Agenda of All the Light We Cannot See

August came like the Rain in my life and washed away the continuity I was enjoying. So, leaving the stream, I decided to do a different blog than my regular ones that will not be about animations and stuff. This time I made my mind for expressing gradually by layers of explanations of a book I read and wondered about recently - "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doer. After careful consideration of all its aspects, I write down this post. So have a good read. It is a review and also analysis, so expect spoilers. I encourage you to read the book beforehand and then read this blog further.

This book features these two kids, two teenagers during World War II. One is a girl who is blind - her name is Marie-Laure Leblanc and then a boy named Werner Pfennig who is German. The story goes back and forth between their lives. There is another story, a German officer (Reinhold von Rumpel) looking for a diamond. He is one of those Nazis tasked with acquiring all the valuables around Europe for the Nazi regime. And so it is interesting because the book gives you two characters on either side of the war. You have Marie living in occupied France. She starts in Paris. She lives with her father, who is the locksmith at the National History Museum. When the Germans invade, they flee to her great-uncle, her grandfather's brother's house in Saint-Malo on the coast. And her father, who works at the National History Museum, is given something to take with him.

Marie-Laure Leblanc

You find that out pretty early in the novel. It is not much of a spoiler, but there is this diamond called 'Sea of Flames' at the Museum; when the Germans invade, they make a few copies of it. And they gave the real ones and the copies to the employees without telling them who has the fake ones and who has the real ones. Eventually sends them out so that they can throw the Germans off the scent. They don't get this diamond. The diamond is supposed to be cursed, whoever has it is immortal basically, but then everyone around that person meets misfortune. So Marie's father is given one of these. He doesn't know if he has the real one or a fake one, and he goes off to Saint-Malo. Meanwhile, the German officer is looking for that diamond. And he is tracking it down all over the place by hunting down all the fake ones and the real ones. So that adds a bit of tension to the story because eventually, he will come across Marie's father. And we can anticipate a climax scene.

On the other end, you have Werner, who turns out to be a gifted engineer at fixing radios. He lives in a coal-mining town. He is an orphan, and at the age of 15, the boys are supposed to work in the coal mines. But the reason he is an orphan is that his father died in the coal mines, so he is facing the possibility of going right where his father did and perhaps getting crushed to death like his father. So through a lucky break or two, a German officer needs his radio to be fixed. Werner goes over and fixes the radio, which makes the officer impressed. By his recommendation, Werner was sent to a Nazi military school for gifted young boys. Werner didn't care about the military, but it will save him from going to the coal mines. So he accepted it. Of course, there is an irony. In the very first chapter of the book, he is in Saint-Malo. The structure of the book is interesting it starts in Saint-Malo in 1944 both Maire and Werner happened to be in the same city when the Americans come to bomb it. And Werner, within the first few chapters of the book, ends up trapped and crushed to death in this subterranean enclosure. Yet that is where he ends up anyways.

Werner Pfennig

The most interesting thing about the novel that keeps you going is trading off between the two stories of Marie and Werner. It lends a kind of energy where you want to keep seeing how it builds. One expects that they are all come together in the end. Cause you will figure out that they have got a connection between them. And over a hundred pages, you start to see a connection, a small connection that exists. It is not that big of a spoiler. So I will say it. In the beginning, Werner and his little sister Jutta are in the orphanage. They are playing with their radio. One night they find this channel, or that to be precise they find a signal from a French man who is a science scholar of 1930's France. He is teaching science, and the kids know French because the orphanage matron speaks French. She is from France. And so in their childhood, they listen to this fellow on the radio talking about the universe. And then later Marie goes to Saint-Malo you find out that was her grandfather and the radio station sending out that signal is her uncle's house where she is staying now. In there, the radio sets, and you learn this early on in the novel. One of the great things about this novel is that it presumes that you are smart enough to put this together. It gives hints that it is her grandfather who was in those records. The records that once played on the airwaves.

Here it ends with minor spoilers. For further reading this post, I highly recommend finishing or getting this book.

Reactions: - 

Let me give you some reactions to this book. The writing style of the book grabs you right away. Because it is in the present tense and it is very economical, yet still somehow poetic. I never really felt like Doer was being unnecessary with the words he was using. I never thought he kind of went off descriptive. The author told just enough for the story to keep it moving. He is good at writing dialogue. There is a lot of conversation in it, and that also gives it a fast pace. If there is anything rather than that, that is what I would take away from this novel. It is 500 pages but goes so fast. It is so fast-paced, of course fanatically. One of the most exciting things about the book is just the way it gets across to you. That war was everything like everyone was forced into it, so no one has a choice. It seemed like that.

Through Werner's story, you can see how he didn't have a choice. Either he has to go to work in the mine for a horrible death or go into the military. At least he gets to do what he wanted to do in the military. He was doing radio electronics that he loved. There is an interesting connotation. His sister Jutta is kind of like his conscience. In a way, he constantly thinks about her whatever he is doing. And whenever he does something that he feels slightly ashamed. I think he thinks of her as she comes to symbolize the German conscious conscience. Maybe or at least, his conscience, and there is a time where he stops writing to her altogether.

