“All the Light We Cannot See” by Anthony Doerr – The Morality of Survival

I’ll begin by saying straight away that yes, there are already countless World War II novels out there, and for all intents and purposes, at the moment, readers everywhere would benefit if authors branched out into other topics in favor of that one.

Nevertheless, once in a while comes a novel which unjustly ends up being classified as something it is not, leading to many simply missing out on it.

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr is, I believe, one of those novels; though it does take place during the Second World War, very little of the content is actually about the war itself, rather placing the focus on character development.

Just to give a brief summary of the premise, it follows two characters: a blind fourteen year-old French girl, Marie Laurie, and Werner, a technically-gifted German orphan who becomes integrated into a special branch of the Hitler Youth.

We follow each character on their own individual odyssey, as Marie Laurie flees to the French countryside after her father disappears following the Nazi occupation of Paris, and as Werner delves deeper and deeper into the atrocities of the war.

Eventually, as you can guess, their paths end up converging, and without spoiling anything, it leads to one of the most beautiful and inspiring literary sequences I’ve had the pleasure of reading in a while.

As I said earlier, there is very little focus on the actual war itself, with the spotlight shining more on the human aspects of it, the philosophical questions concerning the preservation of our morality, dignity and humanity in the face of a bottomless abyss.

Both protagonists are unique, thoughtful, and basically the perfect vehicles to convey their stories, making the reader more and more curious each page as to not only where they came from, but where they are headed as well.

The plot itself, though it isn’t the main focus of the whole thing, does have some twists and turns to up the entertainment factor, and there is even a curious subplot involving a rather unusual jewel.

The writing itself is also something to behold, with Doerr managing to convey all sorts of images, from small and innocent glimpses into the lighter side of life to grandiose and majestic paintings of the human mind.

In the end, if you are looking for a World War II novel that strays from the beaten path and tries something new, an uplifting story about human kindness set in the midst of one of the greatest tragedies in human history.

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Anthony Doerr Personal site Anthony Doerr is an American author who earned an MFA from Bowling Green State University who is known for writing stories taking place all over the world, based on his own experiences abroad. Shell Collector and Memory Wall are the short story collections he wrote, while All the Light We Cannot See is his most critically-acclaimed novel.