All the Light We Cannot See: A Novel

Full disclosure: I received an advance copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review. I don't know why I waited so long to read Anthony Doerr's All the Light We Cannot See. I've loved his other books—in fact, his 2010 story collection, Memory Wall, was among the best books I read that year, so I know he's a tremendously talented writer. Maybe I hesitated because the book has already begun showing up on a number of year-end "best" lists, and lately I've had a bit of a disconnect between those the critics label as best of the year and those of which I'm most enamored. Well, I needn't have worried, because Doerr's latest is as good, and beautifully written, as I hoped it might be. In the early 1940s, the world is on the brink of war. Marie-Laure is a 12-year-old girl living in Paris with her father, a locksmith at the Museum of Natural History. Although Marie-Laure went blind at the age of six, she has a tremendous thirst for knowledge and a passion about the world around her, particularly the natural world. Ever-protective of his daughter, Marie-Laure's father built a model of their Paris neighborhood so she can navigate the streets and always find her way home. Meanwhile, in a German mining town, young Werner Pfennig is growing up with his sister, Jutta, in an orphanage. When the two discover a radio, it opens up a world of dreams and information. Werner also discovers his ability to repair and build radios, as well as his ability to grasp complicated mathematical and scientific concepts. This intelligence catches the interest of a Nazi officer, who sees that Werner is enrolled in an elite Hitler Youth school, where the fervor for perfection and rooting out inferiority begins to turn him into a person he doesn't recognize. As war closes in, Marie-Laure and her father flee Paris and head to the seaside town of Saint-Malo, where her eccentric great-uncle Etienne lives. Etienne has never been the same since the first World War, and he is unprepared for just how profoundly his life—and the lives of those around him—will be affected by Marie-Laure's presence, as well as the town's resistance to the Nazi occupation. And Werner finds himself on the front lines, as he is part of a team tracking down those using radios to subvert the Nazis. Werner and Marie-Laure's lives will intersect in a profound way, both when they are at one of their weakest moments. And this encounter will have an indelible impact on the lives of many for years to come. "To men like that, time was a surfeit, a barrel they watched slowly drain. When really, he thinks, it's a glowing puddle you carry in your hands; you should spend all your energy protecting it. Fighting for it. Working so hard not to spill one single drop." This is an exquisite, wonderfully told story. The characters are tremendously vivid and came to life for me, and I found myself fully immersed in what was happening to them. Although the book unfolds slowly, I was never bored, and although I had some suspicions about how certain events would be resolved, I felt some suspense at what would happen. Doerr is truly so talented, and although the book's switching back forth between two points in time sometimes made me take a moment to re-orient myself to where I was in the plot, I enjoyed this book so, so much. If you don't need a book to move at breakneck speed, but you want a story to savor, pick up All the Light We Cannot See. This is one of those books I could see as a fantastic movie as well, but the book is so worth reading.

I was prepared to give this book 5 stars and more. As I read, I marveled at the author's beautiful writing and the power of his story-telling. The characters jumped from the pages. Clearly Doerr researched radio operations, the time period, and movements of a blind child with obsessive skill. I read each page with delight and awe. Until the end... Unfortunately like so many books, Doerr had trouble bringing the story to a close. As much as I didn't want this book to end, I got frustrated that it didn't. Even when things began to settle down and the author started tying everything up, he kept going. Much of the end was unnecessary. Gosh, what a shame. Did Doerr expand the end at the request of an editor? At the request of a beta reader? Why? He wrote with a beautiful crisp style until the end. It was as if another person picked up the pen. Please Mr. Doerr end the book with the same deliberateness as you begin it. Once the reader knows what happens to the characters and the plot dies away, let the story go. Given the unfortunate ending, I still must give this book 4 stars. Nonetheless I still suggest readers give it a try. For most of the book, you'll be stunned into silence by the beauty of the writing and the creation of the characters. This book is about the liberation of France from the Germans during World War II. I know, you've read everything you wanted to read about that war, but this book gives a very different perspective. It is told at the very beginning of the liberation, when the Americans are bombing French towns (specifically a seaside town) to ferret out the Germans. The people of the town witness their lives , their homes, their businesses destroyed in order to be saved. Doerr takes a very unusual approach by presenting two different characters who are experiencing this terror. One, a 15-year old blind girl who is left alone in her house and who can't read the pamphlets the Americans have dropped on the town (Why did none of her neighbors rescue her, particularly the baker?). And, two, a 16-year old German soldier who is caught in the basement of a hotel once it's bombed. The readers learn all about these two characters by traveling back in time to when there was no war through the early days of Nazism to the capture of France and then to its liberation. The author skillfully shifts from one time to the next. Readers wonder what happens to the characters we meet and why they were not there on the day of the American bombing. I won't share the tension devices in order not to spoil the story. Another thing Doerr does so well is create a blind character whose other senses carry her through very tough circumstances He describes the smells, sounds and what she touches with such clarity at times I forgot she was blind. This book would have gone on my list of the best books I've read in 2014 till I reached the end. That to me is a tragedy.

