About.com Rating
Scribner, 2014

Plan ahead. Set aside a large block of time when you are ready to begin reading this beautiful, original novel. Anthony Doerr's language and characters are gripping and pull you quickly into their world as the build-up to World War II looms on the horizon. But, do not approach this as just another story about the rise of Nazism. It is so much more.

All the Light We Cannot See begins on August 7, 1944, the night the Allies bombed Saint-Malo, France and "pre-dawn fires...

take on a steady middle life, an adulthood." We are introduced to Marie-Laure LeBlanc, a blind 16-year old girl who is waiting for her great uncle Etienne to return. Five streets away Nazi private Werner Pfennig, an 18-year old radio operator, is awakened by the staccato hum of approaching airplanes. Then, Doerr imbues new life to a common literary device as he tells their stories by moving back and forth through time. This device becomes a means to an imaginative revelation of how the rise of Nazi Germany, the occupation of France, the Holocaust, and the ways of war are seen through the eyes of two young people who should never have been exposed to such events.

Returning to 1934 we meet Marie-Laure and her father, the locksmith for a major Paris museum, the man who literally holds the keys to the wonders of the world. He has built a scale model of the city so his daughter can "see" her way around. The city and the museum are places of love and beauty where Marie-Laure is adored and cared for.

Contrast that with the upbringing of Werner. He and his sister Jetta live in a sort of orphanage in steel country where all the boys must descend into the coal mines at a certain age. It is an evil-looking place. While one child learns to navigate her neighborhood, the other learns how to take apart and build radios. He listens to Nazi-inspired music and plays. She plays among the treasures of the world.

Because of his radio knowledge, Werner is sent to a special school for boys where he excels, yet a "great dread has been growing inside Werner's chest." The cadets are told that the Fuhrer wants loyalty, prayers, and petroleum, but Werner comes to understand that he wants boys, that is, bodies to be shipped to the front. Marie-Laure and her father escape Paris to Saint-Malo. He may be carrying a special diamond which is being hidden from the Nazis, and there is a Nazi treasure hunter who is trying to track it down. Doerr deftly contrasts the innocence of youth with the rapaciousness of the war machine. The violence of war is all too present, whether it is the door-to-door search for Jews, the bombings, or Russian prisoners chained together as live grenades are put into their pockets while the German soldiers run to safety, or the cruelty among the boys at Werner's school.

Marie-Laure cannot literally see light, but she can see her way. Werner comes to see and understand what his knowledge of radio is doing. Radio, Werner learns, ties a million ears to a single mouth, and is a major means through which the Nazis control what may or may not be learned about the war effort. The story seems so mundane; however, in Doerr's hands it is everything we expect in a novel. It is written with a sure hand, incredibly descriptive, and brutally honest. Seldom are two sides of such a divisive issue so elegantly presented. Characters are offered opportunities to make decisions about personal responsibility throughout the novel. As in life, some rise to the occasion; others do not. But all characters who inhabit this novel are true to their lives as created by Doerr.

All the Light We Cannot See is a compelling novel, honest in its depiction of the horrors of war, powerful in its characterizations, and replete with potent phrases that describe events so succinctly that one feels immersed in the period. It is not to be missed.