beautiful seaside town, a walled fortress, the beautiful channel, the green water of the channel breaking against the walls and I told my editor, “look how old this is. This medieval town’s so pretty.” He said, “actually, this town was almost entirely destroyed in 1944, by your country, by American bombs.” So I started researching a lot about the city of Saint Malo immediately and knew that was the setting. That was where the boy would be trapped, listening to the radio. The third piece arrived when Doerr learned that when the Germans invaded, the French hid not only their artistic treasures but their important natural history and gemological holdings as well.
The story is told primarily in alternating Marie Laure’s and Werner’s experiences. But there is a third stream as well, that of Sgt Major Reinhold von Rumpel, a gem appraiser drafted by the Reich to examine the jewels captured by the military and collect the best for a special collection. He becomes obsessed with finding the Sea of Flames, the near mythic diamond Daniel LeBlanc had hidden away. He is pretty much the prototypical evil Nazi, completely corrupt, greedy, cruel, as close to a stick-figure characterization as there is in the book. But his evil-doing provides the danger needed to move the story forward.
There may not be words sufficient to exclaim just how magnificent an accomplishment this book is. Amazing, spectacular, incredible, moving, engaging, emotional, gripping, celestial, soulful, and bloody fracking brilliant might give some indication. There is so much going on here. One can read it for the story alone and come away satisfied. But there is such amazing craft on display that the book rewards a closer reading. In addition to a deft application of mirroring in the experiences of Werner and Marie Laure, Doerr brings a poet’s sense of imagery and magic.
Marie-Laure’s sense of the world is filled with shell, snail, and mollusk experiences and references. Some are simple. During a time of intense stress, she must live like the snails, moment to moment, centimeter to centimeter. In a moment of hopeful reflection, these tiny wet beings straining calcium from the water and spinning it into polished dreams on their backs—it is enough. More than enough. You will find many more scattered about like you-know-what on a beach.
Also avian imagery is a frequent, soulful presence. A particularly moving moment is when a damaged character is reminded of a long-lost friend (or maybe a long-remembered fear?) by the presence of a particular bird associated with that friend and the time when they knew each other.
There are substantive issues addressed in this National Book Award finalist. Moral choices must be made about how to respond when darkness seeks to extinguish the light. There are powerful instances in which different characters withdraw into their shells in response to evil, but others in which they rage against the night with their actions. Thoughtful characters question the morality of their actions, as dark-siders plunge into the moral abyss. Sometimes the plunge is steep and immediate, but for others it is made clear that innocence can be corrupted, bit by bit. The major characters, and a few of the secondary ones, are very well drawn. You will most definitely care what happens to them.
As for gripes, few and far between. There is a tendency at times to tell rather than show. Marie Laure may be too good. That’s about it. There are sure to be some who find this story too emotional. I am not among them.
Just as Werner perceives or imagines he perceives an invisible world of radiowaves, All the Light We Cannot See enriches the reader with a spectrum of imagery, of meaning, of feeling. You may need eyes to read the page, ears to hear if listening to an audio version, or sensitive, educated fingers to read a Braille volume (please tell me this book has been published in Braille), but the waves with which Doerr has constructed his masterwork will permeate your reading experience. They may not be entirely apparent to your senses the first time you read this book. They are there. Whether you see, hear or touch them, or miss them entirely, they are there, and they will fill you. All the Light We Cannot See is a dazzling novel. When you read it, you will see.
=============================EXTRA STUFF
November 2, 2023 - Netflix releases the mini-series
Links to the author’s personal, and FB pages
My review of Doerr's 2021 masterpiece, Cloud Cuckoo Land
Definitely check out Doerr’s site. And if you are wondering what he had in mind, specifically, with the title:
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea for free on Project Gutenberg
Here’s the wiki page for Saint Malo
An interesting article on the damage done to Saint Malo in the 1944 battle
A page on the surrender of Saint Malo, from the site World War II Today
Here is a nice, large panoramic shot of modern Saint Malo, far too wide to include here
Doerr adds a lot to our understanding of the book with his Notes and Highlights commentary here on GR
4/20/15 - Pulitzer prize winners were announced today, and All the Light shines brightest for fiction
6/27/15 - All the Light We Cannot See is awarded the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction
November 2018 = All the Light is among the semi-finalists for GR's Best of the Best Award
January, 2022- Netflix announces that All the Light is being made into a four-part series, starring Mark Ruffalo and Hugh Laurie.
