Finished: All The Light We Cannot See (Doerr) Mesmerizing, heartbreaking, deeply felt,  2015 Pulitzer Prize winner that took me completely away to the lives of the intelligent, intuitive, blind French girl, Marie-Laure, and the sensitive, compassionate, mechanically gifted German boy, Werner, as they forge their own paths through the horrors of World War II as Germany occupies, and the war decimates, the coastal town of Saint-Malo, France. The story goes back and forth both in time and between Marie-Laure and Werner, and all the characters who have huge impacts on their lives. In just a few short days I have grown very attached to a few of the characters, so richly depicted, given so many levels of humanity, so compassionate, yet so steeped in that basic instinct to just survive the atrocities, no matter which side they're on. I came to love Volkheimer and Frederick and Frau Elena and Etienne and Werner and Marie-Laure, each for their hearts and for the courage they displayed in the face of this world of war and suffering they were dropped into. Volkheimer "go find her"....Frederick "I will not throw the water"....Frau Elena "I'll go first". Sigh. Love them all! 

A favorite quote at the end: "And is it so hard to believe that souls might also travel those paths? That her father, and Etienne and Madame Manec and the German boy named Werner Pfennig might hary the sky in flocks like egrets, like terns, like starlings? That great shuttles of souls might fly about faded but audible if you listen closely enough? They flow above the chimneys, ride the sidewalks, slip through your jacket and shirt and breastbone and lungs and pass out through the other side; the air, a library and a record of every life lived, every sentence spoken, every word transmitted still reverberating within it. Every hour, she  thinks, someone for whom the war was a memory falls out of the world. We rise again in the grass, in the flowers, in songs."

I can't possibly do this book justice in a tiny recap, but will tell the gist of the story. 

Werner is an orphan who grows up with his younger sister, Jutta, in a small German orphanage run by Frau Elena...one of the rare, selfless, loving runners of orphanages depicted in fiction. Werner and Jutta's mother died long ago in childbirth, and their father, a couple of years back in the deep mines, which they still live near. Werner is super intelligent, and kind. He always finds a way to bring food back to the other children of the orphanage. He rigs up a working radio from an old broken radio that he finds and the children and Frau Elena are treated to nightly broadcasts of different music, etc. Werner and Jutta listen to the radio at all hours of the night, and are mesmerized by the broadcasts of a French man who talks about all manner of things...about the earth, the stars, the moon, history, music, math, etc. Werner is fascinated and dreams of becoming an engineer. By the time he is thirteen, he has caught the attention of a German officer whose radio he fixes, and Werner is sent to a school for young German boys which actually turns out to be a military training camp for the youth of Hitler. It was either this, or Werner would be sent, like all the poor fifteen year old boys, to work in the same mine his father died in within two years. Jutta is devastated to lose Werner, and furious with him when he destroys their radio before he leaves. He does not want Frau Elena or the children to be punished if the taboo radio is discovered. Werner is the smallest in his class of recruits, but always with the idea of going to work in Berlin at an electrical university in mind, he follows the lead of the other boys and does as he's told. He does not embrace the youth of Hitler rhetoric...he has a conscience and cannot understand the philosophies of the hearts of most of his compatriots, but he does not go against the flow either. We come to love his uber sensitive, bird-loving, roommate, Frederick, who DOES go against the flow, refusing one night to follow his commander's orders and throw a bucket of water on a near dead, already freezing prisoner of war that the boys are being made to taunt. Frederick ends up being taunted, brutally beaten and brain-damaged by some of the older boys, and sent home in disgrace. Werner feels guilty about Frederick for the rest of his short life, but there was nothing he could have done to stop them. As the war escalates, more and more German soldiers are needed, as Germany is now being defeated in Russia. Werner is now sixteen, and has brilliantly created a transceiver that can detect the exact whereabouts of another radio transmission. His commanding officer tells HIS commanding officer that Werner has lied about his age and that he's really eighteen and ready to go to war....so the tiny Werner is sent off to the front lines at sixteen and put under the command of the twenty year old, giant of a young man, Volkheimer. At school, everyone had been scared to death of Volkheimer, but he turns out to be very caring of the five men in his team...particularly Werner. He sees the potential of Werner, knows how extremely brilliant he is, and knows he could really make something of himself if he weren't being thrust into the war like they all were. 

