Monday 31 October 2016

All the light we cannot see

A recent read I really enjoyed is Antony Doerr's All the Light We Cannot See.  The title comes from the radio waves and other forms of electro-magnetic communication waves which we cannot see with our eyes, yet which surround us everywhere. Apparently Antony Doerr saw someone on a train beating his mobile phone on the armrest of his seat when the train entered a tunnel, thus losing connection, and thought how we take such communication for granted these days. This was one of our Book Club choices and I was really glad to see it on the list. ( We usually choose 5 -6 months worth of titles at a time, and meet every three weeks for discussion along with coffee and cake)
I hadn't read anything by this author before, and will now seek out some of his other titles.
Set during, before and after World War Two, this is a complex book, with many different themes, yet is so beautifully written that despite its length it seemed to be an easy read. Each chapter is fairly short, so there is time to really grasp the flow of the story. Partly a coming-of-age story, as both main characters, Werner and Marie-Laure, are very young during the story and only teenagers when they finally and briefly meet; partly about the impact of radio communication, Werner is a young German radio whizz; partly about blindness -  Marie-Laure has been blind since the age of six; partly about the Nazi's hunt for  art treasures in the countries they invaded; despite these varied themes the story combines them in elegant, lyrical prose. The discussion we had during our book Club meeting ended with a desire to have a group outing to St Malo, a place which some but not all had visited, and which is also an important character in the book.

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