Review: All the Light We Cannot See

I love historical fiction, and this book was excellent. Having enjoyed a couple of visits to the fascinating town of St Malo made it even better. I listened to the audio version, while driving across France, in a Maserati which is a whole different story, anyway back to the task at hand.

“All the Light We Cannot See” by Anthony Doerr is a masterpiece of historical fiction that captivates the reader from the very first page. Set against the backdrop of World War II, the novel weaves together the lives of two seemingly disparate characters, Marie-Laure LeBlanc, a blind French girl, and Werner Pfennig, a German orphan with a talent for engineering. Their paths eventually converge in the war-torn streets of Saint-Malo, France, in a story that is both heart-wrenching and hopeful.

Doerr’s prose is exquisite, rich with vivid imagery and lyrical descriptions that bring the setting to life. Through his meticulous attention to detail, he transports the reader to the streets of Paris, the corridors of the National Museum of Natural History, and the rubble-strewn alleys of Saint-Malo. The sensory experience is heightened for Marie-Laure, whose world is illuminated not by sight but by touch, smell, and sound, adding an extra layer of depth to the narrative.