Meanwhile, we learn that Marie-Laure is the daughter of single father, Daniel LeBlanc, the locksmith and keeper of all keys at the Natural History Museum in Paris. At the age of six, Marie-Laure goes blind from inoperable cataracts. Her father, a talented craftsman, builds her a miniature, detailed replica of their neighborhood in Paris for her to study with her hands. Once he feels she is an expert, he takes her out every day and turns her about to mix her up and has her guide them home from wherever they are. She is very intelligent and curious and loves her father dearly. On every birthday her father creates for her an intricate puzzle box with a small prize inside. He is always amazed at how quickly she can figure out the mechanisms and find the secret compartment. Marie-Laure also loves going with her father to the museum every day. One day when she is eight years old, Marie-Laure hears the story of the Sea of Flames diamond...the very rare 133 carat, pear-shaped diamond that has been held in a vault in the museum for 196 years. The legend says that an earth goddess created the diamond for her lover, a sea god, and threw it into a river so it would float out to him. Instead, a prince found the diamond before it could go out to sea. The goddess was furious and put a curse on the diamond. Whoever possessed it would never die, but all his loved ones would suffer tragedy until the diamond was returned to the sea. Sure enough, the prince never died, but horrible tragedies did befall all his loved ones. Nearly two hundred years before the current date, someone had finally acquired the diamond and given it to the museum, who locked it away, not to be shown until 200 years had passed. Four years later, when Marie-Laure is twelve, it is getting to be time for the diamond to be on display, but at that moment in time, Germany has now begun attacking Paris and Hitler is determined to make all the art and jewel treasures his own. The curator of the museum has three pristine fakes made of the diamond. He keeps one fake at the museum, and then sends the other two fakes and the real diamond away with three museum workers he trusts....one of them, Marie-Laure's father. He doesn't tell any of them who holds the real diamond, so they will all guard their diamond as if it is the real thing. Because the city is being bombed, and it is has become so dangerous, Daniel takes the hidden diamond, his woodworking tools, and Marie-Laure and they flee to Saint-Malo, where Daniel's uncle Etienne, himself a World War I survivor, but one with PTSD demons, lives. They flee so fast that Marie-Laure cannot even bring her beloved braille book, Part 1 of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. When they reach Saint-Malo, they are greeted by Madame Manec, who has been with the family since Daniel's father and uncle were boys. Daniel's father and uncle had suffered through World War I together, with only Etienne surviving. He has not left the house, a beautiful, tall, thin, six story building, in years. He has, however, maintained a huge radio transmitter and receiver on the sixth floor which his own father had used to broadcast various educational talks. His father was the French man who Werner and Jutta had listened to as children!! Etienne also has his own huge collection of radios, transmitters and receivers in his fifth floor bedroom. He installs Daniel and Marie-Laure in the other fifth floor bedroom, where Marie-Laure's father proceeds to build her an exact replica of Saint-Malo. Etienne is thrilled to have his nephew and great-niece there, as is Madame Manec. They all suffer the pains of the German occupation together, going through rations, curfews, and the relinquishing of all firearms, and sadly, of all radios. They don't, however, relinquish the huge radio system on the sixth floor, and instead, Etienne and Marie-Laure move a huge wardrobe over in front of the little door leading up to the sixth floor, covering it. Etienne builds a secret, sliding door inside the wardrobe, the only access now to the sixth floor. 

