March 16 Meeting at Alice's Mom's

    GTG Book club dinner and discussion on "All The Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr.  The meal was a combination of French and Irish cultures – we missed Louisa, Grace, Edna and Dricka—Thank you Roe for bringing shamrock cookies—great to have everyone ride over to my mom’s house in Charles Town for the evening!

    This work of historical fiction was a back and forth timeline of the two main characters: Marie Laure (blind French girl) and Werner Pfennig (German orphan, graduate of a Hitler Youth school, and radio guru).
Kathy commented on trying to understand this forward and back action of the book, that it was confusing.   I found it exciting as it pushed me toward the ending, where Werner and Marie Laure finally meet!  Where Werner saves her life using (his own + Nazi) radio training and pulled by the unique voice of Marie Laure’s uncle --coincidentally that Werner and his sister used to listen to as children in Germany, years before.

     Pat was saddened by Werner and Marie Laure’s not being able to get married; ahh, there was so much potential for a life together!

     The book’s center event was WWII and the August 8, 1944 Allied attack on the northern city of St. Malo, France.  We agreed it was a brilliant story of love, perseverance and incredible moral witness; unspeakable death during WWII in Europe; no one was spared from tragedy, heartache, and crimes/sins of every sort, which was Carol’s thought on why Werner perished.(and the Sea of Flames!!)  People tried to help each other and do good things when possible.

     " All the Light We Cannot See" had been on the bestseller list for 2 years and when Sharon gave me a copy, I finally read it in December.  Lately, I noticed all the references to birds: metaphors for beauty and normalcy among harsh school conditions, a quiet and sensitive friend who loved nature, and finally for the soaring spirits of those who were lost during the war.

       Leaving you with words by the The Professor:  "Open your eyes and see what you can see before they close forever….Consider a single piece of coal glowing in your family’s stove.….So how, children, does the brain, which lives without a spark of light,  Build for us a world full of light?"

Alice