Project Response

Well, we’re finally here.

After a month of reading and responding to All the Light We Cannot See, this blog post marks the end of the project. The book was something unlike anything I had ever read before: from the ever-changing points of view, to the thick plot supported by historical facts and events, All the Light We Cannot See was a fresh take on World War Two.

As a history-enthusiast, it is not seldom that I’ve come across the all-encompassing war that rocked Europe for the second time in half a century. In fact, the topic is so overanalyzed that I often actively avoid it. While I don’t for a second pretend to come close to understanding the intricacies of the second World War, its study is so common that it has become far less interesting to me than subjects not as widely covered in our history classes. This caused me to begin the book fearing the worst--just another typical book about Nazi atrocities or the hardness of the front. Fortunately, I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Through his back-and forth framework, Anthony Doerr stepped away from the stereotypical World War Two historical fiction novel, and created in stead something completely new. The genius layout of this book established the characters in the “present” (1944) under the gravest of circumstances. This instills in the reader a sense of urgency, and a desire to learn more about the situation the protagonists are in. Doerr builds up to the dramatic ending by slowly and meticulously developing the characters through their back stories, all the while slowly progressing the 1944 timeline via short snippets of information.

Doerr also added some other elements not usually seen in World War Two novels in the mysterious Sea of Flames. This very fictional plot line acted not only to spice up the story, but to pull together some of the characters, uniting them in the end of the novel. Furthermore, through the very nature of those characters Doerr continued to break the mold of the genre. His choice of children as protagonists contradicted the classic war plotline, and his introduction of unusual characters like Etienne and van Rumpel continued to establish Doerr’s masterpiece as something out of the ordinary.

But what really sets All the Light We Cannot See aside from the rest, is Doerr’s craftful use history. Instead of making the book a dry regurgitation of a history textbook, or a fruity tale that just happens to take place in the past, Doerr exemplifies the perfect middle ground. With exciting plot, engaging characters, and relative historical accuracy, All the Light We Cannot See is nothing short of a page turner. Carefully interwoven details like the names of streets surrounding Marie-Laure’s homes in Saint-Malo and Paris, and living conditions in Schulpforta give the story real believability, and further engage the reader in the exciting plot.

My experience with the German language, and many of the locations mentioned in this book enhanced my enjoyment of this book even more. While any German words or places were trivial in meaning and easily googleable, it certainly made me feel clever knowing them, and gave the story even more authenticity.

So…

I’m truly glad that Mrs. Laclair gave us this assignment. If any of the books that other students read were as enjoyable as All the Light We Cannot See was, than I’m sure they’ll agree. I had the opportunity to use skills and understanding developed through careful reading of advanced literature on a book that I choose. I really feel as if I was able to see past the literal meaning, and gleam the author's true message. While the frequent blog posts were at times stressful, and an entirely new form of writing for me, they too seemed to be an appropriate way to chronicle our journeys through our books. I can’t imagine this assignment being done any other way, and I hope that it is included in next years curriculum.

The A Theme

Today, after finally having completed All the Light I Cannot See, I will do my best to unpack the theme of the book or, put in ap terminology, the meaning of the book as a whole.

The ending provided us with the much-anticipated meeting of the main characters, with van Rumpel, Werner, and Marie-Laure all under the same roof at one time. As the Americans finish their assault on Saint-Malo, van Rumpel rallies himself into a last ditch effort to find the Sea of Flames in the LeBlanc house. He systematically tears the house apart from bottom to top, entirely unaware that Marie-Laure sits hidden the whole time in the secret room on the top floor. As he searches, Marie-Laure broadcasts her reading of the final few chapters of Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea as well as her Great-Uncle’s music over the radio transmitter, at some points also calling out for help over the radio waves. Her broadcast is picked up by Werners radio, and inspires him and Volkheimer to blast their way out of their basement-prison, allowing Werner to come to Marie-Laure’s rescue by killing Von Rumpel and helping her out of the city. Werner dies after walking on a landmine shortly after this (yes, tragically Werner couldn't escape the fate he always feared of death-by-mine).