One day, the nosy neighbor, who gets favors from the German soldiers for tattling on other people, turns Daniel LeBlanc in as a conspirator!! He tells the officers that he constantly sees him outside with a notebook, taking measurements. Of course, Daniel was just taking his measurements so he could build the replica for Marie-Laure. At the same time, Daniel receives a letter from the museum curator who tells him it is now safe and time to return back to Paris, keeping his package secure. Daniel debates to himself whether this is a sincere letter, and whether he should actually travel with the diamond. He does decide to travel, but leaves the diamond hidden back in the house. And it's a good thing, because he's arrested due to his neighbor! The police search him high and low, but he has nothing with him. He is thrown into a German prison anyway at the protest of the museum who lets Etienne and Marie-Laure know that Daniel has been imprisoned, and they will do their best to get him out. Marie-Laure is, of course, devastated. Her father manages to get a couple of letters to her before all communication is broken off. In one of them he tells her to think of what he used to make her for her birthday. He tells her he knows she will do the right thing, and tells her the answer is inside Etienne's house, inside Etienne's house. She doesn't understand the confusing letter for a few years to come. From the time she is twelve to the time she is sixteen, Marie-Laure grieves for her father, and hopes he will walk back through the door, but she goes on and makes a life with her great uncle, Etienne and Madame Manec. Madame Manec gets involved with a group of women who start transporting secret messages to the Allies about the German doings and weaponry in Saint-Malo. She convinces Etienne to climb out of his fearful shell and get involved again. He does so by broadcasting the numerical messages from his secret radio room on the sixth floor. It's a dangerous game they play, as Marie-Laure is the one who innocently taps her way to the bakery every day with her cane to retrieve their loaf of bread, inside which the tiny numerical message has been baked. However, when the tide starts to turn in the favor of the Allies, it is clear to them all that they are making a difference. It is also clear to the Germans who reassign Volkheimer's radio group, including Werner, from the retreating lines in Russia, to the French town of Saint-Malo, one of four towns they suspect of sending the illegal transmissions. If anyone can pinpoint the transmissions, it's the brilliant, and now truly eighteen year old, Werner. In his first act of humane defiance, though, Werner doesn't let on the first time he hears the transmission when it's nothing more than the French voice he used to listen to as a child! They are the same recordings, and he is stunned. After the recording finishes, he hears another French male voice rattle off some numbers, and then the transmission shuts down....but not before Werner is able to climb to the roof of the building where they are and figure out that the exact location of the transmission seems to be that very tall house in the distance. He does not tell Volkheimer that he has heard the transmissions, and the next day he goes on a lone mission to see exactly where the house is. He is shocked when a beautiful blind girl comes through the front door and he follows her as she makes her way to the bakery. 

Meanwhile, we have met a Lieutenant Von Rumpel who is pretty high up in the German military chain, whose sole duty is going about the various cities authenticating, then confiscating the art and jewel treasures for Hitler. Von Rumpel, though, is suffering from and treated for lymphoma. He gets sicker and sicker as his mission continues, and he becomes fixated, not with doing his duty, but with finding the Sea of the Flames diamond. He must have it in his hands. He believes the legend, and believes the diamond will heal him once and for all. He methodically makes his way, first to the museum, where he realizes that diamond is a fake, then to the person who crafted the three fakes, and then to each of the two diamonds that are fakes, before realizing that the real diamond is out there, and was given to the safekeeping of the museum locksmith. That's right! Marie-Laure's father had the real diamond! Von Rumpel makes his way to Saint-Malo, where he knows that only the locksmith's blind, sixteen year old daughter, along with her great uncle live. (Madame Manec has succumbed to pneumonia a few months before.) 

