Page 30 - Boca ViewPointe - January '24

Page 30, Viewpointe January 2024
Book Review

All The Light We Cannot See 1934, loses her sight from congenital Saint-Malo. Before he leaves, Monsieur
cataracts at the age of 6. With her mother Leblanc makes a secret arrangement
By Nils A. Shapiro having died earlier, her very loving with the museum. They have agreed
father – a master locksmith at the Paris that one of the museum’s most valuable
A funny thing happened to me on my way to my Museum of Natural History – uses all objects, a priceless diamond the size
computer this morning. I had planned to write a film his knowledge and skills to help Marie- of a robin’s egg known as the “Sea of
review about one of the season’s most important and long- Laure become as educated and self- Flames” because of the red sparkle at its
awaited motion pictures: the film adaptation of Anthony sufficient as possible. He introduces heart, must not fall into the hands of the
Doerr’s 2014 award-winning World War II novel, All the her to the museum’s many collections, Nazis. In addition to the real diamond
Light We Cannot See, which is currently streaming as a buys her books in Braille and carves a there are three almost identical fakes.
four-part series on Netflix. remarkable miniature, wooden scale The real diamond is said to be cursed:
But I have decided instead to repeat here the very same model of every street and building in The one who owns it will have eternal
book review that I wrote in August 2015 – more than eight their Paris neighborhood so that she can life, but all around him will suffer
years ago – for a reason you will understand by the time memorize it in order to make her way tragedy. Four of the museum’s managers
you have finished reading the following column. around alone, if necessary. On walks will each take one of the stones, but
together she counts the steps: so many none of them will know who has the
***** steps left to the corner ... turn right so real diamond.
many steps to the bakery ... turn right As the Nazis invade France and
The review this month is by way of a thank-you to so many steps to the grocer ... and so on. approach Paris her father escapes with Marie-Laure to
my daughters, Brett and Hillary, who sent this novel to Werner Pfennig is a year older than Marie-Laure. An Saint-Malo, a walled citadel on the French coast. While
me and insisted I read it, even though they know that my orphan, at the age of 7 he lives with his younger sister, there he carves another wooden scale model of this
tastes usually run more to nonfiction, and that its 530 Jutta, at a home for children 300 miles from Paris in a small town, complete with every street and building ...
pages are more than the 350 or so that I usually set as my coal mining town near Essen, Germany. His father, like and in the replica of the house in which they live he has
maximum because of the limited amount of evenings and so many others, was a victim of a coal mining disaster, hidden something very valuable. Their experiences in
weekends time I have to devote to my monthly “deadline” and when he grows older the future that he and those Saint-Malo during the occupation and through the Allied
book reviews. like him must look forward to will be descending into invasion of 1944 and into 1945 take up approximately
Having just turned the last page a moment ago, I can that same pit. Except for one fortunate difference that half of the book.
readily understand why author Anthony Doerr’s latest is discovered quite by accident: It seems that Werner, Meanwhile, young Werner’s increasing expertise in
novel was honored with the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for for reasons that he himself cannot explain, has a natural radio technology comes to the attention of the Nazis
Fiction, the 2015 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence gift. One day when he is 8 he finds an old radio, and the and he is taken from the children’s home, away from his
in Fiction, was shortlisted for the National Book Award, music and magic that fill his ears opens up a whole new sister, and sent to a military school. At first relieved to
Turning 65 or new to Medicare?
and was named as one of the year’s 10 best books by The world to the boy. Then when the radio breaks and the be freed from a future in the coal mines, he soon finds
New York Times. sounds suddenly stop, Werner carefully examines all of himself being drilled in a system that demands brutality
Save up to $164.90
Of course, I needed no reminder that my daughters are the wires and other parts, wanting desperately to have it and violence against everything and everyone, including
as wise, thoughtful and generous as they are beautiful. work again. Finally he figures it out, his natural aptitude friends and family if need be, in the name of loyalty to
All the Light We Cannot See is the story of two very enabling a first basic understanding of radio engineering the fuehrer and Germany! It is a system that he tries
on your Part B
different people, the separate circumstances in which that will prove to be his passport out of that coal mining to keep up with – in part out of fear, and because he
they experience one of history’s most devastating events, town and into an entirely different future. doesn’t want to be sent back to the mines – but he is
and how their lives eventually intersect in a dramatic and But it is now the late 1930s, and the Nazi war machine torn apart in the process because, unlike the others, he
premium
profound way. has begun to roll across Europe. For 10-year-old Marie- is essentially decent. And what he faces now is a future
Marie-Laure Leblanc is a young French girl who, in Laure and her father the imminent invasion of France as dark and bottomless in its own way as any coal mine.
means that they must leave Paris and try to hide at her Book Review on page 31
uncle, Etienne’s, house in the quieter coastal town of
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