7 juli, 2016

All the light we cannot see *****

Comments : 1 Posted in : Reviews in english on juli 7, 2016 by : Lotte Tags: 5 stars, Anthony Doerr, france, historical fiction, nazism, pulitzer, war, WW II

“You know the greatest lesson of history? It’s that history is whatever the victors say it is”.

This book was lend to me by my neighbor, and I must say that her taste in books is very different from mine – and thank God for that – for otherwise I would have missed out on this gem.

The story evolves around our two main characters: german boy Werner and french girl Marie-Laure.

Werner is an orphan, living in a mining town of the 1930’s Germany. Werners talent for fixing electronic things grants him a place at a brutal Hitler Youth academy – here starts his realization that maybe not everything is as it should be –  but he is already on his way to the war.

Marie-Laure is living in Paris, and turned blind at the age of 6. Her days revolves around her fathers work at The Museum of Natural History and getting to know the city through the perfect miniature her father build her. Her world is uprooted, when they are forced to flee Paris during the occupation.

While reading this book, I was reminded of a string of dna in the way Anthony Doerr succeeded in intertwining the fates of Werner and Marie-Laure. It is a tale of childhood, hopes and dreams shattered by war, and the descriptions of places and sounds are so vivid and full of detail that the novel feels very visual.

The book is captivating and deeply moving – I defiantly recommend a read.

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