Right away we meet “The Girl”- 16 year old Marie-Laure LeBlanc who grew up in Paris and lost her sight at the age of 6. She is the only daughter of a widowed father, Daniel LeBlanc who works at the Museum of Natural History as the locksmith prior to the German occupation of Paris. And we meet “The Boy”- 18 year old German Private Werner Pfennig who grew up in Zollverein, a coal mining town 300 miles northeast of Paris. We are alongside adolescent Werner and his younger sister, Jutta, when they find a crude radio which he begins to dissemble and assemble because “nothing he’s encountered before has made so much sense”. The Reich learns of his aptitude with electronics and invites him, at 14, to attend Jungmanner, a military training camp for the best and brightest where he is instructed to “. . . eat country and breathe nation.” He is described as “this snowy haired dreamer plucked out of the soot”. The author uses alternating chapters to reveal the back story of each character and to bring each character eventually to the walled city of Saint-Malo. In one story, the Germans occupy Paris so Marie-Laure journeys with her father as a last resort, to stay with her great uncle Etienne in a house, Number 4 rue Vauborel, which is also richly detailed. In our parallel story, the boy, Werner is currently stationed at the Hotel of Bees, Saint-Malo, as an electronics expert monitoring the airwaves listening for planes. Present day in this novel is two months after D-Day with half of western France free from German occupation. Saint-Malo however is the last citadel for the Germans and residents fear there may be a thousand or more Germans ready to die for their cause. Four years of occupation and now, a real sense of urgency. The author describes leaflets dropped by planes to warn residents to find shelter or leave before an impending airstrike. Marie-Laure's father is being held somewhere though and she decides to wait for his return. The bombers plan to cross the channel at midnight. Those chapters describing the present, ratchet the growing concern of the citizens of Saint-Malo as the reader meets many of the neighbors and townspeople who become real citizens of action. We learn of past broadcasts from the radio tower with its ingenious cabling as we listen in on present day broadcasts- the reading of Jules Verne's “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea”. Werner waits in the basement of Hotel Bees monitoring the radio. Marie-Laure waits for her father’s return in her third floor bedroom with two tin buckets filled to the brim with water and the bathtub on the floor below filled as well (in recent months there have been instances of water shortages). There is also a rare, 133 carat blue, priceless diamond, “The Sea of Flames” and a perfectly scaled model of each structure and street on Saint-Malo. The NY Times review had this to say about Werner. “As the words of his teachers fight the power of his memories, an inner voice tells him, 'Open your eyes and see what you can see with them before they close forever.” This resonates so strongly with the reader because in our parallel story, Marie-Laure navigates by touch and then by memory. Throughout the story powerful images resonate- night-time readings over the radio, John James Audubon sketches, canned peaches, barnacles, a boiling frog. How does it happen that Werner “when he opens his hand, there is a little iron key in his palm.”? So, who should read this book? This book is perfect for readers who love Geography. The place itself is fascinating; the reader can see in pictures of the walled city of Saint-Malo a natural isolation brought on by the tides. This was “the brightest jewel of the emerald coast of Brittany, France” prior to the German occupation and it's easy to see why they continue to hold on to it. This book is perfect for readers who love Historical fiction. The pivotal event of the story is well documented. The book provides an insider perspective to the events of the day, eyes on the ground so to speak through the observations and movements of Werner combined with those of the Whelk and the Blade. The book has been criticized for glossing over the hardships of war. I’m not sure I agree; the wartime hardships here are intimate, personal. This book is perfect for readers who love familiar literature drawing parallels or individual observations about “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea” and the fate of Captain Nemo. This book is also for readers who like to read aloud; some of the chapters are short like diary entries and the novel is presented in an extremely readable format. What does the title mean? The first thing that comes to my mind when I think “All the Light We Cannot See” is Marie-Laure’s inherent hope and optimism. She waits for her father, she ventures out, she takes action, she lives her life in spite of her handicap. She encourages this feeling in those close to her. For me, this light expands beyond Marie-Laure to include the good in her uncle, neighbors, friends, Werner, Jutta. We read of small and large acts of courage, of defiance, of hope. The light in the title is also a topic Werner hears discussed on a late 1930s radio broadcast about the brain’s power to create light in darkness (coal mines, blackouts, blindness). The phrase “open your eyes and see” pops up in several different places in the novel. Conversely the author writes, “to shut your eyes is to guess nothing of blindness”. And if “light” is truth, there are many examples where we are confronted by lies- the letter from Marie-Laure’s father, the letter from Werner to Jutta, and where characters decide to hide the real truth or not to interpret it correctly. Notable Quotes: “Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever” (pages 48-49). “There are, he assures her, no such thing as curses. There is luck, maybe, bad or good. A slight inclination of each day towards success or failure. But no curses.” “Is it right to do something only because everyone else is doing it?”, Jutta. “There must be order. . . The entropy of a closed system never decreases. Every process must by law decay.” (page 240). “Don’t you want to be alive before you die?”, Madame Manac (page 270). “Offering a loom on which to spin his dreams.” (page 389). “I wake up and live my life”, Marie-Laure (page 468).

