All the Light We Cannot See

All the Light We Cannot See

Future Reflections Winter 2015 REVIEWS
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All the Light We Cannot See
by Anthony Doerr
Reviewed by Molly Faerber
From the Editor: Molly Faerber is a recent graduate of the MFA Program in Literary Arts at Brown University. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Fairy Tale Review, Fourteen Hills, Harpur Palate, SmokeLong Quarterly, and Wigleaf. She was awarded an NFB National Scholarship in 2013.
All the Light We Cannot See
by Anthony Doerr
Scribners, 2014, 544 pages
All the Light We Cannot See sings with a lyric prose that is rich in sensory images. Over many years and in many vastly different voices it sprawls across the European continent. At its heart is Werner, a German orphan whose exceptional talent for the building of radios--then the newest technology--singles him out as an asset to Nazi forces. And there is Marie-Laure, the teenage blind heroine who devours Braille books faster than her father can obtain them, and who is sent to the French coastal city of Saint-Malo to live with her eccentric uncle during the war. In addition, among others, there are a German officer on the hunt for a diamond of extraordinary value; Marie-Laure's locksmith father, who builds intricate scale models of the streets outside their home for his daughter; and Werner's sister Jutta, who refuses to be swept up in the tide of Nazi propaganda, even as her brother is recruited to the cause. The novel's very short chapters--some only a page long--counteract its length, and the humanity of the characters enchants and compels the reader. These are people I came to care about deeply.
The dazzling prose is, for me at least, half the reason to keep reading. But under its luminous surface, there is much to consider, especially for readers who are interested in the novel's blind protagonist as more than a plot device. I found Marie-Laure to be, for the most part, a realistic and believable blind character, with the possible exception of her step-counting travel technique, which doesn't seem effective or practical. (But though I've never yet met a blind person who counts his/her steps, especially outdoors, that isn't to say that none do.) Marie-Laure's sensory perceptions are exquisitely beautiful, in keeping with the novel's intense lyricism, and in general they resonate deeply with me. Doerr renders her synesthetic experience of sound and color particularly well. While I enjoyed and admired these passages, though, I wondered at the lack of some of the smaller, less expected trademarks of blind perception—for example, how one is able to feel the differences between being surrounded by buildings or by open air when outdoors, how clues about one's surroundings come via nuances of sound and air flow. In a novel of this scope, with characters of this depth, I can't help but find it disappointing that Doerr did not push himself to incorporate details that might lend his work more credibility and this character greater truth.
Another perplexing point was the absence of Marie-Laure's feelings about her blindness, or any discussion of her identity as a person who is blind. Granted, that isn't what this novel is about, and in some sense I see that as a remarkable achievement: here is a novel about a brave and intelligent character who happens to be blind. Yet, as a person who becomes blind during childhood, Marie-Laure must necessarily have feelings about that journey, on a personal level and in terms of how she relates to society and her place within it. While I very much support a narrative in which blindness is not a tragedy of epic proportion—and those are sadly few and far between—I think that room should be made to explore the complexities of blindness, to examine what it means for the blind character to be blind in a sighted world. This sprawling novel, in which space is made for so many characters to think and speak about so many different things, might easily have found a place for Marie-Laure's thoughts on her changing identity.
As with any novel or film featuring a blind character and meant for a mainstream public that is woefully undereducated about blindness, it's important to consider the impact of the work on the average reader. In my opinion, Marie-Laure comes across as intelligent, capable, and brave. She uses the tools she is given—her cane, her scale models, her mobility techniques (though it's unclear if these come from formal training or from her father)—to travel independently. If she travels alone less frequently than many blind people today, I was willing to cite the dangers of wartime and the conventions of the period. Marie-Laure is a voracious reader, has an evident sense of humor, and is not, like so many blind characters in the media, purely good to the point of being unrealistic. Put simply, Doerr does not place her on a pedestal (though others in the novel sometimes do). In the end, it is her cleverness that saves her, and her intellectual curiosity that enables her to go on to a successful career as a scientist.
Regarding its portrayal of blindness, the book is not perfect. Personally, I would have wished for an examination of blindness as complex and nuanced as the exploration of human connection. But the book is no small achievement. It is beautiful, often luminous, in terms of language and craft as well as emotion. And perhaps this is the most blind readers can hope from a sighted author. Personally, I would like to see competent, talented blind writers represent the stories of blind people in a way that is beautiful, meaningful, complex, and truthful.

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