So, all the main players converge on Saint-Malo. Marie-Laure, who sometimes stops at a secret ocean grotto whose only entrance is a rusty gate under a roadway, the key of which has been entrusted to her by a friend of the baker's wife, likes to feel the tides lapping at her calves and feel the different shells and barnacles and snails on the walls and floor of the hideaway. She occasionally stops here after picking up her loaf of bread. One day, she is detained by Von Rumpel who quizzes her about what, if anything, her father may have left behind. She is so frightened, that even after Von Rumpel leaves, she locks herself in the grotto. Etienne, who has not left the house in years, gets so worried that he finally gets up the courage to go and look for her. Together, he and the baker's wife find her in the grotto and take her home. After that, Etienne decides it's too dangerous for Marie-Laure to be involved anymore. He will now make the daily trip to the bakery. One day, he arrested and thrown in the prison right here in Saint-Malo. Marie-Laure is all alone, and when she realizes her uncle is not coming back, she becomes frightened...especially when the bombing starts! She makes her way to the basement shelter, and when the bombing stops, goes upstairs to get her shoes and her coat. She shoves two cans of some food from the shelter in her pocket, along with the kitchen knife. She will make her way outside and try to get some help. While she is getting her things, she hears the little alarm bell on the third floor ring. She freezes. This is the bell that was set up by her uncle to let them know if someone entered their house. Knowing there is someone in the house, Marie-Laure grabs only the miniature of Etienne's house off of the town replica, shoves it in her pocket, and makes her way to the secret door of the wardrobe. Long ago she had figured out her father's letter. Her father had constructed the tiny replica of Etienne's house as a secret box, inside which he had hidden the diamond! Marie-Laure knows that she holds the Sea of the Flames, but she also knows the legend. She wonders if this is why their house is one of the only few left standing after all the bombings. She knows instinctively that this is what the German soldier who has tripped the bell wire has come for. 

Meanwhile, Volkheimer and Werner are trapped in the basement of the hotel that had been, until the most recent shelling, their headquarters for trying to find the illegal radio broadcasts. Hit hard by the American bombers, they are trapped beneath tons of rubble. Werner manages to fix their damaged radio and he tries desperately to find a transmission from someone somewhere. He knows that he and Werner will only survives a few days with no food, water and limited oxygen. 

Von Rumpel turns the house upside down looking for the diamond. He has figured out that it would be a part of the miniature town, and he sees the missing house in the replica. Had the girl taken it with her when she fled? His disease and the morphine he takes make him delirious. He remains in the house, forcing Marie-Laure to continue hiding out upstairs with only her two cans of food, but petrified to make any sound to get them open, lest the intruder hear her. She can hear him when he's in the room below her, rummaging around, but he never finds the trap door. Finally, one night when there is a mass of shelling, she manages to open one can with her knife and a brick, and deliriously eats the green beans within, and drinks the water they were canned in. She decides that she will begin broadcasting music and some of her great-grandfather's old recordings out on the radio system. What can it hurt? She's hoping that somewhere Etienne will hear it and know she is still alive and needs him. It's not Etienne that hears her, but Werner! He has finally fixed the radio and hears the broadcasts, and also puts the headphones on a severely dehydrated Volkheimer so he can hear too.  Volkheimer listens to the music and Werner listens as Marie-Laure reads a chapter at a time of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea...her beloved braille book, parts 1 and 2,  having been replaced by her Uncle Etienne on her sixteenth birthday. He falls in love with Marie-Laure over the air, and is horrified when, after reading the latest chapter, she utters, "help me, he's in the house, right beneath me, he's going to kill me." Volkheimer, in a last surge of strength, finally gets himself up and moves some pieces of broken wall, and shoves Werner behind them. He then takes one of their grenades, removes the clip and throws it at their stairwell that has them trapped with debris. Miraculously it clears a hole and neither of them are injured. Volkheimer gives Werner the one rifle they have between them and tells Werner, "go get her", and so he does. 

