All The Light We Cannot See

 September 21, 2021

*There is a major spoiler in the fourth paragraph    

    All The Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr, is a powerful story of two vastly different teenagers during World War II. Doerr traces the lives of the two main characters, Marie-Laure Etienne and Werner Pfennig, through the invasion of France and the chaos of a war that completely transforms their lives.

    Doerr's narration is one of the most significant aspects of this novel. I thoroughly enjoyed the way he abandons common rules of writing, yet manages to create a moving book that influences those who read it. The opening chapter had a huge impact, leaving me with anticipation for the book I was about to read. He sets the stage with a dramatic war scene, one that defines his unique writing style through just a few sentences, and leaves more than half of the page blank. That empty bottom half left more of an initial impression on me than anything, since it conveyed such intense emotion. Just as in the first page, Doerr keeps a masterful balance between text and blank space throughout the entire novel, letting the words resonate within the reader even when there are none.

    Even more than the visual element woven into the book, I enjoyed how the reader is forced to connect the dots of chronology in a new and surprising way. A couple of chapters in, as the author introduces Part One of the book, the story is abruptly taken back ten years, to a more peaceful time in the lives of the characters. A few chapters later, the readers find themselves in the middle of the war scene yet again, unaware of the events that led up to it but with a new understanding of the layout of the book. As the novel progresses, Doerr toggles between past and future, offering the readers just bits and pieces of information at a time. This eventually leads up to that inevitable moment when the past catches up with the present and the plot stabilizes. This point is not only significant in the chronology of the story, but also for the characters; it is when the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner briefly collide, leading up to an unforgettable ending. 

    "But Werner has crossed the edge of the field, where he steps on a trigger land mine set there by his own army three months before, and disappears in a fountain of earth" (483). In one unforeseen line, Doerr diverts the path of the book from the happy yet unrealistic ending the readers hope for to a sentimental one, leaving a mixed trail of emotions. Despite becoming so attached to Werner and so hopeful for a peaceful future, the readers cannot deny that this bold turn of events is fitting for a book about World War II. Nonetheless when Doerr takes a risk and breaks this emotional rule, it is likely to determine how the reader will look back on the novel as a whole. Marie-Laure does live a good life in the end, and "She lives to see the century turn" (527) as the author states. But the book can't help but leave a bittersweet feeling, as Doerr ends his spectacular novel with: "Every hour, she thinks, someone for whom the war was memory falls out of the world. We rise again in the grass. In the flowers. In songs... She listens until his footsteps fade. Until all she can hear are the sighs of cars and the rumble of trains and the sounds of everyone hurrying through the cold" (529 - 530).

- Amelie