“It’s a story about a German boy and a blind French girl during World War II, …”
“Of course.” Said my friend, to whom I was explaining the plot of the book to.
Of course. Of course it would be a German boy and French girl. Nationalism? Sexism? National-sexism? Is that even a word?
Jokes aside, All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr is a very delightful read. The use of language is exquisite: the choice of diction, the use of French and German words, the careful integration of classical music (Claire de Lune and L’Autunno) and classic novels (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea) really feels like a carefully painted canvas, and it truly is beautiful. Especially in comparison to the run-of-the-mill novels we get these days, this is really a masterpiece of words. Most modern mainstream novels, The Hunger Games, Nicholas Sparks books, Twilight, A Song of Ice and Fire series (or are they already out of fashion? Its way too hard to keep up with book trends), while I enjoy and even personally love some (not all) of them, does not even come close in terms of usage of language. This above all shows the amount of care the writer put into his novel, and the care definitely paid off.
This novel, however, does have obvious problems. To continue with my opening anecdote, the story and character themselves are very much cliched by this time. The boy is a German who is also great with machines and technology, while the girl reads Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by the great French author Verne. I mean, how stereotypical. Which is perfectly fine. But the problem stems from the fact that this book did not really delve into the deeper psyche of these characters, truly question what makes them do what they do or think the way they think. I personally would compare this book with The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. And they are somewhat similar, both fictional tales during WWII, both are sort of coming-of-age stories, and both have shadows of a love story. While the use of language in The Book Thief is not as well as in this book, I personally feel a lot more with Liesel than either of the two characters from this book. There were no significant character developments, and none of them ever go through significant emotional turmoil or anything like that. It’s too calm, and as a result none of their decisions, Marie-Laure’s decision to help out with the French resistance, or Werner’s decision to cover for them, seem significant as far as character goes.
This book references a lot of history, and as a history major I do appreciate it a lot. Most of it is pretty accurate, and (being nitpicking as I am) I’ve only noticed one inaccuracy, with someone talking about “Reichswehr” (Imperial Defense), which (ironically) was the military of Weimar Republic and renamed the “Wehrmacht” during the Nazi era. But that’s really minuscule and doesn’t at all take away from the novel. What I would complain about is the lack of interaction between the characters and their historic setting. Going back to the comparison with The Book Thief, in the latter the characters actually engage in historic events, with Liesel witnessing the book burning, and Max being saved by Mein Kampf. It really feels like they were there and affected by these events on an emotional and mental level. And while Marie-Laure and Werner are affected by historic events, it always feel like it is purely physical and did not leave a lasting impact until perhaps after the end of the war. And I was really disappointed by the loss of such a great opportunity.
I do want to say, however, that I find the style of writing to be really great. Short sections of 1-2 pages forming up into larger chapters that fill the book is great. Every single one of these short sections feels like a world-class minimalist short stories to me, and without context of a bigger story they are really powerful. And the way these sections were presented it almost seems like a really well-shot TV-series (being better versed on screen, I would have to go back to movie/TV analogy sooner or later), but not a coherent one. Here is a piece of Marie-Laure’s life, and oh here’s a piece of Werner’s. Despite the extremely well written prose, the short stories themselves do not truly interconnect. The tone also shifted dramatically once, which really startled me. The novel, in one of its later sections, depicted Werner’s 15-year old sister Jutta being raped by Russian soldiers along with others in their orphanage. And I was so completely unable to react to it. Before this the novel was very restraint in its depiction of violence, or the lack of any. I was like, okay, this is a nice sweet G-rated work of art, and then it suddenly just went straight to something probably more than a R-rating. Before this section, the Russians have never been referenced, the audience have never seen Jutt’s POV since Werner left the orphanage, and nothing from this scene was ever mentioned, nor was its impact ever shown. Again, on its own, this scene could be extremely emotional and powerful, but given the context and its existence within this overarching story makes it stand out and really just does not fit. It was out of place, and made me shudder.
Before I started reading, I’ve heard people saying that it is “boring”, which I must say it really isn’t the case. As with many great novels, it has a long buildup. I remember that it took me like 5 times before I got past the first 30 pages of A Tale of Two Cities, but when I finally did get through the first chapter, I went through the entire book in 3 days, and it is probably my favorite novel of all time. This one is similar, in the sense that it takes some time to get to know the characters and settings, but the amount of effort and time put into formulating every sentence, it is definitely always pressing you to keep reading.
I know I have complained a lot about this book, but I have to stress that I really enjoyed reading it. In comparison to most novels these days, this would be a masterpiece. It is a very good book, please don’t get me wrong. The mastery of language is something I haven’t seen in a long time, and sadly it does mean that its problems would me much more obvious in comparison to what it got, well, perfect. The choice of words, the integration of dialogue in storytelling, and the formulation of short but powerful sections, there is so much one can learn from this book.
Because anyone who has at least tried to write a novel knows that coming up with a story is easy, but writing it out is hard
Which is why this novel is great
Which is why this novel is disappointing
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