All the Light We Cannot See: A Novel Audio CD – Audiobook, May 6, 2014

If I could give “All The Light We Cannot See” more than five stars, I would. I read this amazing book on Kindle and listened to it on Audible, as well. BTW the narrator on Audible, Zach Appelman, is really excellent. His ability to pronounce the French and German names, his articulation and his pregnant pauses really added to the reading of this book.Anthony Doerr’s book is simply stunning. Dazzling is a good word for it. I have reviewed many other books and have sometimes said this or that writer writes fluidly and well. I have given five stars to quite a few writers. “All The Light We Cannot See” is a higher level of excellence that not many authors achieve. No wonder Anthony Doerr won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for fiction with this book!The chapters are short and beautifully written. I could say “beautifully and elegantly painted”; they remind me of a painting. This book is poetic, creative, imaginative and historically enlightening as well. Science and technology, it’s fascination and the power to help or harm, is explored along with the characters’ thoughts and feelings; we learn about their courage or lack of and why they make their individual decisions during the rise of Hitler and on into World War II. The descriptions are incredibly sensitive and vivid. Objects are palpable; I could see and feel them. The book pulled me in so much that I was part of each scene. The poignant images remained with me and made the characters come alive.The author skillfully writes using a juxtaposition of events in the life of a blind French girl, Marie-Laure LeBlanc, and that of a German boy, Werner Pfennig. Towards the end of the book their lives meet.Marie-Laure, the blind French girl, lives with her father in Paris. She became blind at 6 years old due to congenital cataracts. She has developed her other senses, namely, hearing, touch and smell to compensate for her loss of sight. In her imagination, she can see colors when she uses her other senses to explore her world. Her father carves wooden replicas of all the buildings in Paris for her to learn to find her way home by herself. He is a very devoted and loving father and teaches her independence but promises her he will always be there for her and will never leave her. He is the master locksmith at the Museum of Natural History. Marie-Laure, who is a curious and bright child, goes with him to work and studies paleontology, archeology, geology and other branches of science with Dr. Gefford, while her father works.The boy, Werner, lives in an orphanage, “Children’s House” in Zollverein, Germany. The children in the orphanage are very close to starving. A good deal of the population is very poor and not getting enough to eat. When Hitler comes to power, the economy improves dramatically. People are getting more food (meat even) and new appliances. The German population is inundated with radio propaganda. Only state supported German radio channels are allowed. The German population is brainwashed. The people think Hitler is helping them climb out of poverty, build a better society and take pride in their Country again.Yet the future looks bleak to Werner. Nazi officials tell the boys in the orphanage that they will all have to work in the coalmines when they turn 15 years of age. Werner’s father had died in the coal mines, and Werner is not happy with the prospect of being underground in the dark pit of the mines. After finding a broken radio in the city trash, Werner gets it working. His fascination with radios and his skill in fixing them gives him a chance to escape the coal mines and go to paramilitary school. He has a chance to pursue his interest in radio technology and contribute to the new Germany. He visualizes a glorious future. In the attic at the orphanage, Werner and his sister Jutta had listened to foreign radio stations that were illegal under Nazi rule. A French radio station with science lectures fascinated them. How magical it was to hear a voice from afar, transmitted through the air! Jutta liked a program on magnets. Werner liked the program on light. “What do we call visible light? We call it color. But the electromagnetic spectrum runs to zero in one direction and infinity in the other, so really children, mathematically, all of light is invisible.” The radio was a symbol of freedom for them both, the freedom to learn and dream.Before he leaves for school, however, Werner smashes the radio. He does not want anything to interfere with his chance for what he thinks will be a better life. Listening to foreign radio stations is illegal and dangerous. Jutta, a free spirit with a strong moral compass, feels betrayed. She thinks her brother is turning into a cold, brutal Nazi like Hans and Herribert, two older boys in the orphanage who have joined the brown-shirted Hitler Youth. She insists that the broadcasts from the foreign radio stations say the Germans are committing atrocities, just the opposite of what they hear on the state-owned German stations.Werner gets caught up with his study of radios and blocks