Following this action-packed scene of events, we are given a very bleak glimpse into the future of the remaining characters. Similar to how the main characters were all connected in one way or another, the remaining players too are driven together, primarily due to Werners death, and meet at different times. Volkheimer brings some of Werner's things to Jutta, who travels to Saint-Malo, and ultimately meets Marie-Laure in Paris, returning the wooden model of the LeBlanc house to her. The one remaining mystery at the close of the book is the coveted stone that once resided inside the wooden model, as Marie-Laure finds only the key to the passage inside.

So… What does this all mean?

Well, as I emphasised in the previous post, I found this book to be primarily plot-driven, however that doesn’t mean that there wasn’t a lot going on. Using the broadest scope to analyse the book, I would say that the most prevailing message is entrapment. Almost every character is trapped by something. Marie-Laure’s fate was quickly sealed when she lost her sight at a young age, a condition that would mar much of her childhood. Her blindness often made her feel small and insignificant; unable to influence the world around her. Werner was trapped by his circumstances. Starting with the mine official telling the orphans they would work in the mines when they turned 16, and ending when Werner killed Van Rumpel, everything in Werner’s life was predetermined. No matter how little he bought into the Nazi propaganda fed to him in Schulpforta, Werner lived to do the bidding of others. His one friend Frederick pointed this out to him by saying “Your problem, Werner, is that you still believe in your own life.” Van Rumpel too is hopelessly trapped. Throughout his role in the book van Rumpel is fighting a losing battle with time, as the tumors in his body slowly kill him. Volkheimer was even trapped by his size, and it became his only defining feature. Many of the characters even become physically trapped. Volkheimer and Werner are both trapped in the basement under the collapsed hotel of bees, and Marie-Laure is trapped in her attic as van Rumpel ransacks her great-uncle’s house.

I think this book’s greater message is to break free of your bonds. Just as Werner and Volkheimer blasted away the debris of the hotel, escaping from his physical prison, he also broke down the walls of the cage that had held him fast all his life and started making decisions for himself. Similarly, Marie-Laure overcame her challenges, but with the help of others. Werner ultimately freed her from her imprisonment in her attic, just as her father and great uncle helped her overcome her blindness, to eventually lead a full and relatively satisfying life.

This brings me to another key aspect of the book. The character foil between Werner and Marie-Laure, culminating in a true “opposites attract” moment, becomes most obvious in the portion of the book. Overlooking the blatantly obvious (Marie-Laure is trapped in an attic while Werner in a basement, Marie-Laure is broadcasting to the resistance while Werner is hunting resistance broadcasters etc.) the two characters are influenced and mature in opposite ways. As I mentioned earlier, Werner’s struggle is to break away from the influence of others and act for himself, while Marie-Laure’s is to trust others, and let them help her. This fundamental difference of light-and-dark, sight-and-no-sight, is key to their juxtaposition. Werner frequently tells himself to “open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever,” while Marie-Laure, whose eyes have closed forever, still seems to do a lot of seeing. The inverting relationship between the two characters serves to reinforce the overlying theme, as the two opposite characters must both overcome their challenges in their own ways.  

There are numerous other themes and motifs present in the book. One of the most commonly recurring ones, Jules Verne’s Ten Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, was the one that perplexed me the most. Starting almost at the very beginning, and carrying on until the end, there is a large emphasis placed on Marie-Laure’s reading of the book. Unfortunately, I haven't read the book, so it may well be that some deeper meaning therein lies, however I interpreted the book's presence mainly as a means of escape for Marie-Laure. First, from the dark sightless world she inherited so suddenly, and then later from the cold reality of the Second World War. I interpreted Etienne’s gifting of the second portion of the book to Marie-Laure as him truly taking on the role of her father, and any thought I had that Daniel would one day return was extinguished.