Impact of their Lives: - 

In both of their stories, you see how the war is going to tear up your life. You have no choice, and you cannot get away from it. With Marie being in the country that was invaded by the Germans, was not according to her choice. They are just okay - 'You are invading, and we cannot do anything about it. Our lives are on hold." On Werner's side, it is like this - He has to fight in this war. He doesn't have a choice as it is already out of his hands. It was a powerful theme, an undercurrent of the whole thing. The collective insanity of war takes over everything. There is nothing to be done. Overall I think Werner's story was more interesting than Marie's. Cause Marie, in some ways, the characters in her story were a little flat. Especially Marie, because she was doing what she had to do to survive. Marie says as much towards the end of the book when she and Werner meet up. She says, "I am not brave. I just did what I had to do to stay alive". I am probably butchering that, but I wanted to mean, she does brave things, but we don't see her struggle necessarily with that. Where Werner, on the other hand, is doing all these things. He stands by and watches as his friend Fredrick is beat up. And Werner doesn't stand up for his friend. Cause he knows if he protests, he will get it too. And then they finally go off to war. Werner being the radio tracker, is directly responsible for these people getting killed as he is the one who tracked them down. Even though he is not pulling the trigger, it is interesting how he has to distance himself mentally from it. It is like - Werner is just finding the signal and telling them where to go. He doesn't have to kill them. Volkheimer goes in and kills the people, but then Werner has to go in afterward to get the radio parts. So he has to see the aftermath of what he has been responsible for. Of course, it slowly starts to get out of control. At first, it was normal for these Russian people to get shot as they are the enemy. But then the most shocking thing is when he goes into, is when they go into Vienna, and he sees the little girl playing in the swing set. They go up into the apartment, accidentally shoots the girl and her mother. For the rest of the book, that little girl haunts him. Werner, even though he was not pulling the trigger, he was responsible for leading them to that apartment as they were trying to track a radio. So I thought he was the most interesting character among the two of them for his judging guilty conscience. He was most in conflict with himself and the most tortured one by his actions.

On the other hand, Marie never really has to think twice about what she does. Because being not on the frontline, she didn't have to fight with herself. She goes and gets her bread with this secret message inside, and she is risking her life. But I am not saying she was a badly written character. It is that she is not as intriguing as Werner.

Other Characters: - 

For me, other than Marie and Werner, Volkheimer was one of the other characters that call out. At first, his presentation was of a brute. But then you get to know him better in this little scene, where he is listening to classical music, and you come to learn about his soft corner. Furthermore, when you go out into the field with him on the hunt for radio chasers, you see - he is shooting them in the back of the head. He does not seem brutal; it is just his part of the job.

At last, when you realize this humanity in him, how he looks after Werner and he cares about him. And then, at the end, when he seeks out Jutta to give him Werner's belongings, he has one of the most interesting arcs in the book.

Ending: - 

For me, the ending was interesting as it flashes forward to 1973 and to see the aftermath. Jutta is Werner's conscience. Earlier in the book and the aftermath of the war, she feels guilty for being a German. When Jutta travels to France, she feels pain for these people and thinks they would hate her once they hear that she is a German. Even though she did not do anything and she ended up in a tragedy.

In the shocking scene towards the end where they are all trapped in Berlin, the Soviet soldiers come in and raped them. So, she suffered just as much as anyone in an occupied country. Yes, she feels guilty, and it weighs on her conscience.

The last part of the story, the 1974 addendum, and 2014 feels like extras. But the ending passage seems like a beautiful one. As it ties in, the idea that the title, "All the Light We Cannot See" is representing that we cannot see everything. The radio signal, the lost connection, human relations, air text messages, all this combined, was already out there, which our eyes didn't capture.

Helen Killer once said, "The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched, they're felt with the heart." Like Marie, without her eyes, she might not see what is before her. But in reality, she already experienced everything by her heart.

A Scene from a film, "Silenced" (my favourite)

The last passage says the souls of these people may also be light that we can not see. And their stories are just flying through the air; this I thought was beautiful and moving. Marie is blind, so she can not see any light, and Werner can see, but the thing he cares about the most is a radio that you can not see. Of course, there is one passage that was on the radio where Marie's grandfather said, "Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever." I feel like there's a deeper meaning to that. You have to see all that you can with life. But also, never forget the stories of the people around you. See the stories and the souls of the past if you can. Almost equating life with light, I also thought it was plotted pretty well. And I enjoyed every kind of subplot of it. Von Rumpel, even his reasons like he wants to find the sea of flames because he believes the stories about the curse. So, he wants to get a hold of this diamond for curing his cancer.

Conclusion: -

The author handled it in a good way where it did not feel all of sudden like genre fiction. He hinted at it just enough. He never explicitly had Van Rumple sid down psychotic about getting rid of his cancer. The book never gives too much hint about what is going to happen. It knows that you are not dumb, and so it doesn't tell you everything. Let us connect the dots. It gives you just enough to connect all the dots. It is the reason I love this book.

Landscapes Palette Knife on Canvas by Lana Guise

So overall, I say it is a beautifully written, well-crafted story. The characters were pretty good for the most part. Though I will say, if there is any weakness to the book, it is that, what I mentioned before. But it was not bad; it does not have cardboard characters. It was just maybe, not completely as fleshed out as they could have been. But it was not detracting us, the readers from the book. I appreciate how the author has written the horrors of war in a way that still had an emotional impact. And like all the horrible things that were happening, but it was not as graphic or anything.

So, there's that. Thank you for studying and reading this blog till the end. I hope all of you guys will share your thoughts about this book. The characters you like most, the story, everything that you enjoyed, please share them in the comment section. Let us all come together and discuss everything in detail to have a better understanding.

Stay tuned and wait for my next blog post in the next month. 

Have a nice day!