All The Light We Cannot See by Doerr ( Five Stars)

 In this intricate and complex novel about a blind French girl and a brilliant though small German teen both trying to survive WWII, the author weaves a gripping tale using various metaphors for “light.” Marie-Laure goes blind at age 6 and  lives contentedly with her widowed father in Paris near the museum of natural history where he is the chief locksmith who holds keys to every exhibit and safe.  They live a relatively peaceful life.  She accompanies him to his work daily where she is schooled on many subjects by the experts on the museum staff. Her devoted father whittles and carves a miniature version of their neighborhood in wood so she can learn her way in spite of being blind.  They spend all their time together, traversing the public gardens on the weekends.  He purchases a braille edition of the first volume of Jules Vernes 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.  She is ecstatic and enamored of the book.  On special occasions like her birthday he carves unusual puzzle blocks that become buildings in the model.  She learns to open them by solving each puzzle.  Secreted within is a treasure of some sort like a bon bon. 

Suddenly the Germans invade France and Marie and her father flee to a coastal town in Brittaney called Saint-Malo where her now deceased grandfather once lived and where his brother, Maire’s great uncle resides.  They move into the house of her troubled uncle. He suffers from shell shock from world war 1 and secrets himself up in an attic room where he fixes, builds and broadcasts from radios. He regularly broadcasts science lessons about magnetic fields, the brain, radio waves, magnetism and other subjects.  Some days he locks himself in his room and does not come out for 3 days.  A woman named-  cares for the house and the man.  It is into this situation Marie and her father find a sanctuary where they may live in more peace than would be possible in Paris.  Before leaving her father is asked to carry with him a very valuable diamond held among the museum’s mineral collections.  He secrets the stone into one of the buildings which contained a puzzle box.

Werner and his sister Jutta grow up in an unhealthy mining town.  Their widowed father dies and both he and Jutta are placed in the local orphanage run by a French speaking nun named Elena.  The country is very poor after the loss of WWI, and the children scarcely have enough to eat, enough soap with which to wash, or proper bedding and clothing.  Still Werner becomes engrossed in how radios work.  With cast off parts and jimmy rigged supplies he builds a crude radio.  It is on that radio that besides beautiful music, they hear the lessons broadcast by Marie- Laure’s uncle from Saint Malo.  These lessons and the music keep their souls alive.

Werner is selected to attend a brutal academy for Hitler youth because of his precocious ability with radios.  There he develops a method for triangulating radio signals which is then used to identify resistance radio operators’  locations.  Germany is losing the war, and it becomes desperate for soldiers. Werner is inducted at age 16 and is placed under the protection of a huge 18 year old he met at the academy.  V is to protect this radio operator as he scours the countryside searching for illegal radio operations in occupied countries in Europe and the Ukraine.

Meanwhile a vicious Nazi is hunting for the diamond secreted out by Marie’s father.  The museum in an abundance of caution in hiding this priceless gem, sends 4 or 5 of them into hiding, but only one is genuine.  This Nazi hunts down each one.  He is further motivated by his own illness.  He is dying of a cancer that is in his throat or neck glands.  The history of the diamond is that whoever has possession of the stone will never die.  The Nazi officer hopes to find it to satisfy the German high command but also as a way to save his own life.

Marie-Laure’s father is taken prisoner and she is left with non-communicative great uncle Ettienne and his housekeeper.  She is devastated by the loss and refuses to leave her bed and then the house for weeks.  The housekeeper finally entices her with a trip to the beach.  They begin walking the streets and become part of the resistance movement.  Marie-Laure picks up messages hidden in loaves of bread and which are then broadcast by Ettienne.

Of course, Werner comes across Marie-Laure when he arrives in Saint-Malo.  She is a red head, and he is immediately reminded of a 6 year old red headed girl who he first saw in a town walking down the street with her mother.  Next he sees her with a bullet in her head laying in water with her dead mother nearby.  The image of this senseless killing of a pretty feminine little girl haunts him.