out the brutality around him at school. Despite his lack of courage to go against the dictates of his German superiors, the reader can see his conflict and the goodness in him that he wants to embrace. His friend, Frederick, a bird-lover and dreamer, is called the “weakest” by the field commander but shows his courage by refusing to participate in the brutal death of a prisoner. Frederick pays for it by being beaten so badly that he becomes no more than a living vegetable.With the invasion of Paris in 1940, Marie-Laure and her father escape to Saint-Malo on the Brittany coast and find refuge with Marie-Laure’s great uncle, Etienne. Again her father observes and measures the buildings of this new city and carves a wooden replica of all 865 buildings. Unfortunately, his efforts cause suspicion, and he is arrested on his way back to Paris on an errand for the Museum of Natural History. He is convicted of “theft and conspiracy” and sent to a prison in Germany. Feeling abandoned but gathering her inner strength, Marie-Laure continues to live with her great uncle, Etienne, and his housekeeper Madame Manec. Madame Manec starts working for the French Resistance and Marie-Laure takes over some of her activities when the housekeeper becomes ill. Upon Madame Manec’s death from pneumonia, Etienne gets his courage up and joins the French Resistance.Werner finds himself caught up in the brutality with no way to escape. His skill in detecting enemy radio transmissions results in many deaths, some of them innocent civilians. He is haunted by the deaths, especially that of one little girl in Vienna who reminded him of his sister, Jutta. Werner is sent to Saint-Malo to find the source of the radio transmissions of the French Resistance. He finds Marie-Laure’s broadcasts, but does not expose her. He recognizes the radio programs that had inspired him so much as a child. When he hears her voice saying that someone is in her house and is going to kill her, he vows to save her if he can reach her in time. Werner finds her and saves her life. The Americans are bombing the town, but during a lull, he helps her escape Saint-Malo.Intertwined with the lives of our two main characters, Marie-Laure and Werner, fairytale and reality collide. The legend of the “Sea of Flames”, a 133 carat diamond said to be the intended gift of the Goddess of the Earth to the God of the Sea, parallels the calamities the characters experience in their lives. It was said that the person who had the diamond would live forever, but those he loved around him would die. If the stone were returned to the sea, the curse would be lifted. Especially during the bombing of Saint-Malo, Marie-Laure and Werner both draw parallels to their own predicaments and Jules Verne’s “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea”. Trapped in the basement of the Hotel of Bees in Saint-Malo, Werner listens to Marie-Laure’s broadcasts of the science programs and music that had been recorded by her deceased grandfather. He thinks of Captain Nemo being trapped under the sea in the Nautilus. Werner and his fellow German soldier, Volkheimer, have run out of food and water and have very little air. “Who could possibly calculate the minimum time required for us to get out? Might we not be asphyxiated before the Nautilus could surface?” Are more monsters awaiting them when they do surface?Marie-Laure is trapped in her uncle Etienne’s secret attic room where he had broadcast codes for the French Resistance. Down below is an intruder, the Nazi Sergeant Major von Rumpel. He is there to find the “Sea of Flames” diamond, which her father hid in the wooden house replica of her great uncle’s house. Instead of giving it to the Reich for Hitler’s dream museum in Linz, Austria, he wants to have the enchanted diamond to cure his cancerous tumor. He is dying, and he believes the diamond will save his life. Marie-Laure has not had food for two days and has had no water for one and a half days. She starts to think maybe this Nazi will spare her life if she gives him the diamond. Maybe the curse would end and her father would come back. Not trusting her safety, however, she has a knife handy. She thinks of Captain Nemo when he said to Ned Land, the Canadian harpooner, “But let me tell you that if we’re caught, I’m going to defend myself, even if I die doing it”.There are many levels to this book and much to think about. The reader can get many insights into the human condition and why someone like Hitler could take over Germany and spread his sickness into so many other countries. The book is well researched and taught me a good deal about how it was to grow up in Germany when Hitler came to power. Additionally, I could understand more concretely how it was for the French when France was invaded by Hitler's armies. Good historical fiction brings all these events to life. Anthony Doerr brings a powerful humanism to the events in World War II. He made the characters come alive for me. This is a book to ponder, reread and treasure. The author brings an incredible immediacy to his writing that will draw you in and stay with you, perhaps, forever.