I resisted reading All The Light We Cannot See when it was published in May, thinking the world did not really need another novel about the Second World War. Well, I was wrong. It is quite a vocabulary challenge to find the adjectives to describe this marvelous book without falling into cliché. Anthony Doerr’s wordsmithery is superb, his storyline development masterful, and the characters described so vividly that it is absolutely inconceivable that a reader could resist engaging in their lives. The main protagonists are a German orphan boy and a blind young French girl. I assure you there is no schmaltz in this story, which was what I feared when I read some of the blurbs. This is not a book to be read quickly, but one the reader will want to savor, soaking in all the luscious details of the plot evolution. Werner Pfennig and his younger sister Jutta live in a Children’s House with about a dozen other children of various ages in a small German mining town of Zollverein. Frau Elena is their loving caregiver who also teaches them French. It is 1934 and curious, clever Werner peppers Frau Elena with questions, and with his sister Jutta scours the junk piles in search of “stuff” from which he makes things. One day he finds an old radio and figures out to repair it, which opens a new world to the Children’s House. For one hour an evening, they listen together to music and programs on the radio, after which Werner takes it back up to his sleeping area. When unable to sleep one night, Werner finds a broadcast by a French man teaching science to children and playing classical music. Werner and Jutta listen faithfully for weeks until no longer able to receive his signal. This “French professor” and his broadcasts will turn out to be a link to a young blind Parisian girl living about 300 miles from Zollverein. Marie-Laure LeBlanc lives in Paris with her father Daniel, the chief locksmith at the National Museum of Natural History, just a few blocks from their apartment. Marie-Laure’s blindness was caused by congenital cataracts and by age six, her sight is gone. Daniel built his daughter a replica of their Parisian neighborhood, whittling every building in exact miniature and making sure she memorizes it. He also takes her out for walks and makes her find the way to different destinations and back home, always a step or two behind, always close, always coaching her to use logic and reason. While Daniel is working, “Laurette” spends her time at the museum learning about locks while shadowing him and occasionally learning about shells, mollusks, whelks and other topics from the museum’s expert, Dr. Geffard with whom she spends occasional afternoons. All the characters in this book had to accept and learn to live with harsh realities. Werner and Jutta’s father died in a mining accident and with their mother already gone, the Children’s House was their only option. Werner would be sent down to the mines when he reached his 15th birthday, as were all the boys. His engineering skills earned him a different fate. Still, the lack of autonomy, opportunity and individual choice in society at that time is sobering to see in print. It is refreshing to read a book about the Second World War that writes Germans as real people, not stereotypes goose stepping their way through life. The trek that Daniel and Laurette make when they have to leave Paris to join his uncle in the seaside town of Saint Malo is horrific, exhilarating and inspiring. The starkness of daily life during wartime for the civilians, soldiers and French resistance are depicted in heart-wrenching detail. Doerr wraps up the stories of the main characters at the end of the book, taking us to the year 2014. I have read some great books over the past year, some superb for their genre, but I believe All The Light We Cannot See is a modern classic, even though it was only published 4 months ago.

