We All Shine On

Nothing slows down time like a good book. Or, more precisely, finding a book I can't put down forces me to make better use of my time. Amid the holiday craziness of extra hours at work, more socializing than usual and the mad rush to get everything done, I got completely lost in Anthony Doerr's "All the Light We Cannot See."

It's a complex story, with wonderful character development, and Doerr's stunning use of language and vivid imagery makes it a pleasure to read. But it went deeper for me. Perhaps it's because I'm the daughter and granddaughter of people who survived World War II by living in a cellar in Brussels while Hitler's army bombed Belgium. Maybe having an emotional link with such a dark time in history made me immediately bond with Marie-Laure, a young blind girl, as I pictured her making her way up and down the winding stairs in her uncle's tall house by the sea, in Saint Malo. Marie-Laure is only a few years older than my mother was at the beginning of the war, when nearly everything she had known changed dramatically.

I also developed a deep empathy for Werner, the young German soldier who is cast into the ugliness of war when he's just a small-for-his-age 14-year-old. Given my heritage, the Germans were of course the enemy, but I just couldn't see Werner that way. He was a boy, an orphan who ended up at an academy for Hitler Youth thanks to his expertise building and fixing radios. His and Marie-Laure's stories come together in Saint Malo, near the end of the war, as Germany loses its hold on France. Strangers and enemies, barely more than children, they experience the illumination of human connection. For a story full of the darkness of war, Doerr's novel is also full of light: sunlight on the ocean, the sea breeze drifting into the window of Marie-Laure's tiny bedroom, Werner's need to be decent, even in brutal circumstances, and kindness against a backdrop of brutality. Not all light can be seen, but it certainly can be felt.