"Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever." - Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See
THIS REVIEW IS SPOILER-FREE
Disclaimer: This review is constructed on my personal reaction to the book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
It’s currently very late and I am currently very tired, but I just finished reading Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See, and I wanted to take a quick minute to share my thoughts on it. I doubt I’ll be able to live with myself until I’ve made some noise about this book.
Let me say first that while my head is buzzing with opinions on All the Light We Cannot See, I have also found myself almost completely speechless in the wake of its completion. I cannot seem to put my finger on the right adjective that will perfectly articulate how I feel. Exquisite is what I settled for in my Goodreads review, but it’s so much more than that: I tried phenomenal, spectacular, gorgeous, absolutely beautiful, a marvel, a triumph, a wonder to behold, but none of them seem to fit. This book simply eludes categorisation; I was utterly, completely, irrevocably blown away. Ironically, I wasn’t even going to pick up this book; I downloaded the .epub file instead of purchasing a hard copy because I was afraid I wouldn’t like it.
Little did I know.
A few of my favourite things about the novel:
- I loved the characters. They were all so vividly imagined, sculpted out of nothing into beautiful complexity, raw and vibrant and each intensively unique. I particularly loved reading from Marie-Laure and Werner’s perspectives, although that goes without saying, as they’re our dual protagonists. Watching their individual stories arch out and then meet in the middle was positively breath-taking. They were captivating, dazzling, and sometimes also haunting -- so often I found myself holding my breath with anticipation, rooting my heart out for these lively, powerful, miraculous people.
- I loved the writing. Doerr is inarguably something of a poet; the guy knows how to string a sentence together. His words sing in perfect harmony. I’ve never seen a writer approach writing with such tangible wonder and such finely-tuned skill. A poet, I’m telling you, and if not a poet then an artist, if not an artist then a visionary. Every sentence breathed; every paragraph soared. To read All the Light We Cannot See is to be bewitched, enchanted by its lyrical grace, stunned by its gorgeous words. My heart glows just thinking of it.
- I loved the way it was honest. This book is set during World War II, so inevitably, it’s pretty sad. What I loved about it, however, was not the fact that it was sad, but how it balanced happiness and sadness, especially in its climax, to create an ending at perfect equilibrium: half melancholy and nostalgic, half quietly hopeful. Doerr wrapped up each storyline so neatly without giving everyone a happy ending. In fact, no one got a happy ending. What they all got was a peaceful ending, and it’s important to me that you understand that happy and peaceful are not synonymous here. I felt at peace when I finished this book, but I did not feel happy. That, I think, is a realistic ending. I said the storylines were all wrapped up neatly, and that they all ended peacefully, but I lied. Only some of them were/did, and I can’t say any more without spoiling the ending, but trust me when I say that even the inconclusive endings were satisfying, as implausible as that sounds. There is a gorgeous, refreshing honesty to Doerr’s narrative, a beauty to his blunt and unabashed conclusion. I could not speak of it more highly. I am struggling even now to put my praise into words.
To put it simply: this novel was brilliant. I cannot think of a single person who would not benefit from reading it, this story of love and compassion, ambition and duty, science and faith, wrong and right, life and death -- this tale of two strings of fate tangling, two radio-waves waltzing in the invisible light. Touching, gripping, heart-breaking, breath-taking, All the Light We Cannot See is, in my opinion, perfect.
(I think that’s the word I was looking for.)
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