Peruse many lists of the best ?ction of 2014 and you will likely ?nd Anthony Doerr’s latest novel, “All The Light We Cannot See,” prominently mentioned. While it deals in the well-trodden literary milieu of war-torn Europe, it achieves success by discarding the traditional accouterments of the genre, in favor of a lighter touch accentuated by the unorthodox viewpoints of the novel’s unique protagonists.
In place of the sobering travails of holocaust survivors, and overly descriptive battle?eld goriness that so often weigh down the writing in similar works, Doerr crafts an airy, eloquent tale of historical ?ction with a touch of the supernatural, presented in short, vignette style chapters that keep the reader seeking the next scene.
From the beginning it is apparent that Marie Laure, a teenage French girl blinded in childhood, is Doerr’s intended lead. Forced by the advancing German army to ?ee Paris with her doting father, she ?nds shelter with relatives in the citadel of St. Milo where they hope to ride out the war. As he did in Paris, Marie Laure’s father constructs a scaled model of their surroundings to help his daughter navigate the city and protect the infamous “Sea of Flames” diamond he has secreted away from the National Museum of History. Despite the inherent challenges that arise from choosing to tell much of the story from the perspective of a blind girl, Doerr convincingly describes her ordeal in a way that does not come off as contrived or forced and allows his penchant for pleasant, evocative prose to take form. However, perhaps partly due to her handicap, she stands as an unfailingly pristine character. Consequently her story, while encouraging and uplifting, is ultimately one primarily of perseverance rather than growth.
It is instead the development of the precocious German orphan, Warner Pfennig that in many ways steals away the narrative. Consigned to the same fate as many of his countrymen, he increasingly questions the justness of his actions and those of his country in the con?ict. The in?uence of his younger sister Jutta, who plants the ?rst seeds of doubt and morality in his mind, as well as that of Frederick, the gentle soul he befriends in the Hitler youth camp provide great counter-forces against the pull of the Nazi war machine. With Pfennig, Doerr deftly sketches a nuanced character from the German side with whom readers can empathize, and in so doing, gives the novel the satisfying mark that distinguishes it from many contemporaries.
The novel is not, of course, without its faults. The time shifts between the climactic scene of the Allied bombing of St. Milo and preceding events seems more a disorienting interruption of the narrative ?ow that adds little to the telling that could not be accomplished through more traditional linear sequencing. In addition, Doerr attempts to metaphorically bind the story with the cursed “Sea of Flames” diamond. Regrettably, it too often serves as a clunky, unreliable device by which to express the unseen inter-connectedness of the novel’s disparate circumstances. The force of radio, which pervades the novel and emerges almost as an unnamed, tertiary character, demonstrates this unifying theme far better. From the epigraph quoting Joseph Goebbels and continuing throughout the subsequent pages, radio is the constant thread that joins all storylines together. It is a source of education and entertainment for young Werner and his sister. Later, it is a means to locate enemy positions and ultimately is the facilitating lifeblood of a clandestine resistance.
Nevertheless, while Doerr does overreach at times over the course of 500-plus pages he manages to overcome these few missteps to carve a worthwhile contribution to a glutted genre.
Local reader Stephen J. Rayburn is a frequent contributor to GoodReads.com. He will provide more of such reviews in future editions of Spotlight on Living.
