All the Light We Cannot See

This book by Anthony Doerr is written simply, but with the emotional power and magical intensity of a fable or fairy tale. The book is set in World War II and centers on two main characters, a blind French girl and a talented young German soldier, who are eventually drawn together and meet in the walled city of St. Malo. The structure is a little unusual, with short chapters that switch from one character to another and back in forth in time, getting closer and closer to the moment of meeting.  

There's a very interesting interview with Doerr that was published in the Powell's Book Blog.   At one point, the interviewer, in asking him about the short chapters, says perhaps they "can allow for more lyricisms and/or experimentation with language in some ways than longer chapters because you get that cessation. Doerr agrees that his writing in this novel is very lyrical and says "I know that's demanding, so this was a gesture of friendliness, maybe. It's like I'm saying to the reader, "I know this is going to be more lyrical than maybe 70 percent of American readers want to see, but here's a bunch of white space for you to recover from that lyricism." [Laughter].

The story and characters are so captivating that All the Light We Cannot See is hard to put down.  When I had finished and was thinking over the book, it seemed to me that it differed from many books in that it had no strong themes.  One line spoken by a character in the book has been repeatedly quoted by readers and reviewers:  “Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever.”  The title and this statement clearly relate to the blind girl, but I finally came to feel that they also describe a central "theme"of the book: that life is magnificent; joyous and heartbreaking, meaningful and random, kind and cruel. Although Doerr is not Tolstoy, and All the Light We Cannot See is not War and Peace, the power of the writing nevertheless grips us and invites to embrace the variety of life.