Check out my All the Light We Cannot See book summary and review that I created to help you understand the basics of this great book. All the Light We Cannot See is a novel by American author Anthony Doerr , published by Scribner on May 6, 2014 .
The German translation was published in 2014 by Verlag CHBeck . The book won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction , and the same year the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction and a Dayton Literary Peace Prize .
All the Light We Cannot See Book Summary:
The novel by American author Anthony Doerr tells the story of a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths cross in the midst of World War II . The main action takes place in August 1944 in the northern French city of Saint-Malo , which was under siege by the Americans . The story of the two characters is drawn in regular flashbacks.
Paris, 1934: Marie-Laure LeBlanc is the daughter of the widowed locksmith of the Natural History Museum and often accompanies him to his work. Marie-Laure suffers as a result of cataractssuffered from a rapidly progressive loss of her sight and became completely blind at the age of six. In order to enrich her life, her father makes a scale wooden model of her Parisian neighborhood, which Marie-Laure learns by touch by heart.
M. LeBlanc spends hours guiding his daughter to various locations in the real neighborhood and letting her find her way home without his help. For her birthdays, he always gives her handmade puzzle boxes that can be opened after an ingenious series of steps. Her father gets her novels in Braille . Marie-Laure is particularly enraptured by the stories in her edition of Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea .
The Paris museum is rumored to be planning to exhibit The Sea of Flames. However, there is a legend surrounding this immensely valuable blue diamond with dancing "red flames" at its center: A curse lies on the jewel, according to which each owner becomes immortal, but his loved ones experience never-ending misfortune.
Simultaneously in Germany: Werner Hausner (originally Werner Pfennig) grew up with his sister in an orphanage on the premises of the Zollverein colliery . The director, Ms. Elena, a Protestant nun from Alsace, teaches the children French through folk songs and stories. Werner finds a broken shortwave radio that he can fix, and in the process discovers his natural talent for electrical circuits.
Werner and his sister listen to a variety of radio programs but are particularly fond of a science program that is broadcast regularly from France and is specially designed for children.
With the Nazi invasion of France , Marie-Laure and her father left Paris for Saint-Malo in 1940 to seek refuge with their great-uncle Etienne. Etienne, suffering from war neurosis from the First World Warsuffers, lives his life in seclusion and never leaves his house.
He shows Marie-Laure a radio station hidden under the roof, with which he and his brother Henri broadcast the children's program that Werner and Jutta liked to listen to. Unknown to Marie-Laure, her father was entrusted with "The Sea of Flames" or one of three exact copies.
He and three other familiars were each given one of the jewels to protect them from the Germans. The wearer was left in the dark about whether they were carrying the real diamond or a worthless copy. Marie-Laure's father hides his diamond in a wooden miniature of Etienne's house, which is part of a model of the city of Saint-Malo that he makes for Marie-Laure.
The father is arrested by the Germans after he was observed surveying and drawing the city. He is held in a prison camp on suspicion of espionage and his daughter is left alone with Etienne and his housekeeper, Madame Manec.
Reinhold von Rumpel, an Aryan gemstone expert who assesses the value of confiscated jewels, is assigned to The Sea of Flames. Fueled by the legend of immortality, the sufferer of a malignant tumor is able to discover the whereabouts of all four jewels. After identifying three copies, he goes to Saint-Malo, where he suspects the real diamond.
In the meantime, Madame Manec and other neighbors took part in the Resistance . When she falls ill and later dies, Marie-Laure takes on a daily trip to the bakery, where she receives a loaf of bread with notes hidden inside. Etienne reactivates his radio station and broadcasts the information received.
Werner's technical talent got him a place in a National Socialist talent program. He endured the harassment and the military drill at the National Political Educational Institution in Schulpforta . One of his teachers, Professor Hauptmann, is pleased with Werner's above-average academic achievements and also encourages him outside of the classroom.
Werner helps him develop a system for locating illegal radio stations. Hauptmann arranges Werner's transfer to the Wehrmacht , where he helps track down illegal partisan radio stations. In Vienna, he makes a mistake identifying a radio antenna, which leads to the killing of a young girl and once again makes him doubt his actions.
In August 1944 Marie-Laure and Werner crossed paths. Werner is ordered to Saint-Malo for Etienne's nightly transmissions. He realizes that Etienne is responsible for the children's programs he used to listen to with his sister. Werner can track down the house, but hides this from his comrades. Marie-Laure, who has meanwhile found the diamond in her wooden model, hides from von Rumpel.
Werner manages to save her from him and he takes her to safety. In this short time of meeting both feel a strong bond. Shortly before her farewell, Marie-Laure lets the wooden house in which the diamond is hidden slide into the ocean tide in a grotto under the city wall. Werner, still ill, is picked up by Resistance fighters and handed over to American officials. On the road to recovery, he steps on a land mine at night, killing him.
In 1974, 30 years later, Jutta received information about Werner's death. She is given the wooden model of the house that was found at Werner's. Jutta travels to France with her son Max and meets Marie-Laure, who now works as a scientist at the Natural History Museum. Marie-Laure learns that the wooden model was with Werner when he died and now contains the key to the grotto. The story ends in 2014: Marie-Laure is walking the streets of Paris with her grandson.
Post a Comment