From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, a stunningly ambitious and beautiful novel about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II. Marie Laure lives with her father in Paris within walking distance of the Museum of Natural History where he works as the master of the locks (there are thousands of locks in the museum). When she is six, she goes blind, and her father builds her a model of their neighborhood, every house, every manhole, so she can memorize it with her fingers and navigate the real streets with her feet and cane. When the Germans occupy Paris, father and daughter flee to Saint-Malo on the Brittany coast, where Marie-Laure's agoraphobic great uncle lives in a tall, narrow house by the sea wall. In another world in Germany, an orphan …
From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, a stunningly ambitious and beautiful novel about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II. Marie Laure lives with her father in Paris within walking distance of the Museum of Natural History where he works as the master of the locks (there are thousands of locks in the museum). When she is six, she goes blind, and her father builds her a model of their neighborhood, every house, every manhole, so she can memorize it with her fingers and navigate the real streets with her feet and cane. When the Germans occupy Paris, father and daughter flee to Saint-Malo on the Brittany coast, where Marie-Laure's agoraphobic great uncle lives in a tall, narrow house by the sea wall. In another world in Germany, an orphan boy, Werner, grows up with his younger sister, Jutta, both enchanted by a crude radio Werner finds. He becomes a master at building and fixing radios, a talent that wins him a place at an elite and brutal military academy and, ultimately, makes him a highly specialized tracker of the Resistance. Werner travels through the heart of Hitler Youth to the far-flung outskirts of Russia, and finally into Saint-Malo, where his path converges with Marie-Laure. Doerr's gorgeous combination of soaring imagination with observation is electric. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, Doerr illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another. Ten years in the writing, All the Light We Cannot See is his most ambitious and dazzling work
This was so well written. I love Doerr's beautiful descriptive style and the way he interweaves the stories of the characters intricately together.
Minus half a star because it didn't make me shed as many tears as such a powerful story should have. I can't really tell why. Maybe it was just my mood and I may need to reread it sometime and update my rating o 5 stars. Its definitely worth a read and a reread in any case.
Review of 'La luz que no puedes ver' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
¡Qué lástima he sentido por este libro tras acabarlo! Una buena historia, unos personajes que podrían ser brillantes, una narrativa impecable rozando lo poético y que al contener capítulos cortos se hacían bastante llevadero a pesar de ser excesivamente minucioso. Una pena que el autor optara por triturar a los personajes, todavía sin terminarlos de hornear, hasta hacerlos polvo y por ende la historia se le fue escurriendo de entre los dedos conforme avanzaba. ¿Avanzaba? Avanzaba a ratos. A partir de la mitad del libro daba la impresión de que entrabas en una espiral, sin salida. Como las espirales que dibuja Frederick (personaje sin sustancia) o el sargento von Rumpel (muy simple hasta en la forma de matarlo). En fin. Es un libro que quizá guste a jóvenes lectores, por lo "sacarino" siempre que sean lectores pacientes con una narrativa que a mí me ha parecido brillante y que me …
¡Qué lástima he sentido por este libro tras acabarlo! Una buena historia, unos personajes que podrían ser brillantes, una narrativa impecable rozando lo poético y que al contener capítulos cortos se hacían bastante llevadero a pesar de ser excesivamente minucioso. Una pena que el autor optara por triturar a los personajes, todavía sin terminarlos de hornear, hasta hacerlos polvo y por ende la historia se le fue escurriendo de entre los dedos conforme avanzaba. ¿Avanzaba? Avanzaba a ratos. A partir de la mitad del libro daba la impresión de que entrabas en una espiral, sin salida. Como las espirales que dibuja Frederick (personaje sin sustancia) o el sargento von Rumpel (muy simple hasta en la forma de matarlo). En fin. Es un libro que quizá guste a jóvenes lectores, por lo "sacarino" siempre que sean lectores pacientes con una narrativa que a mí me ha parecido brillante y que me tuvo expectante, nada más; por esto le dejo cuatro estrellas con una puntuación de tres y medio.
