Sunday Selection: All the Light We Cannot See

All the Light We Cannot See

World War II is pretty well worn literary territory, so I began All the Light We Cannot See with a healthy dollop of skeptical ambivalence.  Now being on the other side of the back cover, I can safely say that the the book is executed with thematic elegance and a trendy non-chronological narrative structure that succeed in adding something new to a very old conversation.

Plot Synopsis (minimal spoilers): All the Light primarily focuses on two journeys - that of blind Parisian girl Marie-Laure Leblanc, and German orphan Werner Pfennig, both of whom are approaching adolescence in the second half of the decade preceding World War II.  As you might expect, Marie-Laure and her cohorts become the victims of Nazi cruelty, while Werner gets swept up in the genocidal zeitgeist of his homeland.  No surprises there.

And yet... Nazis & Hitler are perhaps the closest stand-in for "pure evil" that exist in modern culture.  Godwin's "Law"  postulates that the longer an internet discussion goes on, the higher the probability of one of its participants comparing another to Hitler - escalating the discussion to the maximum level of ad hominem, because nothing could be worse than being compared to Hitler, right?  All the Light's greatest success, I think, is in humanizing some of its German characters, creating plausible scenarios for their involvement with the German war movement while still leaving the reader with strong questions about culpability, responsibility, and morality.  In that sense, it applies a thoroughly post-modern lens to its characters, allowing them to be understood, at least to some extent, as the confluence of personalities and larger world events.

Saint-Malo, the primary setting of the novel.  trefpool.com

The other great triumph of All the Light is a deft framing through the eyes of various characters that explores the mystical nature of our daily lives.  In particular, chapters told from Werner's perspective helped me re-connect with the youthful scientist that lives inside me, that sees the scientific explanations of everyday phenomena not as decreasing, but rather exponentially expanding that sense of wonder about the nature of our world.

All the Light has already received plentiful accolades and national attention, so I'll leave it at that, and simply conclude by saying that it's a book that you could read superficially and enjoy, but that deeper treasures lurk within its depths.