I think so much of this hauntingly beautiful novel is summed up in the simple phrase that comes at the precise moment that the entire novel builds up to: "Es-tu là?" Doerr's prose is beautiful and ephemeral, and all the more poignant given the dehumanizing brutality that occurs throughout the tale. It's a little hard to talk about this book without giving some specifics, so I will give the standard "SPOILER ALERT" caveat. There is so much that works about this story: it is beautifully told, the characters are fascinating and complex, and despite (or perhaps because of) the split-perspective narrative that shifts from time to time it is a very suspenseful work. It is set during World War II, and in many ways it is an "anti-war" novel in the sense that it would be impossible to read this story and not feel the senseless waste of life and the loss of so many innocents and dreamers. But in many ways the tale is an even more fundamental one: it is about embracing the beauty of the natural world, the tenuous but essential attempt to connect to other travelers in this journey through life, and the difficult attempt to do the right thing, even if it is not the popular thing. I loved Marie-Laure, but in many ways it was Werner I connected with the most ... I kept asking myself what I would do in his (impossible) situation, and I could not help but feel (fear?) I would betray people as he does, for the reasons and rationalizations that he does, but perhaps find some measure of salvation and atonement at the end, in the defining moments of his life. There are so many things I liked about this book that it seems a little unfair to mention the few, minor flaws. For me, there were only a couple. Personally, Von Rumple was too stereotypical as the "evil Nazi" (I couldn't help but think of the Nazis who get their faces melted off in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, which is a fun movie but not exactly a rich character study) ... he felt like a bit of a walking metaphor for greed, violence, human desires, etc. who was only around to add tension to the plot (and serve as a counterpoint to the "good German" Werner). He is, literally, a walking cancerous tumor. If Von Rumple had been more nuanced, he might've been an interesting character, but in the end I think all readers will have the same "Thank goodness, it's about time!" reaction when he meets his end. Also, I wished for just a little bit more in the last chapters set in more modern times ... they were all extremely emotional and poignant, but it just seems like the characters would've had more they would've wanted to ask or say to each other. Finally, poor Werner seems like he deserved a slightly more noble exit from the tale. But, these are all minor nit-picks ... but I had to get them out of my system! As a final comment, I would recommend that all people who read this book also read Doerr's interview with Powell's Books (easy to find online). I think it provides interesting insights into the motivations and back story behind this book, and also helps to explain the many strengths (and minor weaknesses) of this book. At the time I write this review, it's only a few months after the book has been released and there are already 1500 reviews, 1200 5-star. I think that tells you all you need to know. An incredible book, and while this was my first experience with Doerr, it certainly will not be my last.