By this time, Marie-Laure has become so dehydrated and disoriented herself, that she decides she'll just play some of the musical broadcasts full blast and let the German solider come and find her. She'll wait at the top of the trap door with her knife. Just as she can hear that Von Rumpel has finally found the trap door inside the wardrobe, the little alarm bell tinkles again! Neither of them know who, but we know that Werner has entered the house. Of course, Werner prevails and kills Von Rumpel. He lets Marie-Laure know that he is a friend...that he has heard her broadcasts...that he listened to the older broadcasts as a child. They have to wait until noon the next day, when the Americans have called a scheduled seize fire so the citizens of Saint-Malo can retreat, before Werner can help Marie-Laure to safety. In the meantime, they eat the last can together...it's peaches! They talk, and Werner looks through a bird book, reminding him of Frederick. He asks if he can take a page. They spend the night in the shelter, and talk about their childhoods, their loved ones. The next day, Werner puts some of Etienne's clothes over his German uniform and makes his way with Marie-Laure. She forces him to take a detour first, though, and she take shim to the grotto. She opens the gate with they key that was given her, and wades into the lapping tides. She sets the little wooden house in the water, and begs Werner to tell her whether it's going out with the water. He tells her it is. She closes the gate back up, and they make their way to where Werner sees a string of citizens leaving town. He tells her she's safer now going on her own rather than with him and he points her in the right direction. She wants him to go with her, but he thinks it won't be safe for her. She thanks him and presses something into his hand...the grotto key. He watches her until she's safely with the others, and then he makes his way back, where he is captured and taken by the Americans to a prison camp that has been set up. Marie-Laure is soon found and embraced by the baker's wife, and then even more happily, Etienne has been released from the prison and is reunited with her. They decide to make their way to Paris to live where Marie-Laure had lived with her father, where they can continue to make inquiries about what has become of him. Sadly, her father's fate is never known to them. I think he might have been the prisoner they were throwing water on. :-( Werner, gets very ill with fever at the prison camp. His only possessions are his knapsack, inside which is the small wooden house that Marie-Laure had put in the tides and the small, treasured notebook that he scribbled all his questions, dreams, and mechanical drawings in as a child. Jutta had sent him his old book on one of the last correspondences he'd had from her. In the delirium of his fever, eighteen year old Werner gets up from his cot in the camp hospital and wanders towards the border of the camp. As an American soldier is yelling for him to stop, Werner steps on a land mine left by his own German army and is blown to pieces. oh my God, this made me so sad. :-( :-(  I wanted Werner and Marie-Laure to be reunited again one day! Such a tragic, tragic loss. 

We flash to thirty years later and Volkheimer lives alone in an apartment. He's a TV antennae repairman. He gets a package in the mail from the veteran's service and an attached letter. It's Werner's old knapsack, inside the notebook and some little wooden house. Volkheimer makes a day long trip to see Werner's sister, Jutta, who now has her own little six year old boy, Max, who appears to be a miniature Werner. He spends some heartwarming time with little Max, and he tells Jutta that all he knows about the little house is that Werner must have gotten it in Saint-Malo, where he thinks Werner may have fallen in love with a girl. Volkheimer then leaves, and Jutta spends some emotional time looking through the notebook, which she remembers dearly from their childhood. Jutta makes the emotional trip to Saint-Malo and ends up talking with the son of the baker's wife, who had known Marie-Laure so well. He tells her that is a replica of her house, the blind girl's house. He tells Jutta what he knows of Marie-Laure's whereabouts, and Jutta heads to the Museum of Natural History in Paris, where Marie-Laure now works. She has a doctorate in the study of mollusks and snails. 

When Jutta and Marie-Laure meet, all the memories of the German boy who saved her life come rushing back to Marie-Laure. Jutta tells her, again, that she and her brother listened to the recordings when they were little, and Jutta gives Marie-Laure the wooden house. Marie-Laure is visibly moved. Did he go back for it? Did he not leave it in the tides? Jutta says it's time for her to go, and leaves Marie-Laure with her thoughts, but not before Marie-Laure gets Jutta's address so she can send her the very old vinyl record, the only one that survived the bombings...one made of the recordings Jutta and Werner listened to as children in the orphanage. When alone, Marie-Laure opens the box, and out falls the key that opened the rusty gate to the grotto. So, Werner went back for the house and left the diamond where Marie-Laure wanted it. Sigh. He just wanted her house. 

Truly, this was a really great book. The World War II books that explore the horrific affects that the war had on innocent children and families always get at my heart. I'm not sure where, but this book is going to definitely go on my favorites list!