The ending of this book showed me just how elaborate and elegant this novel really was, and made it clear to me why it received the Pulitzer Prize. While it did leave me a little bit sad and hopeless, with it Doerr masterfully tied together the numerous strings present throughout the development of the plot. I was entirely satisfied by the ending.

Ap Status: Does it Make the Cut?

This question is a difficult one to answer. What really constitutes an “AP-level” book? And how can one tell? Well, considering that I am, in fact, not a Collegeboard employee, nor an English teacher of any kind, I’ll do my best to answer this question using what I’ve learned so far in this course.

To even begin answering this question, one must have some sort of guideline for what an AP-level book is like, and fortunately, I happen to have read a couple. So far in AP English we’ve read three books deemed by our resident literary scholar Mrs. LaClair worthy of the honorable title. From Huxley to Atwood to Morrison we delved into the rich and intricate plotlines, packed with allusions and motifs galore.

For me, the best template to use out of the three is also the book that we most recently read: Song of Solomon. SoS was packed from start to finish with literary devices that only the most careful readers could pick up on, all elegantly woven into Morrison’s journey myth guideline. So genteel were the sentences that we often spent tens of minutes breaking down the meaning of each word, leaving me in awe of the precision with which Morrison composed her symphony of syllables. The other two book we read were similar, combining gripping plot with social importance and literary exquisiteness.

So… How does All The Light We Cannot See stack up?

Anthony Doerr’s masterpiece has received almost nothing but praise. The important and brand-new take on this monumental event in our world’s history offered in the novel is by any standard pure genius. Through it Doerr gives us a fresh angle on the war that I have never before experienced, and it certainly has opened my eyes to what life was like in Nazi Europe. Furthermore, the book is good! Probably even great. The fast-paced plot and barrage of details make All The Light We Cannot See a page turner, and almost makes me feel guilty about how deeply I enjoy reading it as an assignment. But don’t take my word for it--the novel comes widely recommended and highly accredited. The book was an instant New York Times bestseller, and the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize. As if that wasn’t enough recognition, it was even dubbed worthy of this project by Mrs. LaClair herself.

But there is an important distinction to be made between a good book--or even an important good book, and an AP book. Copies sold, or awards won mean nothing in the eyes of the alarmingly profitable non-profit that constructs the AP tests (this “nonprofit” yields tens of millions in profit per year and compensates its executives upwards of 300K annually, but I won’t get into that now). Although I love this book, and find it to be a hugely important and interesting one, I don’t think that it is merits AP-level status. The book is principally plot driven, with a only few motifs that act almost as an afterthought. For example, the Sea of Flames and radios are commonly recurring motifs that seem to have purely plot-related importance, as they connect the various characters to one another, but lack much deeper meaning. While there are also many historical allusions, the novel takes place in the past and they serve simply to increase our understanding of the setting. Another driving factor in the book is the character foil between Werner and Marie-Laure, however it too seems not to present much in the form of meaning. No matter how much I like the book, I can’t seem to overlook the fact that it’s missing something. It lacks the artful use of the journey myth in Song of Solomon, or the bold statement made through Offred’s relationship with Gilead in Handmaid’s Tale.

While adding this book the the AP English curriculum would act as an exciting break from the dense, difficult-to-read books over twenty years old we’ve read so far, I don’t think that it would contribute anything to the course itself. One could almost argue that it would be better suited in a history class’s curriculum than in ours. I can’t imagine it being useful in the context of an AP test, and I’m sure if I were to try to use this book to answer one of its questions, I would quickly revert to summarizing plot, and grasping at straws to address a relationship to the “meaning of the work as a whole”.

But, the book isn’t yet finished, and with the final quarter of the book left I remain optimistic that some sort of greater meaning or theme will present itself, making this blog post irrelevant.