I had purchased this book a couple years ago after hearing a friend rave about it. I love historical fiction, particularly books that take place during WWII, and this sounded like an excellent choice. I've been a bit busy raising my twins so I didn't read it right away but decided recently to read it since I was in the mood for a long novel! All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr is a fiction novel about a young French girl named Marie-Laure and a teenage German boy named Werner whose lives become intertwined during the war. Marie-Laure experienced disintegrating blindness when she was six years old and now has to learn to navigate the war-ridden world using a wooden model of their neighborhood that her father builds. Werner is incredibly intelligent and can dismantle receivers and put them back together again. He knows how things work and can solve complicated mathematical equations. His abilities catch the attention of the German soldiers who have him enlist so he can fight against the resistance. Their stories come together to create a beautiful tale. It took me about two weeks to read this book and I really enjoyed it! It's intelligently-written and one you will want to ponder when you set it down. Many of the chapters are only a couple pages long and each chapter switches points-of-view. It's fairly easy to follow even though the narrators change so frequently. There are also several sections of the book, separated by dates, months, or years. The reason I gave this novel four stars is because, even though it's incredibly well-written, there are some parts that drag. Don't get me wrong, this book is very detailed and I love the classical works of fiction that Marie-Laure reads and the ways those books tie into the rest of the novel. There were just some parts that I found to be slow-moving so I didn't get to read that much that day but other days, I tore through it so that definitely made up for those other days! Overall, I liked this novel and definitely feel it's worth it to read it, especially if you enjoy historical fiction novels set during WWII. It's intelligently-written so you will want to be ready to do some thinking while reading this book. Parts of it dragged for me but it was mostly a quick read. I'm glad I finally read it and recommend it if you are looking for a thick novel to dive into!

(Warning: contains spoilers) Anthony Doerr’s 2014 novel All the Light We Cannot See is a story of survival, courage, sacrifice, suffering, family, friendship, love, hope, and survival. It’s set in France and Germany during WW II. How many thousands of novels does that thumbnail description fit? (Jaded publishers and others in the business are starting to think of such novels as just another WW II book, which might account for some of the tepid reviews the novel got before it circulated through the wider reading community.) All the Light We Cannot See is one of the richest, most readable, discussable, and likeable WW II novels ever. Yes. Likeable. A narrative of war and suffering and death becomes a hopeful hymn about family, kindness, potential, magic, love, and mystery. Doerr brilliantly shows us the specifics in the general: the character so unique and real that the reader can become the character. And thus we can truly cloak ourselves in the potential for individual goodness in the storm of a world gone mad. We learn and are comforted by how we might behave in a similar situation. In the final analysis, the story belongs to Marie-Laure, the little blind girl with the father who keeps thousands of keys for the National Museum of Natural History and is a gifted woodcarver. In both Paris and Saint-Malo he carves tiny, clever models of their neighborhoods, which Marie-Laure must memorize with her fingertips. Then by counting grates, benches, streets, and tapping her other senses for cues, she must show him she can navigate their neighborhood. He also teaches her to use her cleverness to unlock tiny objects to find the treasures inside. To this reviewer, those incredible miniatures, made in such a rush by a father for his vulnerable six-year old girl as the Germans draw near, are the most unforgettable takeaways of the novel. And as her world is going up in conflagration, Marie-Laure’s fingertips race across the braille dots to open another world, the world of Twenty Thousand Leagues Beneath the Sea, which she broadcasts as the bombs fall. Marie-Laure, with her blindness, has a huge capacity for the world and human experience. Then there is Werner, a German boy, whose snowy white hair is almost as much a character marker as Marie-Laure’s blindness. He is an undersized orphan trying to look after his sister and others in the industrial area of Zollverein, Germany. Werner has a preternatural gift for mathematics and radios and, as a result, is spared going into the mines, but is scooped up into the German army where he becomes a radio operator. Marie-Laure and Werner cross paths when the Allies begin bombing the holdout of Saint-Malo in early August, 1944. During the most intense part of the circular, reiterative narrative, Werner is trapped in the basement of the Hotel of Bees because of a bomb hit. Marie-Laure is trapped not far away in the attic of her uncle’s house with the cursed jewel, The Sea of Flames, in her possession. A mad, dying Nazi stalks the downstairs desperate to get at the jewel, which he believes will save his life. Thankfully, Doerr lets a long, comforting resolution play out as we see what happens to the survivors of the bombing of Saint-Malo. We see the survivors intermittently as they go about life-after-the-war until 2014 (the novels pub date). So vicariously was I participating in this novel, if I should go to Paris this year (fat chance), I would keep an eye out for an elderly blind lady who seems to know where she is going. And I do believe some evil potential, buffeted and stained to look like ordinary sea rock, is always being swished around on the ocean floor waiting to be found and polished. Doerr expands the literal plot line (this-happens-then-this-happens-then-this-happens) with a richness of inversions, paradoxes, oxymorons, juxtapositions, repetitions, symbols, and motifs that invite the reader to go beyond the storyline. For example: • Clearly, a mollusk is not just a mollusk. And what’s with all those birds? • Before two of the most heart-breaking events of the narrative (the rape and Werner’s death), why are there quasi-Eucharistic events? • Why is the fabulous diamond, The Sea of Flames, given such an oxymoronic name? • How can we not see light? • Why is Twenty Thousand Leagues Beneath the Sea the message of comfort to all who hear Marie-Laure’s last broadcast? (On the surface, it would seem to be an inversion of the usual message of hope.) • Why can the story be read pretty effectively backwards? Doerr’s story has become an earwig. Certain images, characters, events, and themes will always remain in my head. More than any novel I’ve read in years, I felt that I was buried with Werner below the Hotel of Bees. I was in the cold orphanage attic with him when, as a boy, he listened to a faraway voice talking about the nature of light on the radio. I was as hungry as Marie-Laure contemplating opening the last unlabeled can of food in the attic. As an adult who has read a gazillion novels, I’ve largely lost my childhood ability to be carried away into another world by a story. So thank you, Anthony Doerr, for letting me do that again.

