A vision with insight

Doerr walks you through a blind girl’s life in the backdrop of WW2

KARACHI:

I stumbled upon All the Light We Cannot See by chance. While hunting for the next book to take on, I found it on almost every website I browsed through. When I say take on, that is exactly what you need to do with this book. Running up to 544 pages, it is not what you consider an easy or a quick read. It is a book that makes you delve deep and empathise with the characters.

The backdrop is World War II. The protagonists are a blind French girl, set adrift due to mounting tension brought on by the war, and a young German boy who is eventually recruited into Hitler’s army. The story unfolds in short chapters, flipping between the voices of various characters, narrated in first person. This makes it incredibly easy to follow, even though as a whole the theme is quite heavy and the intricate details make it a dense novel. The back and forth is a challenge however, because it seems that from one point of view, you quickly jump to the next. Using this technique, the author, Anthony Doerr, gives you an omniscient view of the unfolding events.

Read: Book review: The Upstairs Wife - hopes and betrayals

It’s fascinating to see the scenery change from Saint Malo to the army barracks; from the French trying to find refuge in strangers’ homes to the war front where young German boys suffer at the hands of their superiors who try to mould them into cut-throat, battle-hardened soldiers.

To me, what sets this novel apart from the rest is that a majority of the book is narrated from the point of view of a blind girl. The author takes up the challenge of painting a clear picture of circumstances and surroundings using only this girl’s sense of hearing, smell and touch. To me, this seems like quite a feat, because the easiest thing, as a writer, is to illustrate what meets the eye.

Read: Book review: Written in Tears - a woman at war

Coming back to the little girl; her father is her guardian and guides her on how to figure her way around town and on the streets. He creates intricate miniatures of the town they live in, so she can use the models to find her way around the city. You find yourself not only empathising with her but also walking the same streets with her; your senses heightened just as hers would be.

On the flipside, the German whiz kid lives in an orphanage and knows the in’s and out’s of the radio (an invention that was the people’s sole connection to the world). We follow his parallel story, as he is recruited into the army, which I will leave for you to discover.

My only reservation is that some bits of the book are a little too detailed. The descriptions are beautiful but I feel they could have been edited further to make it a shorter read. Also the paths of the two main characters take too long to cross. At some points you find yourself wishing it would happen already so you could find out where their journey was leading you.

I recommend this novel to anyone wanting to explore that era, and anyone who has an appreciation for good details and characterisation. And of course, this book has been creating quite a buzz, so why not check out what all the fuss is about.

Title: All the Light We Cannot See
Author: Anthony Doerr
Pages: 544
Publisher: Scribner
ISBN: 978-1-4767-4658-6
Price: $15.29

The author is a published short story writer and blogger, with a background in advertising. She is a voracious reader and is passionate about travelling. She tweets @sufipanda.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 2^nd, 2015.

Like Life & Style on Facebook, follow @ETLifeandStyle on Twitter for the latest in fashion, gossip and entertainment.