The brain is locked in total darkness of course, children, says the voice. It floats in a clear liquid inside the skull, never in the light. And yet the world it constructs in the mind is full of light. It brims with color and movement. So how, children, does the brain, which lives without a spark of light, build for us a world full of light?Marie Laure LeBlanc is a teen who had gone blind at age 6. She and her father, Daniel, fled Paris ahead of the German invasion, arriving in the ancient walled port city of Saint Malo in northwest France to stay with M-L’s great uncle, Etienne. His PTSD from WW I had kept him indoors for two decades. They bring with them a large and infamous diamond, to save it from the Nazis. Daniel had made a scale model of their neighborhood in Paris to help young Marie Laure learn her away around, and repeats the project in Saint Malo, which is eventually occupied by the German army.
Werner and Jutta Pfennig are raised in a German orphanage after their father is killed in the local mine. Werner has a gift for electronics, and is sent to a special school where, despite the many horrors of the experience, his talent is nurtured. He develops technology for locating radio sources, and is rushed into the Wehrmacht to apply his skill in the war. His assignment brings him to Saint Malo, where his path and Marie Laure’s intersect.
Anthony Doerr
There are three primary time streams here, 1944 as the Allies are assaulting the German-held town, 1940-44, as we follow the progress of Werner and Marie Laure to their intersection, and the 1930s. We see the boy and the girl as children, and are presented with mirrored events in their young lives that will define in large measure the years to follow. Werner and Jutta are mesmerized by a French radio broadcast, a respite from the anti-Semitic propaganda the government is broadcasting. The Professor in the French broadcast offers lectures on science, and inspires Werner to dream of a life beyond the orphanage.
Open your eyes, concluded the man, and see what you can with them before they close forever, and then a piano comes on, playing a lonely song that sounds to Werner like a golden boat traveling a dark river, a progression of harmonies that transfigures Zollverein: the houses turned to mist, the mines filled in, the smokestacks fallen, an ancient sea spilling through the streets, and the air streaming with possibility.As her father is the head locksmith for the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, Marie Laure has the run of the place. She spends a lot of time with a professor there, learning everything she can about shells, mollusks and snails.
Dr. Geffard teaches her the names of shells--Lambis lambis, Cypraea moneta, Lophiotoma acuta--and lets her feel the spines and apertures and whorls of each in turn. He explains the branches of marine evolution and the sequences of the geologic periods; on her best days, she glimpses the limitless span of millennia behind her: millions of years, tens of millions of years.Both Werner and Marie Laure are enriched by teachers and books as they grow. No nuclear families here. Marie Laure’s mother died in childbirth. The Pfennig children lost their remaining parent when father was killed in the mine.
The author, in a video on his site, talks about the three pieces of inspiration that provided the superstructure for the novel. While 80 feet below ground in a NYC subway, a fellow passenger was griping about the loss of cell service. Doerr appreciates the beautiful miracle that is modern communications. At the start of the book I wanted to try to capture the magic of hearing the voice of a stranger in a little device in your home because for the history of humanity, that was a strange thing. I started with a boy trapped somewhere and a girl reading a story. A year later he was on a book tour in France and saw Saint Malo for the first time. Walking around this beautiful seaside town, a walled fortress, the beautiful channel, the green water of the channel breaking against the walls and I told my editor, “look how old this is. This medieval town’s so pretty.” He said, “actually, this town was almost entirely destroyed in 1944, by your country, by American bombs.” So I started researching a lot about the city of Saint Malo immediately and knew that was the setting. That was where the boy would be trapped, listening to the radio. The third piece arrived when Doerr learned that when the Germans invaded, the French hid not only their artistic treasures but their important natural history and gemological holdings as well.
The story is told primarily in alternating Marie Laure’s and Werner’s experiences. But there is a third stream as well, that of Sgt Major Reinhold von Rumpel, a gem appraiser drafted by the Reich to examine the jewels captured by the military and collect the best for a special collection. He becomes obsessed with finding the Sea of Flames, the near mythic diamond Daniel LeBlanc had hidden away. He is pretty much the prototypical evil Nazi, completely corrupt, greedy, cruel, as close to a stick-figure characterization as there is in the book. But his evil-doing provides the danger needed to move the story forward.