This book is beautifully written, it is rich with metaphor, with compelling, likable characters, and a wonderful plot. Often times I found myself reading paragraphs out loud, the words so brilliantly strung together--nearly poetic. The book is at it's best when Marie is with her Papa. The single parent who has raised her, and as her sight begins to deteriorate rapidly--His love for her only intensifies. She is not a burden, she is his child. He so loves her that he carves (in wood) miniature scale replica's of the city, so that she can "see" it's lay-out. So she can find her way home, wherever she may be. He takes her for walks, guiding her along, teaching her to use sound, and smell, and her cane. He takes her into the city, then spins her around, "Marie--take us home, you can do it!" Frustrated, and scared-- She finally is able to accomplish this, her confidence and grace blooming. Their relationship is very endearing, and the book stumbles a bit when the two become separated. Then there is Werner, the white-haired, sky-blue eyed German boy, forced into the Hitler youth, his electronic genius paving the way from an orphan home, to the Nazi equivalent of West Point. He is brainwashed, yet manages to somehow maintain his humanity, and he does this through his relationships both with Frederick, his sister Jutta, and ultimately Marie-Laurie. The book slows a third of the way through, struggles to regain it's footing-- Like a driver who forgets to downshift after taking a turn, it eventually regains it's power-- but then struggles yet again at times. When it is good, it is really very good. Five Star good. But when it is not, is is merely okay. So I found myself loving, then liking, loving then liking--repeatedly, and it seemed longer than need be. I'm not sure how I would have edited it, because the slow parts do seem necessary to fully develop the characters, but it does feel a bit redundant at times. This could have been an exceptional book, there was just too much tangential stuff going on, I don't really feel as though the "diamond mystery" was necessary, in fact--I think if the book had taken a single focus, perhaps purely on Marie and Werner, and their struggles-- it would have seemed less scattered. Sometimes you can toss too many ingredients into a soup, and the flavors compete with one another instead of enhancing and balancing it. I think that is what happened here. I still recommend it, as I found it quite enjoyable, even though it is a bit uneven.

A book that carries you away to another world in a different time as only excellent books can. Must read.

