Page 8 - PGA Community News - January '24

January 2024
Page 8, PGA C.A.N.! BW January 2024
Book Review

All The Light We Cannot See means that they must assignments is to determine the location of radio
leave Paris and try broadcasts, especially those being sent by the Resistance
By Nils A. Shapiro to hide at her uncle, to Allied forces with messages about German military
A funny thing happened Etienne’s, house in the placements, so that the transmitters and their senders can
to me on my way to my quieter coastal town be wiped out.
computer this morning. I of Saint-Malo. Before In Saint-Malo, those broadcasts are coming from the
had planned to write a film he leaves, Monsieur house where now 16-year-old Marie-Laure lives with her
review about one of the Leblanc makes a secret uncle, Etienne.
season’s most important arrangement with the While Marie-Laure and Werner are the two main
and long-awaited motion museum. They have characters, there are others as well. One of them is
pictures: the film adaptation agreed that one of Sergeant-Major Reinhold von Rumpel, who has been
of Anthony Doerr’s 2014 the museum’s most assigned by the Nazis to scour Europe in search of the
award-winning World War valuable objects, a greatest treasures in all forms of art. Hitler plans to create
II novel, All the Light We priceless diamond the at the end of the war the largest museum ever built, to
Cannot See, which is currently streaming as a four-part size of a robin’s egg house all of the art stolen from the various conquered
series on Netflix. known as the “Sea of nations. Von Rumpel has heard of the legendary diamond
But I have decided instead to repeat here the very same Flames” because of the at the Paris Museum of Natural History. He has another,
book review that I wrote in August 2015 – more than eight red sparkle at its heart, must not fall into the hands of desperate reason for his search: von Rumpel is gravely ill,
years ago – for a reason you will understand by the time the Nazis. In addition to the real diamond there are three and if the curse surrounding the Sea of Flames diamond is
you have finished reading the following column. almost identical fakes. The real diamond is said to be true he will not succumb to his illness but will live forever.
***** cursed: The one who owns it will have eternal life, but What makes this novel so remarkable is not only the
The review this month is by way of a thank-you to all around him will suffer tragedy. Four of the museum’s story, which is beautiful and memorable in itself, but
my daughters, Brett and Hillary, who sent this novel to managers will each take one of the stones, but none of the unique style in which the author decided to tell it. It
me and insisted I read it, even though they know that my them will know who has the real diamond. is a story that spans a period of 80 years, from 1934 to
tastes usually run more to nonfiction, and that its 530 As the Nazis invade France and approach Paris her 2014, but is not told as a straight chronological narrative.
pages are more than the 350 or so that I usually set as my father escapes with Marie-Laure to Saint-Malo, a walled Instead, in chapters of mostly two and three pages,
maximum because of the limited amount of evenings and citadel on the French coast. While there he carves another sometimes of only a page, we are transported quickly
weekends time I have to devote to my monthly “deadline” wooden scale model of this small town, complete with from 1944 to 1945 and back again to 1944 or to the late
book reviews. every street and building ... and in the replica of the house 1930s ... and from one character’s life to another’s. It all
Having just turned the last page a moment ago, I can in which they live he has hidden something very valuable. moves so smoothly that, each time I began to read, before
readily understand why author Anthony Doerr’s latest Their experiences in Saint-Malo during the occupation I had a moment to look up I had already turned at least
novel was honored with the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for and through the Allied invasion of 1944 and into 1945 60 or 70 pages.
Fiction, the 2015 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence take up approximately half of the book. In the end, after all the horrors and tragedy of war, what
in Fiction, was shortlisted for the National Book Award, Meanwhile, young Werner’s increasing expertise in survives is the uplifting, indomitable good that cannot be
and was named as one of the year’s 10 best books by The radio technology comes to the attention of the Nazis extinguished in some of humanity.
New York Times. and he is taken from the children’s home, away from his All the Light We Cannot See will most assuredly be
Of course, I needed no reminder that my daughters are sister, and sent to a military school. At first relieved to made into a motion picture. You owe it to yourself to read
as wise, thoughtful and generous as they are beautiful. be freed from a future in the coal mines, he soon finds the book first. Nothing will compare to this original story.
All the Light We Cannot See is the story of two very himself being drilled in a system that demands brutality I have thought about it and cannot imagine who could play
different people, the separate circumstances in which and violence against everything and everyone, including the four roles of Marie-Laure and Werner as their young
they experience one of history’s most devastating events, friends and family if need be, in the name of loyalty to and teenage characters. The one thing I do know is that
and how their lives eventually intersect in a dramatic and the fuehrer and Germany! It is a system that he tries I hope my daughters will permit me to take them to the
profound way. to keep up with – in part out of fear, and because he film as soon as it comes to the theatre.
Marie-Laure Leblanc is a young French girl who, in doesn’t want to be sent back to the mines – but he is *****
1934, loses her sight from congenital cataracts at the age torn apart in the process because, unlike the others, he All I can say now is, “I told you so.” Way back then, the
of 6. With her mother having died earlier, her very loving is essentially decent. And what he faces now is a future book eventually stayed on the national bestseller lists for
father – a master locksmith at the Paris Museum of Natural as dark and bottomless in its own way as any coal mine. more than 200 weeks! And the much-heralded new film
History – uses all his knowledge and skills to help Marie- What ultimately saves him is his skill with radios, which version – on TV screens rather than theatres – has received
Laure become as educated and self-sufficient as possible. is highly valuable to the Nazis. mixed reactions from critics and preview audiences, most
He introduces her to the museum’s many collections, buys Werner’s story – witnessing the contradiction between notably because the screenwriters made so many changes
her books in Braille and carves a remarkable miniature, Nazi propaganda of their army’s great victories even as that The Hollywood Reporter wrote, “By the third episode
wooden scale model of every street and building in their the devastation and corpses pile up around him while the plot barely resembled the novel.” If you didn’t take
Paris neighborhood so that she can memorize it in order he serves in Russia and then retreats across Europe into my recommendation the first time, do it now. Read the
to make her way around alone, if necessary. On walks France and, finally, Saint-Malo – takes up most of the book.
together she counts the steps: so many steps left to the other half of the book. One of Werner’s most important
corner ... turn right so many steps to the bakery ... turn
right so many steps to the grocer ... and so on.
Werner Pfennig is a year older than Marie-Laure. An
orphan, at the age of 7 he lives with his younger sister,
Jutta, at a home for children 300 miles from Paris in a
coal mining town near Essen, Germany. His father, like
so many others, was a victim of a coal mining disaster,
and when he grows older the future that he and those
like him must look forward to will be descending into
that same pit. Except for one fortunate difference that
is discovered quite by accident: It seems that Werner,
for reasons that he himself cannot explain, has a natural
gift. One day when he is 8 he finds an old radio, and the
music and magic that fill his ears opens up a whole new
world to the boy. Then when the radio breaks and the
sounds suddenly stop, Werner carefully examines all of
the wires and other parts, wanting desperately to have it
work again. Finally he figures it out, his natural aptitude
enabling a first basic understanding of radio engineering
that will prove to be his passport out of that coal mining
town and into an entirely different future.
But it is now the late 1930s, and the Nazi war machine
has begun to roll across Europe. For 10-year-old Marie-
Laure and her father the imminent invasion of France

John Deloach
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