Book Review - "All the Light We Cannot See"

BOOK REVIEW - “All the Light We Cannot See” – Anthony Doerr - 531 pages – Scribner - Reviewed by Jeb Ladouceur

At the outset, I will confess I’ve resisted “All the Light We Cannot See” based on a few published reviews that, while generally favorable, gave me the impression the novel might be a bit sappy. However, when The New York Times named it one of the best books of 2014, I felt compelled to put my toe in the water that I’d feared might be somewhat oily and tepid. Though Anthony Doerr’s lengthy work is, in fact, occasionally insipid, I’m nonetheless glad I took its measure.

The story involves a French girl (blind since the age of six), Marie-Laure LeBlanc, and her German counterpart, a young Nazi soldier named Werner. She is a patriot wise beyond her tender years, he, an electronics prodigy absorbed by his skills, and both, in their own way, are determined to survive the horror which is World War II in occupied France.

I dislike telling much about the action in these well-crafted flashback tales—because doing so, it seems, threatens to diminish the reader’s sense of exploration and discovery. This is especially true in the case of narratives so expertly drawn that to tamper with their well-timed interweaving is to risk destroying the author’s almost mystical Rubik’s Cube of metaphors. So no more specifics as to the story line of “…All the Light…” Suffice it to say that the two young people at core of the plot come to comprise a duo that we are unlikely to forget long after this highly acclaimed book (finalist for the coveted 2014 National Book Award) has been closed.

But, to quote The Bard, “I run before my horse to market.”

There is no questioning the fact that novelist Doerr is a master of poignancy … that facility for inventing and defining pathos is illustrated early on when Marie-Laure’s father, a locksmith, constructs precise scale models of the various neighborhoods that he knows his sightless daughter will ultimately have to negotiate alone. The man’s objective is to have young Marie-Laure study the miniatures by touch and thereby master the paths she will soon be required to travel, aided only by her cane. What Papa LeBlanc is giving his child, of course, is the great gift of independence, and her embracing of the device (which stratagem, I must say, is a new one to this reviewer) defines the father’s compassion and insight as much as it does his daughter’s determination and intelligence. It is great literary theater.

It will come as no surprise that the lives of courageous Marie-Laure, and Hitler Youth conscript, Werner, ultimately converge … more than a few such stories have blossomed from the ashes of Nazism. Nor is this the first such book that forces the reader to wade through an uncomfortable first person (and even more awkward present tense) treatment of its otherwise compelling story. But it could be the best novel ever to survive these curious choices of form.

Some minor characters, it is sadly noted, are flat-out stereotypical, but in sum, this neatly researched book, by a still relatively young Anthony Doerr (41), is almost worthy of its many accolades. Indeed it is likely to become time-honored as the forerunner of similarly formulated novels in the future … one or more of which will almost certainly reward its author (and us) in the highest degree when its magical prose inevitably earns that elusive brass ring for literary excellence.

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Award-winning writer, Jeb Ladouceur is the author of nine novels, and his theater and book reviews appear in several major L.I. publications. In his newest thriller, HARVEST, an American military doctor is seized by a sinister gang of organ traffickers in The Balkans, and ordered to perform illegal surgeries.