All+the+Light+We+Cannot+See+by+Anthony+Doerr

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 * Book Summary **

 From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, the beautiful, stunningly ambitious instant New York Times bestseller about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II.  Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great-uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.  In a mining town in Germany, the orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the resistance. More and more aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure’s converge.

= About the Author = Anthony Doerr was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. He is the author of the short story collections [|The Shell Collector] and [|Memory Wall], the memoir [|Four Seasons in Rome], and the novels[|About Grace] and [|All the Light We Cannot See], which is currently [|a finalist for the 2014 National Book Award]. Doerr’s fiction has won four [|O. Henry Prizes] and has been anthologized in [|The Best American Short Stories], [|The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories], and [|The Scribner Anthology of Contemporary Fiction]. He has won the [|Barnes & Noble Discover Prize], the [|Rome Prize], the [|New York Public Library’s Young Lions Award], a [|Guggenheim Fellowship], an [|NEA Fellowship], the[|National Magazine Award for Fiction], three [|Pushcart Prizes], the [|Pacific Northwest Book Award], three [|Ohioana Book Awards], the [|2010 Story Prize], which is considered the most prestigious prize in the U.S. for a collection of short stories, and the [|Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award], which is the largest prize in the world for a single short story. In 2007, the British literary magazine Granta placed Doerr on its list of [|21 Best Young American novelists]. Doerr lives in [|Boise, Idaho] with his wife and two sons. Though he is often asked, as far as he knows he is not related to the late writer [|Harriet Doerr].

= Discussion Questions = 1. The book opens with two epigraphs. How do these quotes set the scene for the rest of the book? Discuss how the radio plays a major part in the story and the time period. How do you think the impact of the radio back then compares with the impact of the Internet on today’s society?

2. The narration moves back and forth both in time and between different characters. How did this affect your reading experience? How do you think the experience would have been different if the story had been told entirely in chronological order?

3. Whose story did you enjoy the most? Was there any character you wanted more insight into?

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">4. When Werner and Jutta first hear the Frenchman on the radio, he concludes his broadcast by saying “Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever” (pages 48–49), and Werner recalls these words throughout the book (pages 86, 264, and 409). How do you think this phrase relates to the overall message of the story? How does it relate to Madame Manec’s question: “Don’t you want to be alive before you die?” (page 270)?

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">5. On page 160, Marie-Laure realizes “This...is the basis of his fear, all fear. That a light you are powerless to stop will turn on you and usher a bullet to its mark.” How does this image constitute the most general basis of all fear? Do you agree?

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">6. Reread Madame Manec’s boiling frog analogy on page 284. Etienne later asks Marie-Laure, “Who was supposed to be the frog? Her? Or the Germans?” (page 328) Who did you think Madame Manec meant? Could it have been someone other than herself or the Germans? What does it say about Etienne that he doesn’t consider himself to be the frog?

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">7. On page 368, Werner thinks, “That is how things are...with everybody in this unit, in this army, in this world, they do as they’re told, they get scared, they move about with only themselves in mind.Name me someone who does not.” But in fact many of the characters show great courage and selflessness throughout the story in some way, big or small. Talk about the different ways they put themselves at risk in order to do what they think is right. What do you think were some shining moments? Who did you admire most?

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">8. On page 390, the author writes, “To shut your eyes is to guess nothing of blindness.” What did you learn or realize about blindness through Marie-Laure’s perspective? Do you think her being blind gave her any advantages?

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">9. One of Werner’s bravest moments is when he confronts von Rumpel: “All your life you wait, and then it finally comes, and are you ready?” (page 465) Have you ever had a moment like that? Were you ready? What would you say that moment is for some of the other characters?

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">10. Why do you think Marie-Laure gave Werner the little iron key? Why might Werner have gone back for the wooden house but left the Sea of Flames?

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">11. Von Rumpel seemed to believe in the power of the Sea of Flames, but was it truly a supernatural object or was it merely a gemstone at the center of coincidence? Do you think it brought any protection to Marie-Laure and/or bad luck to those she loved?

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">12. When Werner and Marie-Laure discuss the unknown fate of Captain Nemo at the end of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Marie-Laure suggests the open-endedness is intentional and meant to make us wonder (page 472). Are there any unanswered questions from this story that you think are meant to make us wonder?

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">13. The 1970s image of Jutta is one of a woman deeply guilt-ridden and self-conscious about her identity as a German. Why do you think she feels so much guilt over the crimes of others? Can you relate to this? Do you think she should feel any shame about her identity?

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">14. What do you think of the author’s decision to flash forward at the end of the book? Did you like getting a peek into the future of some of these characters? Did anything surprise you?

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">15. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn once wrote that “the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.” All the Light We Cannot See is filled with examples of human nature at its best and worst. Discuss the themes of good versus evil throughout the story. How do they drive each other? What do you think are the ultimate lessons that these characters and the resolution of their stories teach us? <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(Questions issued by the publisher.)

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