Frogger style

Jumpy. That’s the best word to describe the style with which Doerr crafted his novel. The short chapters not only keep readers on their feet, but allow for the frequent point of view and time period changes that take place throughout the story. Through Doerr’s careful selection of characters on both sides of the main conflict in the book, we see the different ways the war influences the lives of the various characters. The jumps in time allow for Doerr to give us a detailed description of our characters pasts’, while maintaining the plot line taking place in the present (1944). This gives us the context to understand what is happening in 1944, like Werner’s reference to the radios or von Rumpel’s presence in Saint-Malo. The frequent changes in focus are also key in the development of the character foil between Marie-Laure and Werner, as we get real-time descriptions of their circumstances and feelings.

Another key aspect of Doerr’s writing style is how he keeps things realistic. The majority of this book is based off of very real things, from the German mine-town of Zollverein to the Schulpforte Werner attends. Having a little bit of historical knowledge of the time period this book takes place in, as well as having visited some of the places mentioned in the book only add to this. Sergeant Major van Rumpel mentions Hitler’s plan to turn Linz, Austria into an “empyrean city, the cultural capital of the world”. Having lived a mere 20 minute train ride away from the city, I can assure you that this would not have been an easy task. Linz is the industrial capital of the industrial Bundesstaat of Upper Austria, and is--relative to the stunning beauty of other Austrian cities such as Wien, Innsbruck or Graz--an eyesore. But despite this, Hitler did want to build his Führermuseum in Linz, likely because of its proximity to Braunau am Inn, his birthplace. Hitler’s great city was, however, to be Berlin, as he planned drastically renovate the city and title it the Welthauptstadt, or world capital city.

In one area, however, Doerr does stray from the facts. The Sea of Flames, one of the most evident and commonly recurring motifs in the book, is a precious stone with a fantastic element to it. The stone is rumored to protect its owner, while causing nothing but misfortune to those around him. While the Museum from which the stone originates in the book is very real, and does boast an admirable collection of precious stones, the Sea of Flames itself is entirely fictional. Although the properties of the stone and its pursuit by van Rumpel do add another plot line to follow, I find it an unnecessary addition, and one the takes away some of the story’s believably. Another important Motif in the story is the radio. While radios were a very widely-used form of communication in World War Two, its meaning goes beyond that of simply historical accuracy. Radios play big roles in the lives of both of our characters. Werner’s love and understanding of them is what ultimately saves him from his fate in the mines, and Marie’s great-uncle is obsessed with them. The radio actually acts as the sole link between our two protagonists, as Werner often listened to broadcasts about science sent out from the radio transmitter in Etienne’s attic. A third important motif is numbers. Werner is constantly using number in his work with his science teacher ironically named Hauptmann, or "main man". His instructor even tells him “It’s only numbers . . .  pure math. You have to accustom yourself to thinking that way”. Similarly, Marie-Laure constantly uses number as she navigates without sight, counting her paces taken or number of landmarks passed. Aside from these few motifs, Doerr creates his meaning mainly through plot development, which makes it even more important to understand the historical context of the book, as well as the allusions to history that appear so frequently.

Meet the cast

In the first quarter of his book, Anthony Doerr depicts a bleak, hard world, hopping between the points of view of Werner Pfennig and Marie-Laure LeBlanc. After being introduced to the two protagonists on the 7th of August, 1944 in Saint-Malo, we follow them back in time, learning about their separate childhoods. Through the in-depth descriptions of the two characters pasts, Doerr carefully characterizes them and sets the scene for what is to come.

Marie-Laure LeBlanc:

Marie-Laure is the first character we are introduced to, and we sympathize with her almost immediately. She is a blind, 12-13 year-old Parisian girl. Throughout the first section of the book we get snippets of her life, sometime going into detail, sometimes skipping over large spans of time. Marie-Laure goes blind of her own accord, and, at first, has great difficulty with it. Her father, Daniel LeBlanc, is always close at hand, and does his best to accommodate for her disability. Daniel creates a wooden model of the neighborhood, and uses it to teach her how to navigate the streets of Paris. This game played between Father and Daughter, and the success the Marie-Laure has, is the first real indication of how she is as a character: clever and fearless. Although she is at first intimidated by how big the world seems without her vision, she overcomes her discomfort and is finally able to navigate home without the help of her father.