I'm definitely late to the "All the Light We Cannot See" party. Having been disappointed in so many best-sellers and prize winners in the past, I kept putting off reading it. To my surprise, this is one of the best books I've read in the past few decades. I always read a book's bad reviews first, and I would urge those considering reading All the Light We Cannot See to keep the following in mind: This book is a work of fiction. It does not claim to be a history book or a geography book. If some inaccuracies in a fiction book tend to ruin your reading experience, you've been warned. The book moves backward and forward in time. The author employs a clever device wherein he puts dates on multiple pages throughout the book. If you ignore these pages, you may become frustrated. The chapters are quite short. If short chapters irritate you, simply keep reading.Now my review. This is a beautifully written book. The characters are well-developed, the story pulls you in and it moves along at a pace usually found in mystery books. The chapters are short, which I found to be an advantage with regard to pacing and maintaining interest in the plot. I felt great empathy and sympathy for the locksmith and his daughter, and yes, even Werner, the young German who was caught up in the killing machine that was Hitler's Third Reich. For those who criticized the book for "sympathizing with Nazis", I would ask if they have the strength of character equal to that of the hapless Frederick who did have such strength and lost everything. War is hell, and the book makes that clear.I had a hard time putting this book down. The only weakness in my opinion was the ending. The body of the book is so enthralling and beautifully written, that I felt somewhat let down by the ending. But overall, this is a book that will stick with me for years to come and I highly recommend it.

I came across this novel accidentally and it's one of the most moving and exciting I've read for a long time. The story is set in WW2 Europe, mainly France and Germany but also Russia etc. It tells the story of a young girl, Marie Laure who went blind as a child and lives in Paris with her father, Daniel Leblanc, a gifted locksmith and miniaturist who works at a prestigious museum as keeper of the keys, and makes models of the city and its streets to teach his daughter how to find her way around the city. They live for each other. At the same time, we meet little Werner Pffenig, and orphan who lives in an orphanage in Germany with his sister, Jutta, under the maternal eye of Elena, the French matron. They listen to broadcasts in French that speak of the earth’s wonders, of brilliant birds, flowers and stars , on a recycled radio that Werner has managed to assemble from street detritus. That is his great skill, working with all things electrical, especially radio transmitters. His future is mapped out for him, he will be sent down the mines to help the Fatherland, the Fuhrer, etc - the same mines that killed his father. But life had other plans for him. The story weaves backwards and forwards with a rich caste of characters both simple and complex, evil or kind, - there are greedy traitors, cruel psychopaths, heroes and heroines on both sides all told with detail that makes the scenes come alive. Does the silken voiced broadcaster really live in a house with 1,000 rooms? And how is he linked to The Whelk? Who is the giant Werner meets at training school who terrifies all the boys by his presence? What must Marie Laura find in ‘the house ‘ at Etienne’s - the last command her father gave her before he left for the museum? What have Captain Nemo and The young girl broadcasting on a forbidden radio have to do with the psychotic Nazi hunting relentlessly for a priceless treasure as his life ebbs away? So many questions all slowly and gradually linking up. The suspense is heightened - then comes the calm only to be jerked back onto a knife edge! We witness mindless cruelty and incredible kindness and love, and as the bombs blitz Paris under German control, then St. Malo as the Allies close in, the different threads, the pathos, the horror and yet courage, hope and survival, sometimes purely physical since minds have been lost, is so gripping, so moving I couldn't put the book down. You keep hoping that the various characters will be found - will return somehow, and the wounds, both physical and emotional will be able to heal. It's very sensively written, with characters that you feel you've shared sunny mornings and untold terrors with. A great novel to remind us all of the horror and inhumanity of war, and yet the indomitability and also the kindness that humans are capable of. A novel for baby boomers and millennials alike. Highly recommended.