There may not be words sufficient to exclaim just how magnificent an accomplishment this book is. Amazing, spectacular, incredible, moving, engaging, emotional, gripping, celestial, soulful, and bloody fracking brilliant might give some indication. There is so much going on here. One can read it for the story alone and come away satisfied. But there is such amazing craft on display that the book rewards a closer reading. In addition to a deft application of mirroring in the experiences of Werner and Marie Laure, Doerr brings a poet’s sense of imagery and magic.
Marie-Laure’s sense of the world is filled with shell, snail, and mollusk experiences and references. Some are simple. During a time of intense stress, she must live like the snails, moment to moment, centimeter to centimeter. In a moment of hopeful reflection, these tiny wet beings straining calcium from the water and spinning it into polished dreams on their backs—it is enough. More than enough. You will find many more scattered about like you-know-what on a beach.
I knew early on that I wanted her to be interested in shells. I'm standing here at the ocean right now. I've always been so interested in both the visual beauty of mollusks and the tactile feel of them. As a kid, I collected them all the time. That really imbued both "The Shell Collector" and Marie with, Why does the natural world bother to be so beautiful? For me, that's really embodied in seashells. I knew early on that I wanted her to find a path to pursue her interest in shells. I think that fits — I hope that fits — with visual impairment, using your fingers to identify them and admire them. - from the Powell’s reviewWerner’s snowy white hair alone might stand in for the entirety of the visible spectrum. (although it is described as “a color that is the absence of color.”) The dreaded prospect of being forced to work in the mines in a literally coal-black environment, the very antithesis of light, offers motivation for Werner to find another path, and coal itself offers a balance for that other form of carbon that drives Marie Laure’s father out of Paris, the one that embodies light. While black and white are often used in describing Werner’s environment, the broader spectrum figures large in his descriptions.
Werner liked to crouch in his dormer and imagine radio waves like mile-long harp strings, bending and vibrating over Zollverein, flying through forests, through cities, through walls. At midnight he and Jutta prowl the ionosphere, searching for that lavish, penetrating voice. When they find it, Werner feels as if he has been launched into a different existence, a secret place where great discoveries are possible, where an orphan from a coal town can solve some vital mystery hidden in the physical world.A nice additional touch is Marie Laure’s reading of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. It permeates the tale as her reading echoes events and tensions in the real world of the story.
Also avian imagery is a frequent, soulful presence. A particularly moving moment is when a damaged character is reminded of a long-lost friend (or maybe a long-remembered fear?) by the presence of a particular bird associated with that friend and the time when they knew each other.
There are substantive issues addressed in this National Book Award finalist. Moral choices must be made about how to respond when darkness seeks to extinguish the light. There are powerful instances in which different characters withdraw into their shells in response to evil, but others in which they rage against the night with their actions. Thoughtful characters question the morality of their actions, as dark-siders plunge into the moral abyss. Sometimes the plunge is steep and immediate, but for others it is made clear that innocence can be corrupted, bit by bit. The major characters, and a few of the secondary ones, are very well drawn. You will most definitely care what happens to them.
As for gripes, few and far between. There is a tendency at times to tell rather than show. Marie Laure may be too good. That’s about it. There are sure to be some who find this story too emotional. I am not among them.
Just as Werner perceives or imagines he perceives an invisible world of radiowaves, All the Light We Cannot See enriches the reader with a spectrum of imagery, of meaning, of feeling. You may need eyes to read the page, ears to hear if listening to an audio version, or sensitive, educated fingers to read a Braille volume (please tell me this book has been published in Braille), but the waves with which Doerr has constructed his masterwork will permeate your reading experience. They may not be entirely apparent to your senses the first time you read this book. They are there. Whether you see, hear or touch them, or miss them entirely, they are there, and they will fill you. All the Light We Cannot See is a dazzling novel. When you read it, you will see.
