I read this book because a relative shared with me that this may have been the best book he ever read. However, I was thinking as I read All the Light We Cannot See that I just might not be smart enough to fully appreciate this book. After finishing it and reading some reviews online this morning, I can conclude with 100% certainty that I am not smart enough to fully appreciate this book.
All the Light We Cannot See is a book centered around the life stories of two characters during WW2: Marie-Laure and Werner. These two children/teenagers could not be any more different. Marie-Laure is French and blind. Werner, a German orphan, is obsessed with science, machines, and ponders questions that make my head hurt. The story is told in a back and forth manner (that honestly I found to be very confusing). It alternates chapters (very short chapters) between Marie-Laure and Werner but also between time periods (and it was this that I found to be hard to keep up with). The basic story line is simple: Marie-Laure, after having lost her father, her uncle, and her uncle's care-taker is trying to stay alive on her own and not captured or killed by the Germans while Werner, a brilliant mind, is working for Hitler to locate and kill the Resistance.
There is a sub-plot, which the reviewers I read this morning seemed to not even touch on, making me wonder if I made too big of a deal out of it while I was reading, where Marie-Laure's father attempts to protect a very rare stone--The Sea of Flames. It is a beautiful blue diamond that France is trying to protect at a time when the Germans are taking jewels and art from anywhere they can find them and claiming them as their own. Marie-Laure's father, a key master for the Museum of Natural History in Paris, is given a jewel to protect when then Germans begin to invade. There are four stones: one original and three copies. The men given stones have no idea if the one in their possession is a fake or the original. They are simply to act as though they have the real thing and to protect it from being taken at all costs. There is a legend associated with this stone. Whoever possesses it shall live forever, but their friends and loved ones are in serious danger and bad things will happen to them. Reinhold von Rumpel, a German who is working to collect the precious treasures that the Germans capture, wants this stone (because he is very ill and knows that it's his only chance to stat alive) and begins a search for it. He eventually crosses paths with Marie-Laure thinking that she must know the location of the jewel since her father was the key master for the museum that housed this treasure. What he did not know was how clever Marie-Laure's father was about concealing the stone he was entrusted to protect. At about the same time that von Rompel finds Marie-Laure, Werner does too and finally the stories, for a brief moment, converge before separating again. I wished that these two had had more time together, but I bet I am not the only reader who feels this way. I'm sure that Doerr was very deliberate in his creation of this part of the story.
This certainly sounds like an interesting story, but I was weighted down by the language of the story, the exact language that Doerr is praised for. I am a straight-forward kind of reader. I don't enjoy poetry for this very reason--just cut to the chase and tell me what's on your mind. I don't want to wade through heavy language and this is just about all I got from Doerr until about the last 100 pages. And honestly, the last 100 pages were my favorites.
I was also bogged down by the title and trying to figure out exactly what it meant. There are so many references to light from Werner and there's the obvious light connection to Marie-Laure (in that she can't see light) but the one interpretation that I read this morning comes from the author himself (so it must be right) that the "light" is really the lives and stories of all of the people impacted by WW2. We will never fully know the stories of everyone touched by that war, yet they were there and they all have important stories to tell. Marie-Laure and Werner are just two of the very many. Marie-Laure and Werner are two of the most unique WW2 characters I have read about to date. They both did what they had to do each day in order to survive an unthinkable hell and while I'd like to say that they both survived, I can't. I also loved that the last few pages were devoted to the characters who did survive and they detailed their lives after the war and how they persevered. It just drives home the idea that the war didn't steal their spirit or their desire for happy, productive lives. The Germans took a lot from them, but never their spirit.
I don't think this is an easy read, nor do I think it is a book you should ever toss in your beach bag. You have to have a quiet place with no distractions while you read this one. It's heavy and figurative and everything you'd expect from an award winning author. But, if that's your thing, you should read it. The 12,000 plus reviewers on Amazon.com alone loved it. And a few, like me, appreciated it for what it is and are glad that we read it, but are moving on to something more straightforward.
Happy reading, everyone!
-Dodie
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