All the Light We Cannot See-Anthony Doerr

This book is a must for all the people who love figures of speech. Anthony Doerr has beautifully used all sorts of literary devices to create such a soul rippling effect that I just could not help but highlight numerous of them in my kindle. It’s a beautiful amalgamation of emotions of people during World War II. Their fears, their hopes, their beliefs, their happiness, their grief. It so powerfully leaves a footprint of what people had to suffer through during the war. And, most importantly it puts a very strong message underneath the whole story – ‘No one is victorious in a war’. The book completely takes you through a stroll of World War II. The language Anthony uses will compel you to feel the horror, the misery , the suffering , the waiting , the stillness and the aftermath.

The story revolves around a blind little girl, Marie Laure who lives with her father in a small apartment in Paris ,who works as a locksmith in a museum nearby to their house. They are a happy couple who cherish the small moments. Her father not losing hope, helps her to acquaint to her blindness, makes her remember the neighbourhood streets, builds her a miniature model of the whole neighbourhood so that she does not feel that her blindness is a liability to her. But with the sudden invasion of Nazis, their life sets into a turmoil. Her father is given a secret to protect before the Nazis come and take it away, and leaves with her daughter to his uncle’s house in Saint Malo .

Werner, who lives in Germany, in an orphanage with her sister Jutta is a science enthusiast. Though he does not have the means or source to pursue his instincts, he somehow acquires books of physics, gets into repairing radios intuitively by observing circuits and does not let the spark to learn inside him die in anyway. A German general notices him and offers to send him to a military camp where he will be able to pursue his dreams of becoming an engineer which his sister disagrees about. But the dismay the future holds for him is out of his imagination. He learns a lot but he was never prepared for the things his talent will be used for-to kill people.

Somehow all through the story the paths of these two are always intertwined, and after years Werner saves Marie Laure’s life and helps her get out of the city safely when the Nazi regime falls. The book is a battle of a blind girl against the world, a small boy against the Nazi regime and everyone else who unwillingly had to be a part of the war. The book beautifully portrays the torment the war inflicted on every person, innocent or not. How everyone had to pay for the sins of a few, lose their loved ones to a meaningless war. Suffer for the rest of their lives with soul wrenching memories, if they were lucky to survive. The story intensifies the agony of the people during the war through very menial day to day activities, and that touched me. It is a must read for the literature lovers. I will give it a 7/10.