All the Light We Cannot See: A Novel

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Masterfully and beautifully written historical fiction taking place in the early 1940s as the horrors of the 2nd World War unfold in Europe. This is a fairly long novel (500+ pp.) with short chapters that read very fast. Anthony Doerr is uncanny in his ability to sustain the initially parallel but increasingly interwoven life stories of the two main characters throughout the novel until its climactic moment.

As far as a literary work is concerned, I think that was the one, unique feature of Doerr's prose in All the Light We Cannot See. Coupled with an amazing writing style and powerful gift to create visually poetic images that will stick with you for a long time on the one hand,

"That first peach slithers down his throat like rapture. A sunrise in his mouth." (p. 471),

and viscerally unsettling ones on the other,

"...and disappears in a fountain of earth." (p. 484).

All the Light We Cannot See will break your heart and haunt you after you turn the last page. Two young lives, much too young, thrown into circumstances equally much beyond their control. Providence? Destiny? Luck? It doen't matter what you think of it in the end. The reality is that the effects of war linger far too long after it's over. Even today, if we pay a little attention we might actually get to see 'All the Light We Cannot See.'


View all my reviews