The language in the book is perhaps one of the most important bits, it is written with such rich and lively details that at times, I could almost see myself in places where Marie-Laure was or where Werner was. That was one of the most brilliant things about the book. There are many more. I think the fact that the author could transport me to that time period, make me as tense as Marie-Laure or Werner just makes me so happy?Is happy a word to be used when talking about this book, this time period? Maybe not but the author did make me very happy. It’s very important to me that I feel connected to the characters and transported to places in the books and it did that and more.The book jumps from time periods of Marie-Laure’s and Werner’s life, from their teen years to their younger years and back and forth. Sometimes it was a bit confusing to keep track of it, sometimes because it was an e-book, it was even frustrating to not be able to flip back to the pages I lost my thread. (An actual paperback really helps with this, it just gives me satisfaction if nothing else.)Everything about the book made me fall in love with it. There are the usual World War II horrors and you can’t escape them, most times, I was so acutely uncomfortable with the scene but I moved ahead anyway. This book is an absolute must-read if you like reading about the World War II. Not because it’s super informative or because there’s tons of other things that could make you relate to the people of the times more. It’s more to understand how it felt for the children, for those who grew up in Germany and had to join Hitler’s army. For the children who had nobody left, those who couldn’t do much for themselves. Marie-Laure and Werner might be fictional but there were real people who were in their places at some point. They must have faced countless problems and horrors.It is that feeling that makes me think that people should really read it.I have a lot of wonderful things to say about it and I could say it but there’s also the one bit that I felt almost unnecessary in the book. Yes, the hunt for the Sea of Flames. The diamond. That part always felt unnecessary and almost tacked on as if it was an afterthought. I am not saying I didn’t enjoy the fantasy of it and there was a realistic part to it but at the same time, it just didn’t click with the rest of the book.However that does not negate all the awesome things about this book and so, this remains a five-star book.I would recommend it to anyone who loves to read World War II fiction or who wants to see how language can be elevated to this level. If you wanna read in leisure, you totally can!! This book, despite it being based during the World War II, has an almost unhurried pace to it. It’s just me who wouldn’t stop reading.And if you still have any doubts about this book, it’s worth mentioning that it won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2015. So, there’s that?

This evolved into a powerful account of the effects of WW2 on two innocent children during the occupation of France. I found the book difficult to ‘get into’ at the beginning. This was down to the author’s writing style, the short chapters and the rather confusing jumps backwards and forwards between the 1930s and 1944.Marie Laure is an 11 yrs old blind girl, who is taken from Paris to St Malo, by her father for safety. Werner is an 11 yrs old German boy, who is a genius with technology i e old fashioned radios of the era. He attends an elite school for the German Ideal. Werner progresses to be an important part of discovering illegal radios used by the Resistance in the St Malo area.Some very interesting facts are given and there’s obviously a lot going on; mostly about the sadness, hardship and devastating consequences of war. Paths cross along the way. Various plot threads interact. There are some heroic pleasing characters and equally some distasteful cruel individuals.Would recommend but advise sticking with the unusual style.

This is a simply beautiful book. It is however, deceptively long, if you are reading electronically you will plough through 10 or 15 chapters (they are extremely short) and think you are flying through only to discover you have only moved on 3 or 4%. But the story, the characters depth and fullness and the descriptions of times and places are just perfect. It is one of those books that gives you a pain in your chest and brings tears springing to your eyes even when you think you are inured to what you may already suspect is coming.

Once upon a time... well almost. Starts with a magic diamond with red fire that is trying to get back to the sea. Alas it is found in a river by a Prince or some other title who is riding his horse across. Gets made into a jewel and brings back luck to everyone who owns it. Continues like this with a blind French girl and a German soldier in 1945 and end of WW2. French girl's farther is a museum custodian and the jewel now resides behind 13 locked doors like Russian dolls. Guess the girl and soldier meet up … could not take any more.Terrible recommendation but on holiday and nothing to read and only the Kindle with me: should have got a Sample.