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All the light we cannot see by Anthony Doerr: A book review

All the Light We Cannot SeeAll the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is one of those books that takes its time in setting up the premise. And, for that reason, it is slow in the beginning. As we read through, we follow each character's personality and journey during the good times until things slowly take a turn for the worse. This takes up a lot of time during which nothing happens, but we slowly learn what each one is doing and how they go about their daily lives. I think this captures the reality of war so beautifully, where things go bad in phases. For instance, in this story, one family is forced to move from Paris to a small coastal town, Saint Malo, and after this initial upheaval which is difficult, things calm down into a lower but still a fairly uneventful existence, and then, things go bad again. Each event is successively worse, but also allows enough time to settle into the new situation before becoming worse again. And, that is where lies the beauty of this novel. How things happen in stages, how one accustoms oneself to a said grief before some new pain is piled on.

It was a slow read, but picks up pace two-thirds into the novel towards the later stages of the war. I loved how the author has portrayed the ugly side of war from the viewpoints of all parties involved, be it the Germans, the French or the Russians. You feel conflicted, because everyone is guilty and a victim at the same time. This book clearly shows that there are no heroes in war, only casualties. I strongly recommend this book to everyone. Definitely one of my favorite reads. :)

-RS


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  1. Rashmi Chaudhary - English Voice Over Artist (Female) in Noida, IndiaOctober 29, 2018 at 11:47 AM

    Have a long queue of books waiting to be read, but will add this there, for sure :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. RSOctober 31, 2018 at 8:16 AM

      Cool! Will look forward to your thoughts when you get to it. :)

      Delete

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