All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

For Marie-Laure, blind since the age of six, the world is full of mazes. The miniature of a Paris neighbourhood, made by her father to teach her the way home. The microscopic layers within the invaluable diamond that her father guards in the Museum of Natural History. The walled city by the sea, where father and daughter take refuge when the Nazis invade Paris. And a future which draws her ever closer to Werner, a German orphan, destined to labour in the mines until a broken radio fills his life with possibility and brings him to the notice of the Hitler Youth.

In this magnificent, deeply moving novel, the stories of Marie-Laure and Werner illuminate the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another.

All The Light We Cannot See starts at the climax of the story: the siege of Saint-Malo in August 1944. Werner is trapped in a cellar, desperately trying to mend a radio to enable him to contact the outside world. Marie-Laure is keeping silent in her great-uncle’s house across the town.

The story rewinds to Paris and Essen. The book’s short chapters alternate between Marie-Laure and Werner’s perspectives. Marie-Laure spends her days at the Museum of Natural History where her father works. There she learns of the fabled Sea of Flames diamond which is said to be hidden somewhere in the museum. Werner lives in a German orphanage and develops a fascination with radios and an extraordinary ability to mend them. When Paris is attacked by the Nazis, Marie-Laure and her father escape to Saint-Malo to live with her shellshocked great-uncle and his housekeeper. Werner’s talent with radios is noticed by the Nazis and he is trained to track down people who possess radios illegally.

Although Werner’s journey reflects that of many German boys of his age, it is noticeable that he remains human to the reader as his own perspective is given. In most Second World War books I have read, the Nazi is usually portrayed from the victim’s perspective and consequently (and justifiably) villainised. That said, although Werner is likeable as a character, the reader’s sympathy is perhaps more naturally evoked for Marie-Laure, being a young blind girl.

Werner and Marie-Laure do not actually cross paths until very late in the book so Doerr keeps us guessing as to how their stories overlap. Similarly, the significance of the diamond is not revealed for some time.

Doerr’s writing is some of the most beautiful I have ever read. His careful choice of words makes the book almost poetic. Part of the beauty of Doerr’s writing can be attributed to his use of every sense except sight to give Marie-Laure’s perspective. This made me realise how much we rely on visual descriptions to explain things; Doerr opens up a whole world not only for Marie-Laure but also for the reader, describing the feeling of cobbles and storm drains along the pavements, the smells of baking bread, the sounds and smells of the sea as she arrives, exhausted, in Saint-Malo after her journey from Paris.

Marie-Laure’s blindness feeds into another pervasive theme which is what it means to be brave or strong. Werner’s military training, where he learns to use guns and restrain his emotions, is ostensibly ‘strong’. Marie-Laure, on the other hand, is outwardly ‘weak’ due to the limits her blindness imposes on her. However, these stereotypes do not hold. Marie-Laure experiences some unimaginable fears and challenges yet still finds the strength to play a part in resisting the Nazis. As for Werner, we all know that brute force normally equals weakness rather than strength (although, to Werner’s credit, he is a peaceful soul and hates having to train for war).

These are the far ends of the spectrum but there is also a grey area between them. Day-to-day anecdotes throughout All The Light We Cannot See represent the mindset of the ordinary people during the Holocaust. Sometimes it is easiest to stay out of an issue and not to speak out, but from the victim’s perspective this is tantamount to assisting the aggressor as the effect on them is that they remain oppressed. Through these anecdotes, and through the contrast between bravery and weakness in this book, it becomes clear that bravery does not necessarily lie in physical strength and ability to put oneself in danger, but in the way people stand up for what is right.