Two fragile young people's destiny during WWII. Books and series about this period are necessary. It's our duty to remember so that it won't happen again. It's a very good book for teen-agers and adults who won't forget.

mi libro que quería leer y resulto buenisismo.

I'm not normally a fan of prize-winning novels. I have to confess that I often find them tedious, pompous and unapproachable, which is likely a failing in me and not the novel, but I overcame my resistance to reading this one upon the recommendation of other readers and I was hooked from page one. "All the Light we Cannot See" tells two separate but converging stories set in Germany and Occupied France during World War Two. Marie-Laure, a young girl blind since the age of six and her father, who is the locksmith at the Natural History Museum in Paris, depart for the safety of St-Malo, a walled city on France's Brittany coast, carrying only the clothes on their backs and a secret cursed treasure. Werner is a German orphan whose fate is to work in the coal mines feeding the Nazi war machine as soon as he turns 15, but his skill with radio sees him indoctrinated into the Hitler Youth at 14 and a career with the German army locating and destroying Resistance transceivers. Their paths collide in June of 1944 during the American shelling of the city. I loved this book. Doerr writes with beauty and clarity, and I could see the novel unfolding in my head. His characters are three dimensional and inspire empathy in the reader (this reader anyway). I read the final third of the book in a single sitting, heart in my mouth, eschewing all other tasks so that I could find out what happened to the characters in the book. Conversely I didn't want it to end because I was engrossed in the story. I almost want to buy the physical book, just so that I can hold it in my hands. I will be reading this one again for sure, and seeking out Doerr's other literary offerings. This is by far the best book I've read in many years (and I read a lot). Read it! But make sure you have plenty of time on your hands. It's a tough one to put down.

I came across this novel accidentally and it's one of the most moving and exciting I've read for a long time. The story is set in WW2 Europe, mainly France and Germany but also Russia etc. It tells the story of a young girl, Marie Laure who went blind as a child and lives in Paris with her father, Daniel Leblanc, a gifted locksmith and miniaturist who works at a prestigious museum as keeper of the keys, and makes models of the city and its streets to teach his daughter how to find her way around the city. They live for each other. At the same time, we meet little Werner Pffenig, and orphan who lives in an orphanage in Germany with his sister, Jutta, under the maternal eye of Elena, the French matron. They listen to broadcasts in French that speak of the earth’s wonders, of brilliant birds, flowers and stars , on a recycled radio that Werner has managed to assemble from street detritus. That is his great skill, working with all things electrical, especially radio transmitters. His future is mapped out for him, he will be sent down the mines to help the Fatherland, the Fuhrer, etc - the same mines that killed his father. But life had other plans for him. The story weaves backwards and forwards with a rich caste of characters both simple and complex, evil or kind, - there are greedy traitors, cruel psychopaths, heroes and heroines on both sides all told with detail that makes the scenes come alive. Does the silken voiced broadcaster really live in a house with 1,000 rooms? And how is he linked to The Whelk? Who is the giant Werner meets at training school who terrifies all the boys by his presence? What must Marie Laura find in ‘the house ‘ at Etienne’s - the last command her father gave her before he left for the museum? What have Captain Nemo and The young girl broadcasting on a forbidden radio have to do with the psychotic Nazi hunting relentlessly for a priceless treasure as his life ebbs away? So many questions all slowly and gradually linking up. The suspense is heightened - then comes the calm only to be jerked back onto a knife edge! We witness mindless cruelty and incredible kindness and love, and as the bombs blitz Paris under German control, then St. Malo as the Allies close in, the different threads, the pathos, the horror and yet courage, hope and survival, sometimes purely physical since minds have been lost, is so gripping, so moving I couldn't put the book down. You keep hoping that the various characters will be found - will return somehow, and the wounds, both physical and emotional will be able to heal. It's very sensively written, with characters that you feel you've shared sunny mornings and untold terrors with. A great novel to remind us all of the horror and inhumanity of war, and yet the indomitability and also the kindness that humans are capable of. A novel for baby boomers and millennials alike. Highly recommended.