All The Light We Cannot See Novel Synopsis

The novel alternates between time periods starting in medias res during the bombing of saint malo france in august 1944 and then going back to tell the history of the two protagonists starting in 1934.

All the light we cannot see novel synopsis.

Marie laure lives in paris with her father a locksmith for the museum of natural history. Werner pfennig a young german boy with an aptitude for radio engineering and marie laure leblanc a young blind french girl who excels at reading and studying science. Marie laure leblanc grows up in paris where her father daniel leblanc works as a locksmith at the museum of natural history. Told in chapters that alternate between the lives of marie laure leblanc and werner pfennig each section or group of chapters also alternates between these characters past lives and the unfolding siege of saint malo by allied forces in august 1944.

Anthony doerr s all the light we cannot see tells the story of two teenagers during world war ii wwii one a blind girl in nazi occupied france the other a german orphan boy pressed into service by the nazi army. Book summary all the light we cannot see. As a young girl marie laure goes blind but her father teaches her to navigate their neighborhood independently by building her a scale model of the neighborhood to learn from. A sprawling historical novel all the light we cannot see by anthony doerr explores the overarching theme of lost and redeemed humanity during the waning days of world war ii.

The story is told un chronologically but the timeline is simplified for the purposes of this summary. Childhood before the war. Anthony doerr s all the light we cannot see follows the parallel lives of two protagonists marie laure a french girl and daughter of a master locksmith at the natural history museum in paris. Set in occupied france during world war ii the novel centers on a blind french girl and a german boy whose paths eventually cross.

It won the 2015 pulitzer prize for fiction and the 2015 andrew carnegie medal for excellence in fiction. The other character is werner pfenning a german boy growing up in the mining town of zollverein. Marie laure is a young girl who lives with her father in paris. She goes blind because of cataracts and he helps her cope with blindness by buying her jules verne adventure novels written in braille and by building her a wooden replica of their neighborhood so she can learn to.

All the light we cannot see covers five primary periods in the lives of marie laure leblanc and werner pfennig. All the light we cannot see traces the stories of three characters whose lives intersect during the bombing of the german occupied french town of saint malo in august 1944. All the light we cannot see is told in almost 200 short chapters and constantly cuts back and forth between two main characters.