All The Light We Cannot See- A Jewel Among Books

"All The Light We Cannot See'by American author Anthony Doerr is a historical fiction set in France during the World War II. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2015 and the Andrew Carneige Medal for Excellence in Fiction.

Marie-Laure is a 6-yr old girl with deteriorationg eyesight living in Paris near the Museum of Natural History with her father, who is the principal locksmith at the museum. When she loses her eyesight, her father builds her a miniature of their neighbourhood so that she can navigate her way through and though Marie-Laure is blind, her world is one full of colours. In her twlfth year, France comes under Nazi occupation and she flees with her father to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo where her Great-Uncle Etienne lives by the sea. With them, unknown to Marie, they carry what might be the most valuable and dangerous jewel of the Museum.

In Zollverein, a mining town of Germany, lives orphan Werner Pfennig with his sister Juttain a Children's Home. The find a crude radio which they fix up and their life is changed by this simple event. Werner becomes an xpert at fixing radios and his talent soon comes under the notice of higher officials, winning him a place at Schulpforta, a brutal academy for the Hitler Youth. The lives of thse two ndividuals almost at the opposite ends of the war, impossibly converge and the books highlights how despite all odds, people try to be good to each other.

'Tragedy of War' is one of the predominant themes of the novel. Both Marie and Werner lose loved ones to the war. The author, with masterful strokes, paints the devastating effects war has on the lives of the multitude while these two individuals learn o live with it's horrors. Another theme is the constant conflict of Free Will Vs. Fate. Both Marie and Werner don't have much control over their Fate as the book begins, but at the point where their lives converge, they both take their fates into their own hands.

The novel constantly oscillates between the moral uncertainities of life and the chiselled precision of the natural world that surrounds us.

It will a wonderful read for everyone interested in historical fictions, as well as anyone who loves a good story.