Marie-Laure faces two main conflicts in this section of the book. The first, which presents itself almost immediately, is her blindness. Ironically, very soon after she overcomes this conflict through her navigation ability and Braille reading, she is presented with a second one: the war. Nazi advances on Paris cause Marie-Laure to leave her home, and travel to her great-uncle Etienne’s house in Saint-Malo. There appears to be, however, a trail of bad luck following Marie-Laure. Daniel was entrusted with one of four versions of a priceless stone before his departure, with only one of them the real gem. The stone is called Sea of Flames, and is rumored to protect the owner from death, but at the cost of all those around him.

Werner Pfennig:

Werner is on the other side of the conflict. He is raised in a orphanage in a dismal German mine town called Zollverein. He and his sister Jutta spend their childhoods under that watchful eye of their caretaker, Frau Elena, from a French-speaking town in an area given from Germany to France in the treaty of Versaille. We join Werner a year after the fall of the Weimar Republic: hyperinflation caused the Deutsche Mark's value to drop to almost nothing, and food is scarce. This is the first year of what historians call the “Nazi era”. Werners last name, Pfennig, is, ironically, the word for a Deutsche Mark cent (100 Pfennig = 1 Mark). Similar to Marie-Laure, we are quite sympathetic for Werner, despite his residency in NSDAP-led Germany. Werner’s story is that of a true underdog: he had access to practically no resources, and is chalked up as nothing more the a mine-worker in waiting. This all changes for Werner when he finds a broken radio, and discovers he has a knack for working with them. Using spare parts he repairs his radio, and develops a thirst for knowledge. Werner uses his wit to devise numerous other inventions such as a “pulley system… alarm… [and] a machine to slice carrots.” He also teaches himself physics and mathematics in his “water-stained and forgotten” copy of Principles of Mechanics. Werner’s dedication to learning, and ability with devices show not only how clever he is, but also his resilience. Despite his poor upbringing, and assumptions from his peers that he was talentless, he manages to learn and thrive.

As things start to deteriorate for Marie Laure, Werner’s fortunes begin to improve. Suddenly there is food in the Reich, and the people seem a little les poor. Werner’s reputation as being good with radios leads more and more of his neighbors requesting his assistance, until finally A Nazi official named Rudolf Siedler recognizes his talent and recommends him for a school of the Reich’s best boys. Upon his acceptance to the school, werner makes the difficult decision to leave his sister Jutta behind, and in so doing loses a little bit of his innocence as he supports his decision to go with Nazi rhetoric.

In this section we see an interesting foil between Werner and Marie-Laure. While the tangible juxtaposition between Werner’s fortunes improving Marie-Laure’s worsening as the power of the Reich waxes is evident, the characters themselves contrast each other in many ways as well. Marie is blind, and inhibited in motion. This differs from Werner, who is very good with his hands, and relies on his physical abilities and speed frequently. Furthermore, Marie comes from a relatively wealthy, happy home, as her father is still alive and makes enough money for them to live comfortably. Werner, on the other hand, lost both of his parents and has almost nothing. These differences in their backgrounds result another difference of the two: their versions of reality. Marie-Laure’s blindness, cause her imagination to run wild, and she is often in her own world. For example, in 1944 while being bombed in Saint-Malo, Marie-Laure curls under her bed and says to herself “Ce n’est pas la réalité” - this isn’t reality. This contrasts with Werners very practical, realistic view of the world. This logic is shown when Werner works with radios, “envision[ing] the bouncing pathways of elections, . . .  RF signal coming in here, passing through a grid of amplifiers…” and eventually finding the solution. The two characters do, however, share a keen intelligence and desire to learn.