=============================EXTRA STUFF
November 2, 2023 - Netflix releases the mini-series
Links to the author’s personal, and FB pages
My review of Doerr's 2021 masterpiece, Cloud Cuckoo Land
Definitely check out Doerr’s site. And if you are wondering what he had in mind, specifically, with the title:
It’s a reference first and foremost to all the light we literally cannot see: that is, the wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum that are beyond the ability of human eyes to detect (radio waves, of course, being the most relevant). It’s also a metaphorical suggestion that there are countless invisible stories still buried within World War II — that stories of ordinary children, for example, are a kind of light we do not typically see. Ultimately, the title is intended as a suggestion that we spend too much time focused on only a small slice of the spectrum of possibility. - from Doerr’s siteInterview by Jill Owens for Powell’s
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea for free on Project Gutenberg
Here’s the wiki page for Saint Malo
An interesting article on the damage done to Saint Malo in the 1944 battle
A page on the surrender of Saint Malo, from the site World War II Today
Here is a nice, large panoramic shot of modern Saint Malo, far too wide to include here
Doerr adds a lot to our understanding of the book with his Notes and Highlights commentary here on GR
4/20/15 - Pulitzer prize winners were announced today, and All the Light shines brightest for fiction
6/27/15 - All the Light We Cannot See is awarded the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction
November 2018 = All the Light is among the semi-finalists for GR's Best of the Best Award
January, 2022- Netflix announces that All the Light is being made into a four-part series, starring Mark Ruffalo and Hugh Laurie.
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Reading Progress
June 28, 2014
– Shelved as:
to-read
June 28, 2014
– Shelved
November 6, 2014
–
Started Reading
November 6, 2014
– Shelved as:
books-of-the-year-2014
November 9, 2014
–
Finished Reading
November 13, 2014
– Shelved as:
all-time-favorites-fiction
June 9, 2018
– Shelved as:
fiction
May 5, 2019
– Shelved as:
literary-fiction
May 5, 2019
– Shelved as:
historical-fiction
May 19, 2023
– Shelved as:
world-war-ii
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Dec 16, 2020 04:20PM
Awww, thanks, L.e. - very kind of you
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I read this when published and just reread and also listened for a group. Someone has dismissed it as a ‘war novel’. They need to read your excellent review.
Thank you for your awesome review. I'm still reading. Love the extra resources you put in your review. It's an excellent post. Thank you for all the hard work and time you put in. If you are a professional reviewer it shows. If you did the review for a hobby. You should be paid.
Excellent review! Your reviews are always so thorough and thought provoking. I read this novel six years ago, but I loved reading your review because it took me back to this beautiful story and why I loved it so much.
Susan wrote: "Thank you for your awesome review. I'm still reading. Love the extra resources you put in your review. It's an excellent post. Thank you for all the hard work and time you put in. If you are a prof..."
Awwww, thanks, Susan. Just an amateur doing something I love. The benefits include getting to pick the books I review, getting to write as much or as little as I please, and setting my own schedule. The pay is in responses like yours.
Awwww, thanks, Susan. Just an amateur doing something I love. The benefits include getting to pick the books I review, getting to write as much or as little as I please, and setting my own schedule. The pay is in responses like yours.
K wrote: "Excellent review! Your reviews are always so thorough and thought provoking. I read this novel six years ago, but I loved reading your review because it took me back to this beautiful story and why..."
Thanks, K. This really is a remarkable and memorable book. His latest, Cloud Cuckoo Land, is amazing as well.
Thanks, K. This really is a remarkable and memorable book. His latest, Cloud Cuckoo Land, is amazing as well.
Wonderful review. I really appreciated your notes about how the inspiration of this storyline formed from and the extra stuff you listed. These information definitely deepen my joy of reading this book. I look forward to reading this soon.
I agree, it was amazing! Your review for that book was stellar, too. In fact, I commented on that review that you are the "Anthony Doerr of reviewers." I appreciate all the effort you put into your excellent reviews.
Great review Will. Lots of extra things to read. I actually own this book and have for sometime. I will move it up on my list. It sounds fantastic. 💕 📚
K wrote: "I agree, it was amazing! Your review for that book was stellar, too. In fact, I commented on that review that you are the "Anthony Doerr of reviewers." I appreciate all the effort you put into your..."
Thanks, K. Doerr's work is a joy to review.
Thanks, K. Doerr's work is a joy to review.
Will, I loved your review. I felt like you saved me writing (an inferior) one. I’d only like to take one different angle. There are very few novels that talk of the German plight, particularly for young people. I enjoyed this book even more because of that unusual perspective. The shame of WW2 seems to stop stories like this. Perhaps appropriately so in many cases - excuses are never helpful and they are more unhelpful to the people who make them than the people who hear them.
