Review: All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

4 stars for All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.

This book has been on my reading list for as long as I can remember. I am never in a hurry to read it for so many reasons that I can think of. Finally, the time seems about right as I thought to buddy read with my colleague J whose daughter highly recommends it to. In the end when I reach the last page of my book, colleague J reaches the end of her patience, 95% short of mine or thereabouts.

All the Light We Cannot See is a literary fiction that is slow moving but not boring, interesting but not compelling. It may not be my favourite of the favourites for this genre, but the story does have its own unique way of subtly drawing the reader in, if we allow ourselves to.

Set in the time of World War II, this is a story beautifully written to combine true events with a cast of fictional characters. To name a few, it tells of a father's unconditional and boundless love for his daughter, a blind girl's bravery to wake up everyday and live her life, an old man's fear of the ghosts residing in his mind, an old woman's choice to be alive before she dies, an orphan boy's determination to escape the fate of walking the tunnels of the mines where his father has died in, a younger sister's ability to understand more about the workings of the world than her brother.

And then, at the heart of it all is an enchanting legend whereupon lies the entire story and its characters, without which there will be no tale to tell. The Sea of Flames, the size of a pigeon’s egg, the shape of a teardrop, the colour of blue sea with a touch of red at its core, a one-hundred-and-thirty-three-carat diamond, is as rare as the legend goes. Sounds good? Definitely. But the thing is, this precious stone comes with a curse: the keeper of the stone will live forever, but so long as he keeps it, misfortunes will fall on all those he loves one after another in unending rain.

I love the idea of putting forth a folklore, especially one that is so ingeniously weaved into a not-so-long-ago history, to gather up people from all walks of life and thereafter look beyond their facades to see these same people within. With the legend of the Sea of Flames, it is hard to fathom how something so small in size can weigh down the heart of one who possesses it, or the one who pursues it. But then, where matters of life and death is concerned, we can never know for sure.

Now that I have finished the book, I offer to tell the story to colleague J who has decided that she has enough of the story in print. Perhaps she may enjoy listening to the story from me more than reading it by herself. In any case, I am always happy to be the storyteller, especially when the story is a good one.



Publisher: Scribner; Reprint edition
Publication date: 4 Apr 2017

*** Favourite quote ***

Walk the paths of logic. Every outcome has its cause, and every predicament has its solution. Every lock its key.

~ All the Light We Cannot See
Anthony Doerr

@}--->>--->>-----

Marie Laure lives with her father in Paris within walking distance of the Museum of Natural History where he works as the master of the locks. When she is six, she goes blind, and her father builds her a model of their neighborhood, every house, every manhole, so she can memorize it with her fingers and navigate the real streets with her feet and cane. When the Germans occupy Paris in June of 1940, father and daughter flee to Saint-Malo on the Brittany coast, where Marie-Laure’s agoraphobic great uncle lives in a tall, narrow house by the sea wall.

In another world in Germany, an orphan boy, Werner, grows up with his younger sister, Jutta, both enchanted by a crude radio Werner finds. He becomes a master at building and fixing radios, a talent that wins him a place at an elite and brutal military academy and, ultimately, makes him a highly specialized tracker of the Resistance. Werner travels through the heart of Hitler Youth to the far-flung outskirts of Russia, and finally into Saint-Malo, where his path converges with Marie-Laure’s.

*Blurb from author's website*

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