Words&Dirt

American philosopher John Dewey defines art as “the living and concrete proof that man is capable of restoring consciously…the union of sense, need, impulse and action characteristic of the live creature” (Art as Experience, 26). In this sense, novels can be understood as records of imagined experience that harness a reader’s mental apparatus in order to generate a dynamic simulation of particular times, places and people. Novels are predicated on a creative synthesis of form and substance: “The work itself is matter formed into esthetic substance” (Art as Experience, 114, emphasis his). More simply: The words don’t get in the way; the words are the way.

Although all novels achieve this to some degree, few manage to reduce the space between form and substance to almost nothing. Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See is one of these rare works. To crack open this book is to disappear into it, to understand intimately what is said without having to scrutinize how Doerr says it. The prose is exquisite, with each word, phrase and paragraph feeling as if the author sifted the best possible option from dozens of suitable alternatives. Doerr’s decision to write historical fiction in the present tense brings the psychological and physical landscapes of World War II to life in fresh and sublime fashion. Readers on the prowl for lush language will devour this book.

There are plenty of other good things to say about this Pulitzer Prize winner. The story takes place during the German occupation of France and focuses on two adolescent protagonists: Marie-Laure, the blind daughter of a locksmith at the Museum of Natural History in Paris, and Werner, a German orphan with a special talent for fixing radios. Both share a love of discovery but come of age in radically different circumstances.

Despite her blindness, Marie-Laure is a child of privilege. He spends her early years surrounded by academics and researchers at the Museum, and develops an interest in ocean life. When the occupation begins, Marie-Laure’s life is turned upside down. She flees Paris with her father, and is forced to live out her early teens in relative isolation:

She is angry. At Etienne for doing so little, at Madame Manec for doing so much, at her father for not being here to help her understand his absence. At her eyes for failing her. At everything and everyone. Who knew love could kill you? (226)

These are tough lessons for any kid, and even tougher to learn in wartime.

Werner is also forced to grow up quickly. As an orphan in Germany’s industrial sector, his fate will be the same as his dead father’s: at age fifteen, he will descend into a coal mine, with little hope of a future beyond. But when Werner’s knack for electronics is discovered by a Nazi officer, he is whisked off to an elite Nazi school for gifted youngsters. He learns to be disciplined and vicious, although he still retains a dormant sense of morality that resists Nazism:

Werner is succeeding. He is being loyal. He is being what everybody agrees is good. And yet every time he wakes and buttons his tunic, he feels he is betraying something. (250)

Werner and Marie-Laure both end up using radios to influence the war in different ways, showing that our inventions are only as beneficent or dangerous as we allow them to be. Their mutual interest in the power of radio precipitates a serendipitous link between their two stories.

Another important component is Doerr’s sensitive portrait of Nazis. He makes no attempt to soften or justify Nazi ideology, and yet provides opportunities to understand and empathize with individuals caught up in the Nazi tide. It can be all too easy to dehumanize those guilty of dehumanizing others, but Werner’s narrative is an ethically complex depiction of mixed motivations and internal struggle. His desperation to escape the coal mines makes him eager to lose himself in the “majestic totality” of the Third Reich:

You will strip away your weakness, your cowardice, your hesitation. You will become like a waterfall, a volley of bullets––you will all surge in the same direction at the same pace toward the same cause. You will forgo comforts; you will live by duty alone. You will eat country and breathe nation. (137)

Werner is taught to separate his mathematical work from its potential consequences. His mentor’s mantra is “It’s only numbers, cadet…Pure math. You have to accustom yourself to thinking that way” (184). Werner does so, only to find that those numbers become bodies on the battlefield. This realization––and the bitter regret that accompanies it––propels Werner’s maturation. All the Light We Cannot See does noble work in this regard, providing a nuanced examination of how decent people can become killers.

To complement his excellent characters, Doerr has a special talent for crafting aesthetic descriptions of scientific processes and concepts. Here are two examples:

The brain is locked in total darkness…It floats in a clear liquid inside the skull, never in the light. And yet the world it constructs in the mind is full of light. It brims with color and movement. So how, children, does the brain, which lives without a spark of light, build for us a world full of light? (48, emphasis his)

We all come into existence as a single cell, smaller than a speck of dust. Much smaller. Divide. Multiply. Add and subtract. Matter changes hands, atoms flow in and out, molecules pivot, proteins stitch together, mitochondria send out their oxidative dictates; we begin as a microscopic electrical swarm. The lung the brain the heart. Forty weeks later, six trillion cells get crushed in the vise of our mother’s birth canal and we howl. Then the world starts in on us. (468)

All the Light We Cannot See is replete with passages such as these. Doerr’s descriptions of natural phenomena are shot through with reverence for the unseen and under-appreciated aspects of biology and physics. Marie-Laure and Werner’s respective fascinations with science are constrained by conflict, exposing one of war’s most tragic aspects: it diverts the energies of curious people away from inquiry and toward survival and slaughter. This is the unhappy tale of “What the war did to dreamers” (506).

For all its terrific qualities, I cannot give this book an unqualified recommendation. I had no trouble immersing myself in Doerr’s language, but I also found his writing strangely problematic. At times, the prose felt too artful, too elegant, and therefore fragile, like a priceless treasure protected by bulletproof glass. Look, but don’t touch. The result was an emotional distance between myself and the story that I wasn’t ever able to close.

I also think Doerr fumbled the denouement by including two short sections that take place long after WWII. These sections are as beautifully written as what came before, but feel tacked on, as if Doerr was afraid to leave anything open-ended. A story like this doesn’t need to be perfectly resolved or brought up-to-date, and part of me resented Doerr for trying to do so.

Still, All the Light We Cannot See is a stunning achievement, well deserving of its many accolades. The world awaits Doerr’s next endeavor.

Rating: 8/10