But as an American writes what it might have been like for two German boys I think we get a perspective that is lacking in literature and that, too, is so helpful and interesting. Perhaps German stories are not told because it runs the risk of excusing what happened. The insightful reader of this book perhaps will think ‘there but for the grace of God go I’; that is, thankfully I was not in Werner’s position, I’d like to think I would have acted differently, but would I?
But as an American writes what it might have been like for two German boys I think we get a perspective that is lacking in literature and that, too, is so helpful and interesting. Perhaps German stories are not told because it runs the risk of excusing what happened. The insightful reader of this book perhaps will think ‘there but for the grace of God go I’; that is, thankfully I was not in Werner’s position, I’d like to think I would have acted differently, but would I?
Thanks, Heidi. For another book that looks at the war, post-war really, from a German POV, you might check out Jessica Shattuck's wonderful novel, The Women in the Castle. Another one worth a look is Daughter of the Reich by Louise Fein. I am sure there are many novels by German authors that fit the bill. The only one that pops to mind is The Tin Drum, but there are sure to be many more available in translation.
Hina wrote: "Thank you for this very well thought out post! It has helped to support my own feelings-thank you!"
Thank you, Hina. Great minds...
Thank you, Hina. Great minds...
Will- Thank you so much for including all these fascinating links in your thoughtful and thorough review! I have scanned them briefly, but will be taking a closer look as I read the novel for the second time. This gives me some context that I did not have during the first read, and some direction as to where I can look even further. Upon completion, I plan on watching the limited series on Netflix that you noted – with some trepidation about how this brilliantly crafted novel will translate to the screen. Regardless, I sincerely appreciate the effort you put into this review, particularly the links to additional materials. Please disregard any negative comments. There’s always one in the crowd…
I didn't even know this was a book series until a few hours ago. I just watched the 4 episode limited series on Netflix in one sitting. They're longer than 45/episode. It was AMAZING. I was sooo pissed it was 4 episodes though. I was hoping for at LEAST 8! I HIGHLY recommend the series. I'm definitely gonna have to get to reading thanks books that I know they exist. I'm reading so many books it's crazy. I like a lot of different kinds of books so there is probably a million maybe more that I wanna read. Same with comic books. Movies. TV shows. +Music. I love pop culture stuff. But fr I've been told that I have good taste. Lmk what you think! (After you watch all 4 episodes)
Hi Will. I was blessed to meet Anthony Doerr in 2017 at the Simon and Schuster Matinee Book Club held in NYC. I lightly touched his arm and announced "I have now touched a Pulitzer Prize Winner'. He is a class act. He smiled and acknowledged me. You are a class act too. I cannot believe the breadth of your reviews. Maybe someday you will teach me to review like you.
Ashley wrote: "I didn't even know this was a book series until a few hours ago. I just watched the 4 episode limited series on Netflix in one sitting. They're longer than 45/episode. It was AMAZING. I was sooo pi..."
It may have bee made into a multi-part TV series, but there is only one book. It is not a book series.
It may have bee made into a multi-part TV series, but there is only one book. It is not a book series.
Celia wrote: "Hi Will. I was blessed to meet Anthony Doerr in 2017 at the Simon and Schuster Matinee Book Club held in NYC. I lightly touched his arm and announced "I have now touched a Pulitzer Prize Winner'. H..."
Good on Doerr for being a mensch.
Thanks for your kind regard, Celia. I would be happy to go over my process with you, if you like. But e-mail would be a better venue for that.
Good on Doerr for being a mensch.
Thanks for your kind regard, Celia. I would be happy to go over my process with you, if you like. But e-mail would be a better venue for that.
I have seen the first two episodes. The production values are good. I like the actors. What is missing, so far at least, is a balance between the terror and the beauty that the characters experience, at least to the degree that it exists in the book. The series has focused on the evil Nazis aspect. While that is a considerable element, it is not as exclusive an element in the book as it is in the show.
What an amazing review! Spot on with your analysis of this magnificent book. The book is so poetically written and deeply meaningful at many levels. The horror of War is that it engulfs the good the bad and the ugly on both sides.